Illustration by Sunflowerman
Bobbie Lyn
Avoca Coffee Worker
It’s a mathematical fact, owing to the naked truth that it’s the least populous area of the country, that fewer people grow up in Wyoming than any other state. And Avoca Coffee Roaster’s Bobbie Lyn is one of those people. Yet, its lack of population density is something that never meshed with Bobbie and her career goals, so she’s oddly thankful that, during her early teens, her wanderlusting mom went on a frenzied moving spree and uprooted the family every two years for a new destination, eventually ending up in Fort Worth.
After all, a place like Wyoming is probably not the best spot to set up shop as a tattoo artist.
“If I stayed in Wyoming, I definitely would not be in this career,” Bobbie says. “So, Fort Worth alone has brought me this lifestyle. Here, there’s just so much room to flourish and so many opportunities. Like Avoca. ‘Cause Avoca has given me the leeway to apprentice and to do the career I’m doing.”
The 25-year-old barista/tattoo artist’s history with tats goes back to the age of 17 when she tried to get her first piece of body art — something that would be illegal in the state of Texas, where you have to be 18 to get inked. The following year, she got a rose on her back, a tattoo she’d wanted since she was 9. As one would hope to see on someone applying permanent ink to your skin, she has plenty of body art to show — she counts a total of 10 tattoos, including her sleeve.
Seemingly always aware of the career she wanted to pursue, Bobbie tried to earn her first apprenticeship as a tattoo artist when she was 18, but her portfolio was so small and her experience so minimal that no one was willing to take her on.
Eventually, she saved $1,000 to get a full sleeve — an intricate, floral piece of art with an elephant as its centerpiece that now wraps under her left armpit. The tattoo artist whom she worked with on the design was impressed enough with her art — and aware of her previous attempt at becoming a tattoo artist — that he offered her an apprenticeship.
“Then, that June, I did my first one, and it was the coolest tattoo. I didn’t know who they were or whatever, but it was a Wu Tang ‘W.’ He was like, ‘I just want this W with a traditional rose in the middle of it.’
“My mentor slowly got me small tattoos. A lot of times, they were his friends who knew I was an apprentice, so that’s always good because that way you don’t have to pretend you know what you’re doing.”
But Bobbie’s journey to having command of a tattoo machine was far from one void of bumps. She describes her childhood as chaotic, which she owes to her mother.
“She was a little bit of a gypsy, a little bit of a hippie, a little crazy. But every day was an adventure.
“She was a bra-burning lady in the early ’70s and ’80s, and she couldn’t smoke weed, so she just coped. Then she sobered up, had her kids, but she was still the wondrous mom who just wanted to go everywhere.”
She, her two sisters and her mom would hop around Colorado and Utah before her mom bought her first house and settled down in Texas.
“[Moving] never bothered me,” she says. “I was growing up still, and I loved it. [My mom] was at times asking if I needed to be settled, and I was like, ‘Nah, let’s keep [moving].’ I was good enough at making friends through school, but I also never got attached, so it was easy for me to be like, ‘Okay, bye, I’m done.’”
The moving got so commonplace that Bobbie’s only now getting used to not living out of her bag. With clothes hung up on racks and toiletries settled in cupboards, Bobbie does plan on keeping the stir-craziness at bay for at least a little bit while she tries to build a network and establish a reputation in Fort Worth.
“When I first moved here, I wasn’t happy. I didn’t like the area, but now that I’ve gotten more in the state, and I’m able to be on my own, I really love the connections and the people that I’ve met. Even if it’s for a day — even if I met them at a bar and restaurant — you can strike up a conversation with almost anyone out here. People are so friendly.”
Moving forward, her goal is to become a full-time tattoo artist and not have two jobs for the first time since she was 19. Fortunately, she has the full support of Avoca, and they’re even assisting her on the endeavor.
“I love that Avoca brings so many different types of artists into one spot,” Bobbie says. “They bring musicians, artists, graphic designers, any type, and there’s one graphic design artist who made my cards for me. And, eventually, when I get more into the realm of Instagram, I want him to be my manager for all social media.”
