Inked in memoriam


By Brooke Bates bbates@dnronline.com



Barbara Helsley used to keep a vase of purple orchids in her house. Now, whenever her 18-year-old daughter Rachel looks over her right shoulder, she'll remember those orchids.

Barbara lost her battle with Lou Gehrig's disease on Dec. 4. Last weekend, Rachel made a trip to Alley Cat Tattoo and Body Piercing Studio to make sure her mother's memory lives on.

The three orchids - one each for herself, her mother and her sister - float above Barbara's name on Rachel's shoulder. Rachel, of Woodstock, says she's already gotten used to the question, "Who's Barbara?" because it gives her a chance to share her mother's story.

Memory tattoos are certainly nothing new. For some, mom's name inside a heart is just another painting on a body-sized canvas. But for more and more people, tattoos serve as a memorial and a meaningful way to cope with loss.

Original memorials
As a tattoo artist at Painted Lady Tattoos, Margaret Lawson-Bushell inks names, dates and crosses all over people's bodies, marking memories of loved ones who've died.

Lawson-Bushell thinks tattoos are a perfect way to pay tribute. "It's a personal reminder and a way to show the world how [you feel]," she says. "Nothing shows love more than a tattoo."

Most of the memory tattoos she inks are religious - even if the client is not. Crosses, angel wings and praying hands are popular requests.

But Lawson-Bushell usually recommends personalizing the art to fit the loved one. "Take something pertinent to someone's personality, like hobbies or imageries specific to that person," she says.

She remembers one client whose father, a miner in West Virginia, passed away. The son's tattoo memorialized his father with an outline of West Virginia framing grain silos and mining tools.

Personalized tattoos give bearers the opportunity to share stories of their loved ones, which Lawson-Bushell illustrates by rolling up her pants leg. She reveals a tattoo she inked herself to remember her mother.

"I didn't want anyone else to do it because it's so personal to me," she said.

On her left shin, a dagger pierces through a heart surrounded by roses, her mother's favorite flower. A banner reads, simply, "mom."

The initials "AMDG" rest underneath it, a reminder of the Latin phrase "Ad maiorem Dei gloriam" (for the greater glory of God) that her mother signed artwork with.

The pierced heart represents how the loss affected Lawson-Bushell's life, she says. "I was incredibly distraught," she says. "[Getting the tattoo] helped me through the healing process. I feel comforted to know that she'll always be with me. It's a way of keeping a little of [her] with [me] at all times."

She also had a set of bagpipes tattooed on her left arm to commemorate her Scottish father. It's filled with the colors of her family plaid.

Helping the healing process
Jen Siegfried, a tattoo artist across town at Alley Cat Tattoo and Body Piercing Studio, thinks tattooing seems more popular now thanks to "Miami Ink" and "Inked" But, as her colleague Chris Porter observes, memory tattoos are certainly nothing new.

Some of the first tattoos ever inked were probably names or initials, Porter says. "Our grandparents used to get tattoos with the names of their wives and children," he said. "It's a traditional American tattoo."

Laura Sobik, Ph.D., a psychologist at JMU Counseling and Student Development Center, doesn't see it as a trend either. When her patients reveal memory tattoos, she sees them as "a sign of some larger collective grieving."

As tattooing in general edges into the forefront, she says, it becomes "a more viable option to grieve in a public way."

Public displays of grief are appropriate responses to public losses, like Sept. 11 or the Iraq war, Sobik says. Lawson-Bushell agrees; most of the tats she's done in the past few years commemorate young soldiers who were killed in Iraq.

Especially in those cases, tattoos help mourners "make collective grief evident and make meaning of it," Sobik says.

The tattoos Sobik sees aren't just signs of grief, but reminders of overcoming that grief. Some of her patients bear tattoos of wings, angels or birds, showing how they've risen from their loss.

Sobik thinks tattoos are, for the most part, a worthy memorial. But she does voice one concern regarding the pain associated with the process.

"It's concerning when it becomes a matter of wanting to feel pain to feel better," she says.

So she urges patients to grieve before they get inked, and not get a tattoo just to get tattooed. "It's a very, very permanent solution to a temporary emotional state," she says. As with any tattoo, you should be sure, she says.

Porter has tattooed clients the same day they lose a loved one. But he agrees - a tattoo should end the healing process, not begin it.

"If you're gonna get a tattoo in remembrance," Porter advises, "it should be after you've dealt with [the loss] and you're clear-headed and rational. Don't do it spur-of-the-moment."

Lawson-Bushell got her tattoos months after her parents died, but she doesn't think everyone needs that much time to mull it over. If people need help coping right away - like families that come in together the day of the funeral - a trip to the tattoo studio could offer it.

Part of the collection
Siegfried has also inked her share of memory tattoos. But real life inside Alley Cat is not like "Miami Ink," she says. "Not everybody has a big background story about why they're getting a tattoo."

Sure, she has tattoos for her parents, who are living, and her grandparents, who have passed. But they're just part of her collection.

"I get tattoos because I like the image," she says. "I don't think of them as memorials. It's something I wanted to do for me."

Similarly, Porter had an eagle head tattooed on his arm several years after his grandfather died. His grandpa bore an eagle tat as well.

"It was so old it was blue-looking," Porter remembers of his grandpa's tattoo. "You could barely make it out."

Porter always wanted an eagle tattoo of his own. So several years after his grandpa died, he went for it. His grandpa's nickname, Goss, is etched underneath the red eagle head.

Showing his tattoo spurs Porter to talk about the weekends he spent with his grandpa as a boy. But, like Siegfried, he says the eagle doesn't stick out from the rest of his body art.

Some, like Siegfried and Porter, were already covered when they received their commemorative tattoos. Others, like Helsley, are first-timers when they get inked in memory.

"A lot of people need a reason to get [their first] tattoo," Lawson-Bushell says. A memory tattoo "can be the catalyst to inspire people."
Helsley waited more than a month before she went to Porter. "It's the only tattoo I'm probably ever going to get," she says. "I don't know why I'd regret it. It's got meaning. It's not just an excuse to get a tattoo."

While getting inked, some clients cry and others laugh and share stories of their loved ones, Lawson-Bushell says. Either way, the emotion often affects the artist as well.

"I almost want to cry while I'm giving the tattoo," she says. "Professionally, I have to distance myself emotionally ... But it tends to touch you [and make you] reflect on your own experience."

The artists agree that memory tattoos, like tattoos in general, aren't for everyone. Or, as Siegfried says, memorials aren't always tattoos and tattoos aren't always memorials.

But if it takes a tattoo to get someone through a hard time, they're happy to help.

"The times have changed. People's ways of expressing grieving have changed," Lawson-Bushell says. "Widows no longer wear black ... If anything, they'll probably get a tattoo."

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