Up Close With Liv Laeta: A Fort Collins Tattoo Artist With a Unique Approach

You know that rom-com trope where two friends make a pact: If we’re not married by 28, we’ll marry each other? Think My Best Friend’s Wedding, but with tattoos instead of romance. That’s the narrative behind Liv Laeta’s journey into tattooing — a story built on kismet, a lifelong love of art, and a promise she once made to herself.

Not that there’s ever a “normal” path into tattooing, but Liv’s is especially unexpected. She decided to become a tattoo artist in her late 20s — before she’d even gotten her first tattoo. Before that, she earned a degree in painting and printmaking from one of the nation’s top art schools, traveled the world studying traditional techniques, and developed a fascination with the science and technical processes behind art. This all came together to form Liv’s unique balance between left- and right-brained approaches to creation. 

At Solana Tattoo Company in Fort Collins, Liv brings a mix of precision, creativity, and curiosity to every piece she creates, providing a thoughtful and collaborative tattoo experience that blends her technical expertise with an artistic heart.

From Art School to a Fort Collins Tattoo Artist

Liv tattooing at Solana Tattoo Company. Photo by BAM Photography

Liv’s path into tattooing looks less like a straight line and more like a beautifully layered print. A Colorado native, her passion for art sparked in middle school. Through her expeditionary education program, she spent her high school years pursuing independent projects based on her curiosity and interests, building skills far beyond those found in the traditional classroom. Over those years, she immersed herself in a range of artistic experiences that shaped her early portfolio.

One year, she studied encaustic painting and learned how to paint with beeswax. Another year, she traveled to Miami to work with a Mexican painter, learning more classical approaches to painting. In her senior year, she spent four weeks in Paris studying with different artists and at a classical atelier. There, she learned ancient techniques, including making her own gesso boards, painting with egg tempera — a method so precise that bacterial contamination could destroy the work — and gilding with gold leaf. She also shadowed a fellow student artist who ran her own studio, drawing together and receiving personal guidance and pointers.

These experiences helped Liv assemble a remarkably strong portfolio, earning her acceptance to some of the nation’s most prestigious art colleges. She was accepted to Pratt Institute in New York but ultimately chose the internationally respected Savannah College of Art and Design, drawn by generous scholarships. There, she earned a degree in painting and printmaking. She also made a personal pact with herself: If she didn’t find a career she truly loved by age 30, she would explore tattooing.

Liv wearing one of the hats she designed and hand-painted

She launched a career making hand-painted hats, which looked successful from the outside. But as a highly social person, Liv felt empty working alone in her solo studio. She missed the camaraderie of the print lab, but she knew she definitely didn’t want to work in a corporate field. 

“It was tough trying to figure out where I would fit into this creative world,” she says.

As she approached her late 20s, that old pact came into focus. At 28, she got her first tattoo, realizing that becoming a skilled tattoo artist would require an in-depth understanding of the craft. By the age of 29, she was ready to act. 

After reaching out to a few Colorado shops, she stepped into Solana Tattoo Company and knew it was the perfect fit. It wasn’t a stereotypical tattoo shop, just like she wasn’t the stereotypical tattoo artist. Liv was welcomed as an apprentice under owner JD, and she dove in, blending her fine art expertise with the hands-on technical craft of tattooing.

Artistic Style & Approach

A stipple lotus tattoo by Liv

Liv’s tattoos carry the unmistakable influence of her printmaking background. Instead of heavy gradients, she leans on stippling and line work to build depth and texture. 

“A lot of my designs would translate into printmaking: woodcut and etching on copper plates,” she says. 

Her subjects often come from the natural world — plants, animals, textures — or from little objects that she transforms into icons. She believes the little things can hold big personal meaning.

Much of her inspiration comes from other artists and from the time she spent growing up traveling with her mom, seeing art from around the world, from India to France to Argentina. She’s fascinated by the history of art and how styles evolve across movements. But sometimes her inspiration is as simple as seeing something she finds beautiful and wanting to create something equally as beautiful.

While she loves color in her prints and paintings (she once included as many as 15 colors across 11 plates for a print), she mostly tattoos in black and grey without color. Her goal is always to try to create art that will retain its original magic your whole life. 

The balance between left-brained precision (science, structure, process) and right-brained creativity (curiosity, aesthetics, storytelling) gives her tattoos a thoughtful, timeless quality.

What It’s Like to Work with Liv

A beetle tattoo by Liv

For Liv, tattooing is about collaboration. Some clients arrive with nothing but a single word — “beetle” — and total trust. Others come armed with a detailed PDF of references. Either way, she listens, sketches, revises, and makes sure the design feels right before the first needle touches skin.

Liv is warm, approachable, and unpretentious, quick to remind clients that the process is flexible and that she won’t stop refining a design until it feels like theirs. That openness, paired with her technical rigor (she is obsessed with learning everything about tattoo machines!), makes getting tattooed by Liv equal parts exciting, safe, and personal, and is why so many return clients consider her one of the best tattoo artists in Fort Collins.

Liv tattooing a client. Photo by Cinesinner

Life Beyond the Studio

Liv’s creativity doesn’t end when she leaves the shop. She shares her home with three dogs and a green-cheeked conure named Gus (whose favorite catchphrase is “Gus Good Baby”). In the summer, she’s out on her paddleboard; in the evenings, you might find her unwinding with gem painting kits (her guilty pleasure).

And while she’s found plenty of solo outlets, what she loves most about being a Fort Collins tattoo artist is the return to community — the same energy she missed after leaving the print lab. Working in a busy studio with fellow artists, she’s found that spark again: the mix of camaraderie, collaboration, and shared excitement that makes art feel alive.

Full Circle

Remember that pact Liv made with herself? It wasn’t just a deadline; it was a turning point. Choosing tattooing was like stepping into a rom-com finale: the moment when the character finally realizes the love of their life was there all along.

Now, every day at Solana tattoo studio in Fort Collins, Liv pours her background in fine art, her fascination with processes, and her love of collaboration into tattoos that are always thoughtful, personal, and enduring. What started as a bet with herself has become a career — and a community — she can’t imagine living without.

Want to work with Liv? She is by appointment only. Reach her at livlaetatattoo@gmail.com. She does not monitor her Instagram DMs. Learn more about Liv here.