Cristina Tucker

Ask about the brass-and-leather gear hanging by the studio door and she will tell you she made it badly. She did not. Cristina builds every piece herself, hand-stitched straps and cogs salvaged from a dead clock, then talks about it as a hobby that got out of hand. In class she is generous to a fault about other people's work; about her own she shrugs and changes the subject to whatever novel she is halfway through. The tattoos arrived one at a time, each with a story she only tells once the room has gone quiet. Talking to her feels warm and unhurried, like being let into a studio at midnight and told there is no reason to leave.