After 16 years as a tattoo artist, Sarah Peacock has an extensive portfolio of the art she's immortalized on people's skin. But some of her most meaningful works aren't found among the pages of portraits in her collection. They can be seen only on the chests of breast cancer survivors.
For about three years, Peacock, co-owner of Artfuel Inc. tattoo parlor in Wilmington, has been tattooing nipples for survivors who have undergone breast-reconstruction surgery. Sometimes, her customers have had their nipples reconstructed by a plastic surgeon; other times, she's tattooing directly on the breast itself. In both cases, Peacock uses around nine shades of ink to realistically shade and tint the flesh to perfectly mirror what each woman's nipples looked like prior to her mastectomy.
"I tattoo tonally," said Peacock, who works from the "before" photos taken by her customers' plastic surgeons. "I use as many colors as it takes."Nipple reconstruction is the final step in the breast-rebuilding process, meaning that for Peacock's customers, the trip to the tattoo parlor is the last phase of a long and painful cosmetic process.
But the result, they say, is worth it. "Before I had the nipples done, it was literally two mounds sitting there and it did not look normal. It did not look real," said Susie Cox-Parker, 47, tattooed by Peacock after her double mastectomy in 2008. "I was like, ‘No, I'm too young, I'm not supposed to look like this, and I want to be as real and normal-looking as possible.' "It made a big difference to me."