Reclaiming the Sensual Body After Tattooing Over Mastectomy Scars

"The sacred, spiritual, and mystical elements of your tattoos hold the power of wholeness. Your inked-on images and symbols reveal the many journeys of your soul and chronicle your immortal existence. They are the scars of healing, self-revelation, memories, and stories that reflect all of your lifetimes. The never-ending theme of life, death, and rebirth are reflected in your tattoos from the simplest of symbols to the most elaborate designs." - Lisa Barretta, Conscious Ink: The Hidden Meaning of Tattoos

The hidden gift in diseases like breast cancer is that it can open deeper levels of consciousness in the person who is sick. Spiritual reality becomes more prominent in a person’s consciousness when they face their own death or that of a loved one. Over the course of her 29 year illness, Anita Wintels developed the ability to communicate with angels and the spirits of departed souls.

However, in the case of breast cancer where the outcome is a double mastectomy, another kind of death occurs. The resultant scars can become an emotional dead zone.

Even though her cancer was terminal, Anita wanted me to tattoo angel wings over the scars of her double mastectomy to represent the divine connection that became a huge part of her life.

A tattoo, however, can not only transform a scar into art, the actual experience can create a tremendous positive shift in perception and meaning. In Anita’s words:

“Okay, so breasts, whether women like to admit it or not, are part of our sensual beings. I was someone who didn’t think much of that - I liked my breasts, but they were just a part of me. My husband liked them too, but obviously he loved me a lot more than my breasts, as he’s had no problem with my decision to not have reconstructive surgery. And when I’ve worn prosthesis, he has told me he likes it better when I don’t wear the fake boobs.

You can imagine, though, that as a woman, once they are gone and you have this ‘blank’, everything kind of shifts. All of sudden how I thought about myself sensually and intimately changed. Nobody (including myself) touched me there anymore until you started working on me a couple of weeks ago and the first wave of emotion hit me! Well now that these beautiful designs are here, that has changed. My daughter wants to touch them, I want to touch them, and just on Saturday morning, my husband rolls over and pulls the tank top I’m wearing to the side and starts tracing the design with his finger with the same look on his face as when he would look at my breasts. I can’t even write this without tears streaming down my face. If that’s too much information I apologize, but I kept hearing a voice telling me to tell you and voilà, your email comes in this morning. So there it is. Perhaps that’s part of what needs to be in your book.”

A few months before Anita’s death on March 9, 2011, I asked fashion photographer Ivan Otis https://www.ivanotis.com to take her portrait so that I could incorporate it into a painting that would not only capture the metaphysical energy of her tattoos, but also her sensual beauty, openness and strength.