We recently had the chance to connect with Cei Lambert and have shared our conversation below.
Good morning Cei, it’s such a great way to kick off the day – I think our readers will love hearing your stories, experiences and about how you think about life and work. Let’s jump right in? What are you being called to do now, that you may have been afraid of before?
I recently returned to volunteer work in wildlife rehabilitation, which was something I engaged in faithfully from early elementary school through college. I have a degree in wildlife biology and at the beginning of college my plan was to become a large animal wildlife veterinarian. There are still days I wish I had gone down that path, but I am also grateful for the choices I made that led me to an artistic and public health career. For a long time I was so afraid of not working enough and making enough money that I let my volunteer work go and focused just on “real jobs”– as if work that does not pay in dollars is somehow not “work”. Though I have always been an iconoclast, I still fell for the lie that any important work will be paid in dollars and that everything else is optional, and/or less important. After many years and many jobs I finally feel stable enough in my career and in my business that I have time and flexibility to volunteer and my only regret is that I didn’t return to wildlife rehabilitation volunteering sooner. I love what I do for dollars, and it is a blessing to have a money job that is also personally fulfilling, but I’d spend all my days working with wild animals if I could. Right now I’m volunteering with the educational ambassadors at the Rocky Mountain Raptor Program, and I look forward to my weekly volunteer shift more than anything else in my working week. As I look to the future one of my goals is to make sure I can fund my own volunteer work for the rest of my money-making working life.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
Hello! My name is Cei (pronounced “Kay”; it’s ancient Welsh) and I am the owner and artist of Meadowlark Tattoo, a bespoke tattoo studio in Fort Collins, Colorado. I opened my studio in August 2020 as a custom, appointment-only tattoo shop with a particular focus on social justice, inclusion, and anti-racism. In prior jobs at tattoo shops I had experienced a lot of bigotry and outdated hazing practices, as well as an industry that was hugely out of date in terms of business practices, and I decided the best thing for me would be to open my own studio where I can prioritize the values I want to see throughout society and where I can leverage technology to be completely independent. My style is illustrative black and grey with a focus on nature themes, particularly birds and other animals. I love combining a contemporary illustrative approach to scientific illustration in tattooing. \
Great, so let’s dive into your journey a bit more. Who saw you clearly before you could see yourself?
My grandmother saw a lot of who I was before anyone else. I was a very outdoor kid from a nuclear family that was not particularly interested in hiking, biking, climbing trees, and so on. My parents were very hard working and had long hours in the office my entire childhood. My brother is a great guy but growing up he had horrible allergies and asthma that kept him indoors most of the time. My grandmother noticed that I really wanted to be outside– running barefoot through fields, hiking mountains, jumping into streams, and sleeping under the stars. She took a lot of time to be with me outside, to take me hiking, to teach me about birds, to show me how to prepare for the elements so I could be outside through rain, sun, and snow. She also noticed my love for animals and wrote children’s stories featuring a child like me and the magical adventures that child had with their animal friends. As an adult I am able to articulate what I wanted and needed as a child, but when I was a child it was great to have my grandmother there advocating for me– she helped my parents notice my interests and advocated for me to go to a very outdoor-focused summer camp most of my childhood. She told my parents about Outward Bound and they got me signed up. When I started college she told me about NOLS and I was able to find local groups offering classes and expeditions so that I could continue to increase my knowledge and love of the outdoors.
What fear has held you back the most in your life?
I am profoundly agoraphobic, specifically enochlophobic (I am terrified and extremely upset by crowds or gatherings of people) and anthrophobic (I have a strong aversion to being around other people). I make most introverts look like social butterflies. These fears have been very challenging to manage given that I live in a society, and humans have constructed that society based on the assumption of sociability and interpersonal dependence. The phobias are true phobias– generalized panic, anxiety, and depression generated by people, crowds, noise, etc. but I don’t have any trouble getting along with people one on one and I’ve taught myself to be calm in most situations. These phobias do hold me back from being out in the world, from enjoying a lot of “normal” activities, and from feeling safe. I feel unsafe and panicked much of the time.
I spent a lot of time in school trying to stop being agoraphobic, and it never worked. Toward the end of college and after graduation I stopped fighting the phobias and instead worked on figuring out how to best be in the world given that this is how my brain works. I spend most of my social energy at work, and instead of forcing myself to do things that I don’t like but feel like I should like (going to parties, attending events, etc), I allow myself to be myself. After work I go hiking or biking alone. I spend a lot of time in silence in my garden. I take every opportunity I can to get out into the wilderness and have spent a lot of time and money learning backcountry skills so I can escape crowds.
Though my phobias have held me back in some respects, particularly around how people think I’m “supposed” to behave, I now see them more as strengths where my neurodiversity gives me an interesting perspective that is helpful to the world when I am around other people. I also feel that my relationships are deeper and more meaningful because they take an extra effort from me both to connect with someone else and to balance that person’s needs around socialization with my anti-social tendencies.
So a lot of these questions go deep, but if you are open to it, we’ve got a few more questions that we’d love to get your take on. What’s a belief or project you’re committed to, no matter how long it takes?
In spite of being very anti-social, human rights (and I mean human rights for EVERYONE) are extremely important to me. Right now, today, we as human beings have the ability to feed, house, and educate every single person on earth. The fact that these basic needs are not universally met is a reflection of human greed, myopia, and a failure of leaders and their constituents to sacrifice minor daily comforts so that other people can live in safety and dignity. I will fight for the right of all human beings to live as their authentic selves, and for that life to be worth living, until I die. Right now the world is absolutely backwards, but I have a small hope that in my lifetime people might start to understand that no one person is inherently better than any other person, and that all people should have the ability to thrive in their own way.
Thank you so much for all of your openness so far. Maybe we can close with a future oriented question. Are you doing what you were born to do—or what you were told to do?
I’m doing a little bit of what I was born to do and a little bit of what I was told to do. In both cases the definition is important. I don’t think anyone is “born” for anything specific, but I do think most people have a set of interests and both cultivated and intuitive skills that can be applied to what they do. Most people are told– in some way– what they are “supposed” to do, and this did happen to me. What I was supposed to be was a prodigal child who was at least massively successful if not famous, and I was supposed to go to all the best schools and get all the best grades and then get whatever job was the most prestigious and lucrative from those experiences. What I like to do is draw, be outside, move my body, and be alone. Sadly, what I like to do is not the kind of thing that gets a person into top tier schools or sets a person up to make 30 under 30 lists (ps: those lists are paid for by the companies highlighted– don’t feel bad! It’s a marketing ploy!)
I think that if there is something I was born to do it is caring for animals in a quiet and disciplined environment. I love hard physical work, I love the outdoors, and I love animals. I feel a strong sense of obligation to help animals who have been negatively impacted by human excess and greed. I feel a much deeper sense of rightness when I am able to help an animal than, say, if I’m able to complete a work task as a project manager (though I’m good at that, too). Sadly there is little to no money in helping animals. For every paid rehabilitation role there are dozens of volunteers required to provide care. And even if you’re lucky enough to get one of the paid rehabilitation roles, it is not the income level I was “supposed” to attain.
So.
I work as a tattoo artist, which I do love. I make good money and I have the flexibility I need to volunteer as in wildlife rehabilitation. It has been incredibly freeing to get to a place where I am making enough money that I am secure and then to make a conscious decision to make less money so that I can do the things that matter to me that don’t make dollars– help animals, ride my bike, hike in the mountains.
I was never once close to doing what I was “told” to do, and I’m glad. I choose to have a life that is rich in the things I think actually matter and I wish that more people could have the same– I think we’d all be a lot happier and less cruel toward each other if we were doing things that make us feel good and don’t have a price tag.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.meadowlarktattoo.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/meadowlark.tattoo/?hl=en
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ceialambert/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/meadowlarktattoo
Image Credits
All photographs taken by Cei Lambert 2024-2025
