The life of a British artist is hard (8 photos)

“My body is 70% covered in tattoos - I get ignored at work and have security guards following me in the supermarket,” says the 29-year-old actress from Manchester. With such data, she is destined exclusively for the roles of criminals and homeless people, and even those are vanishingly few.





Sarah Hutchinson, 29, an actress from Ancoats, Manchester, says the best she can hope for is to be cast as a criminal or fringe character. Yes, and for this you need to try very hard.

After working in the ITV series The Shack, there were no notable appearances on screen. Since film roles are difficult, Sarah also works as a personal trainer and musician.



Sarah got her first tattoo on her wrist - "4ever in my heart" - at the age of 15. She estimates she has spent around £7,000 on body art since then.





Last summer, there was an incident with a security guard at a supermarket that unsettled a woman.

“I was in Marks & Spencer in the summer, wearing shorts and a top,” she says. I was walking through the store, looking for something for lunch, and realized that the security guard was watching me. I specifically checked - yes, he followed me, no matter where I turned. I told him, "I'll steal something if you keep following me." I'm already used to it - sometimes I don't even notice it. People stare at me almost everywhere I go. I don’t steal - I wave my bag and show that I don’t steal.”



Sarah says her arm tattoos of a moon and star and the words "why" are her biggest regret. An even bigger problem is having your ex's name tattooed on the underside of your ring finger: the tattoo is too painful to remove.

“I have a moon and a star, and next to them is the word “why.” I ask myself why I did this. I’m currently booked to get a blacked out skeleton finger tattoo, so it will be a bone through the finger because that’s the only tattoo that can cover up this old one.”



Sarah estimates that covering up old tattoos and removing some unwanted tattoos could cost her around £1,500.



“Everyone had the impression that I was evil,” says Sarah. “People I met at work told me they didn’t talk to me for a long time because I looked scary.” I'm always portrayed as homeless. I'm seen as a criminal - I get really shitty roles just because of my tattoos. I think they are still associated with bad behavior, stupidity or idiocy. People associate them with crime."

While there are some tattoos she's had to cover up because she regrets them, like a list of five friends' names she got during a night out, she says there are others she's happy with.



Her other tattoos include nautical themed tattoos, including a bottle that reads "Not all who wander perish," and ancient Egyptian murals, which she says she doesn't regret.

“I have a lot of low-quality tattoos. I used cheap craftsmen, so I have a lot of poorly done work, and I’m going to fix them,” Sarah admits.



Based on her own experience, Sarah advises anyone looking to get a tattoo to never go to an artist who charges less than £350 a day for their work.

She also recommends waiting at least three months after choosing a design. And only after making sure that the chosen design still pleases you and the concept has not changed, go to the tattoo parlor and get a tattoo.

So the two main rules are not to save money and not to rush.