From Heidi de Marco
It was Saturday morning at Southbay Tattoo and Body Piercing in Carson, California, and owner Efrain Espinoza Diaz Jr. was preparing for his first tattoo of the day – a souvenir portrait of a man his widow wanted on her forearm.
Diaz, known as “Rock”, has been a tattoo artist for 26 years but still gets a little nervous doing memorial tattoos, and this one was especially sensitive. Diaz drew a portrait of Philip Martin Martinez, a tattoo artist and friend who was 45 when he died of Covid-19 in August.
“I have to concentrate,” said Diaz, 52. “It’s a picture of my friend, my mentor.”
Martinez, known to his friends and clients as “Sparky,” was a well-known tattoo artist in nearby Wilmington in the South Bay area of Los Angeles. A tattoo had brought Sparky and Anita together; Sparky gave Anita her first tattoo – a portrait of her father – in 2012 and the experience sparked a romance. Over the years of their relationship, he had covered her body with entwined roses and a portrait of her mother.
Now, his widow, she got the same photo engraved on Sparky’s grave inked in her arm. And this would be her first tattoo that Sparky hadn’t put on.
“It feels a bit strange, but Rock has done us really good,” said Anita Martinez. Rock and Sparky “grew up” together. They first met in the 1990s, at a time when there were no Mexican-American-owned tattoo shops in their neighborhood, but Sparky was building up a solid reputation. “It was artists like Phil that inspired many of us to take this step into the professional tattoo industry,” said Rock.
After Sparky fell ill, Anita was not allowed into her husband’s hospital room, an isolating experience shared by hundreds of thousands of Americans who have lost a loved one to Covid. They didn’t let her in until the very end.
The tattooed portrait of Philip Martin Martinez on Anita’s arm. She chose to wear it on her forearm so she could see it every day. (Heidi de Marco / KHN)
“I was cheated on being with him in his last moments,” said Martinez, 43. “When I got there, I felt like he was already gone. We never had to say goodbye. We were never allowed to hug . “
“I don’t even know if I’ll ever heal,” she said as Diaz began sketching the outline of the portrait under her elbow, “but at least I’ll see him every day.”
According to a 2015 Harris poll, nearly 30% of Americans have at least one tattoo, up 10% from 2011. At least 80% of tattoos are commemorative, said Deborah Davidson, a professor of sociology at York University in Toronto researches commemorative tattoos since 2009.
“Memory tattoos help us express our grief, bandage our wounds, and open a dialogue about death,” she said. “They help us to integrate losses into our lives in order to heal ourselves.”
Unfortunately, Covid has created many opportunities for such memorials.
Juan Rodriguez, a tattoo artist named “Monch”, prepares his client’s arm for a memorial tattoo. (HEIDI DE MARCO / KHN)
Juan Rodriguez, a tattoo artist by the name of “Monch,” has twice as many customers as it did before the pandemic and is booked months in advance at his salon in Pacoima, a neighborhood of LA in the San Fernando Valley. Commemorative tattoos, which can include names, portraits, and special artwork, are common in his work, but requests have increased due to the pandemic. “A customer called me on the way to his brother’s funeral,” said Rodriguez.
Rodriguez believes that commemorative tattoos help people come to terms with traumatic experiences. As he runs his needle over his clients’ arms, legs and backs and they tell stories about their loved ones, he feels part artist, part therapist.
Healthy mourners resolve their grief not by breaking away from the deceased, but rather by building a new relationship with them, said Jennifer R. Levin, a Pasadena, Calif. Therapist who specializes in traumatic grief. “Tattoos can be a way to keep that relationship going,” she said.
It’s common for her patients to get memorial tattoos between the ages of 20 and 50, she said. “It is a powerful way of recognizing life, death and legacy.”
Sazalea Martinez, a kinesiology student at Antelope Valley College in Palmdale, California, came to Rodriguez in September to remember her grandparents. Her grandfather died of Covid in February and her grandmother in April. She decided to have Rodriguez tattooed a picture of azaleas with “I love you” written in her grandmother’s handwriting.
The azaleas that are part of her name represent her grandfather, she said. Sazalea decided not to get a portrait of her grandmother as these tattoos did not approve. “The ‘I love you’ is a simple thing and it comforts me,” she said. “It will heal me and I know she would have understood that.”
Sazalea pulled herself together as the needle ran over her forearm and traced her grandmother’s handwriting. “It’s still super fresh,” she said. “You basically raised me. They influenced who I am as a person, so it will be comforting to have them with me. “
This story was produced by KHN, an editor of California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation.
Comments are closed.