Ink to Heal

To the casual observer, a breast cancer survivor strolls down the sidewalk looking like any other woman. She may exude the confidence of someone who has overcome adversity. She may be coifed, but when she undresses at home to step into the shower, she may look very different from the other women on the street.

Double mastectomy patient Rhonda Sowards says she was taken aback when she saw her surgery scars.

“The shock of not having nipples was … weird for me,” she says.

She had temporary, cosmetic tattooing of the nipple at a doctor’s office but wasn’t happy with the results.

“It didn’t look right to me. I felt very uncomfortable looking at them,” recalls Sowards.

Fortunately for Sowards and other women in the same position, a local tattoo artist – who also happens to be university trained as a portrait artist – has been changing that.

SARAH PEACOCK, co-owner of Artfuel Inc., first tattooed nipples on a breast cancer survivor years ago, but it was not until her husband and Artfuel co-owner, David Tollefson, had a near fatal motorcycle crash in 2009 that she became drawn into the cancer community.

Spending months of hospital treatment and rehabilitation therapy with Tollefson, Peacock was introduced to members of the medical community, eventually meeting breast reconstruction surgeons at Wilmington Plastic Surgery.

They began referring patients to her, and other physicians soon followed.

Today, Peacock tattoos nipples on three to four women a week. They’re coming in by word-of-mouth from out of state. A woman from Hawaii recently visiting relatives in the Wilmington area heard about Peacock and had the work done during her visit.

“As soon as you start working with breast cancer, that’s a big community, but it’s a small community,” says Peacock.

“I’m the last step in the process. As long as the scars are healed, I can work on the skin. I’ve met some exceptional ladies, too. To a big extent, it has been very cathartic to me to hear their stories because of what I went through (with her husband’s wreck.) Any time you go through a traumatic change, it changes you. The more you can hear from others – their experiences – the closer you can be to the norm again, so it’s been very beneficial to me.”

The benefit to Sowards is outstanding.

“They look real, and it makes me feel so much better as a woman,” she says.

A native of Yorkshire, England, Peacock came to the States in 1993 and to Wilmington in 2001. Using her fine arts degree from the University of Reading, she painted portraits of tattooed women.

Tattooist Danny McNeil saw the paintings and urged her to consider actually tattooing. She studied and worked under him in Durham for three years.

“You never stop learning. I would say that technically, it takes about four years to learn how to tattoo,” says Peacock.

She says the process of the permanent tattoo is not the same as the cosmetic one used for eyeliner and often for nipples in physicians’ offices.

“My machinery is different from that which would do a cosmetic eye liner. I’m a one-shot deal. It’s a permanent thing,” she says.

Because she is a portrait painter, she uses several colors and hues to create depth.

“I tattoo nipples three dimensionally by using different colors,” she says.

It takes about thirty to forty minutes for the complete procedure and about ten to fourteen days to heal, much the same as other tattoos.

Sowards says the procedure definitely hurt, but she considers “the time of pain well worth the results I got. Sarah is so talented and so awesome to work with. She made them as real as they are going to look.”

While the business has five other tattooists in a large open space, Peacock works in a private room.

“A lot of women have never been in this environment, so I need to relax them and welcome them,” she says.

Some women will also opt to cover surgery scars with additional designs. She explains that she can’t really cover a scar, but she can mask it and create a design that draws the eye away from the scar.

She asks patients to bring in before photos, and she uses those as well as the women’s skin tones to determine what the colors should be.

“I always tell my ladies that to begin with, I’m going to be more conservative as far as tone because I can never lighten a tattoo, but I can always darken it,” she says.

Peacock says she has a $50 equipment fee for the work but tells clients that they do not have to pay if they can’t afford it.

“I’m very grateful that I have the talent to be the last step in these ladies’ process. I’m glad I can use my talents to help them go through their cycle,” she says. “Some become repeat customers, getting other work done. You’d be surprised at the ladies that do.”

To view more of photographer Jeff Janowski’s work, go to www.jeffjanowski.com.