RI Docs Shorts
Noelle Longhaul-Love & Ink
3/10/2026 | 3m 47sVideo has Closed Captions
Tattoo artist Noelle Longhaul sees the craft of tattooing as a sacred ritual of love.
Noelle Longhaul (she/her) is a RISD grad who returned to Providence to open her tattoo shop, Sacred Hollow. She sees herself not only as an artist but as a guide that helps her clients contact something deep within themselves that is then transposed onto their bodies. In this film Noelle helps a client realize his vision for a major tattoo that will cover half of his body.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
RI Docs Shorts is a local public television program presented by Ocean State Media
RI Docs Shorts
Noelle Longhaul-Love & Ink
3/10/2026 | 3m 47sVideo has Closed Captions
Noelle Longhaul (she/her) is a RISD grad who returned to Providence to open her tattoo shop, Sacred Hollow. She sees herself not only as an artist but as a guide that helps her clients contact something deep within themselves that is then transposed onto their bodies. In this film Noelle helps a client realize his vision for a major tattoo that will cover half of his body.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship(tattoo pen buzzing) (serene music) - Tattooing is something that has existed for thousands of years that's this single kind of continuum of time that connects all people across culture, across history.
The client and I simply get to reap the benefit of the history that we're standing among.
The moment where we are conducting our little window of that, that's our portal to this space where all things connect.
(serene music) My name's Noel'le Longhaul, and I'm a tattoo artist and RISD grad, and I'm the owner of Bright Hollow Tattoo in Federal Hill in Providence.
Kind of point the quartz heater kind of equally between us for this.
Nice.
The imagery that I work in for me is actually pretty incidental.
The thing that really matters to me is the way that somebody feels from the tattoo that they experience.
I'm just gonna take all of my hundred layers from the last one and make them all one layer so we can have that dramatic moment where we're like, this is your body without the tattoo, this is your body with the tattoo.
So, there's my sketch for you.
- Wow.
- That's a nice first response.
- I love this sharp blue piece in the middle.
- Right?
- Holy... - There's a quality that I chase in my work, where the imagery and the composition is something that doesn't feel put on someone, but rather is emergent from them.
- I think you brought something to life that I didn't really have alive in my head quite yet.
Not at all what I had imagined.
- Yeah, me too.
(laughs) (client laughs) - This is some impressive, impressive stuff.
- I think the bond between a client and their tattoo artist has the potential to be unique.
It's a different type of trust and closeness than we access through any other route.
My hope is that, ultimately, they will feel more like themselves after.
I absolutely see my role actually as a guide rather than an artist in the space of tattooing, where I'm there to search for the imagery with somebody and guide them through that process of how to arrive there.
Love is the path that we have to walk for it to be possible at all.
My client needs to have tremendous love for their self, their past selves, and they have to have love for their future self.
Love is the water we have to swim in in order for this to work.
If tattooing is not done with love, then it's not tattooing.
(serene music) (serene music continues)
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RI Docs Shorts is a local public television program presented by Ocean State Media