Few tattoo artists tell their clients they could win a wet T-shirt contest. Then again, few tattoo artists are quite like Vincent “Vinnie” Myers.
In his shop in a modest strip mall in Finksburg, a half-hour drive from Baltimore, Myers specializes in tattooing nipples and areolas onto women who have undergone breast cancer surgery.
Using precisely mixed pigments, he creates a perfect three dimensional illusion of the real thing — and in doing so, enables women who have undergone mastectomies to feel fully like women once again.
Photo: AFP
“It’s far more rewarding than anything else I have ever done,” said Myers, 49, who has dedicated the last decade of his 28 years as a tattoo artist concentrating on post-op cosmetic tattoos.
He has treated about 3,000 breast cancer survivors so far, including many referred to him by surgeons at Baltimore’s prestigious Johns Hopkins medical center and other hospitals around the US.
“When it’s completed and they see the final results, most women feel very emotional because they realize: ‘The thing is over, I’m whole again,’” Myers said.
Myers, a Baltimore native, discovered tattooing when he was a US army medic in South Korea in the 1980s. In 2001, a friend asked him if he might tattoo some of his patients who had undergone breast reconstruction.
Typical of the women who have gone under the needle at Little Vinnies Tattoos is Susan, 58, an elegant retiree with a wish “to look as normal as possible.”
“I’m doing this for me. It makes you feel prettier,” she said as Myers pulled on a pair of blue latex gloves and prepared to get to work.
“Any complications? Any allergies?” the tattooist asked before carefully mixing pigments in tiny pots and joking that Susan “might win” a wet T-shirt contest once the tattoo is done.
“We’re going to go with, not peach, but more like taupe, a little bit more blue,” he said, before smearing a bit of pigment onto Susan’s fair skin to determine if he had mixed the exact color for her complexion.
“The perfect reconstructed breast doesn’t look like a breast without a nipple,” said Myers, whose fee ranges from US$350 to US$1,000 depending on the complexity of the task at hand.
“You get out of the shower in the morning, you look out at yourself in the mirror, and you have no nipples — there’s a huge mental impact,” he said. “It’s critical that the visual appearance is as close to normal as possible.”
Hospitals may also offer post-mastectomy tattoos, but Myers said they are typically carried out by nurses with no more than “a couple of days” training.
On average, it takes Myers two hours to complete his work, during which he will determine the color and size of the areolas of each patient.
“There will be some shade of color on the areola itself and a darker shade on the nipples because that is normally darker,” he said.
“Then you do a kind of gray shadow on the bottom side to highlight the top side so as to give it some depth ... using trompe l’oeil to make it look like it’s three dimensional.”
When he is not in Finksburg, Myers is often on the road, treating women in New York, Philadelphia, Charleston in South Carolina and the Saint Charles surgical hospital in New Orleans.
Myers reckoned that only a handful of his fellow tattoo artists do what he does, and in order to meet a growing demand he has already trained two others in the secrets of his unique craft.
About 200,000 cases of breast cancer are detected in the US every year. Half of them require breast reconstruction, even if surgeons using the latest techniques try to retain as much of the nipple area as possible.
It helps, Myers said, that his tattoo shop is just that — a tattoo shop, not a medical clinic.
Patients feel more relaxed “and you can have a little more fun here than you can at the hospital.”
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese