A Colorado group is offering some unconventional support to breast cancer survivors: a bit of skin art to help mask their scars.
P.ink is a Boulder-based group that helps connect survivors with tattoo artists. Its first annual P.ink Day was held in 2013, when it funded tattoos for 10 women in one day in New York. In 2014, the event featured volunteer artists in 12 cities in the U.S. and Canada who helped 38 women.
“I think a lot of survivors see this as their opportunity to define what breast cancer looks like on them, and that is the ultimate in personal empowerment we are shooting for here,” Noel Franus, who launched the P.ink effort with the help of his co-workers at the Crispin Porter & Bogusky advertising agency, told the Associated Press.
Mari Jankowski, 44, worked through P.ink to get her purple lily tattoo in December. After the Wisconsin bartender and house cleaner was diagnosed with breast cancer, she had a double mastectomy and a hysterectomy in 2011—an aggressive choice, in part because she had the breast and ovarian cancer gene and a long family history of breast cancer.
Jankowski wanted to cover her chemotherapy port scar on her upper left chest. She was paired with Ashley Neumann, an artist at Rockstar Tattoo & Co. in West Allis.
Jankowski asked Neumann to come up with a design that incorporated the pink breast cancer ribbon with a lily—her mother's and grandmother's favorite flower.
“The design that Ashley did is just fabulous,” Jankowski told the AP, as she prepared to undergo another tattoo session at Neumann's studio.
