Preserving skin art after death
September 24, 2015 7:56 AM Subscribe
(Pictures of pieces of skin) We preserve books, games, images, videos, memories, so why not tattoos? NAPSA, the National Association for the Preservation of Skin Art, are offering such a service. (website currently down)
Metro: "To be fair, executive director Charles Hamm makes a good point: ‘You would never burn a Picasso or any piece of art you invest in and had a passion for.’ ‘Your tattoo is also art with a unique story, just on a different canvas.’"
Hyperallergic: "The process is open to only members - 18 years old and up - of the nonprofit association, who pay an initial fee in addition to yearly dues. Those ready to pass along their dermis for posterity identify the piece they wish to preserve (which cannot be inked on the face or genitalia) and designate a beneficiary; within 18 hours of one’s passing, the beneficiary then alerts NAPSA who will overnight send a removal kit and paperwork to the funeral home. The embalmer has to then remove the tattoo - or tattoos - within 60 hours, place it in a “nontoxic temporary preservation compound,” and send it back to NAPSA, who will preserve the tattooed skin and return it to the beneficiary within three to six months. According to NAPSA, most funeral homes and embalmers are willing to follow through with the fairly easy removal process, although the organization also has a master embalmer who is building a network of funeral home providers for the service."
Vice: "'How are you going to deal with the discoloration and fading that can occur as tattoos age? Does your process restore them?' 'We didn't expect this to happen, but when you remove layers of skin, the ink pops out more, so it looks better and much brighter. It's a phenomenal byproduct.'"
Chicago Tribune: "Hamm, who formerly worked in accounting, hopes the tattoos that have meaning for him also will carry lasting meaning for his family. A gorilla signifying protection on his chest will go to his wife; a lizard his grandson designed will go to him; his son will get his back."
Metro: "To be fair, executive director Charles Hamm makes a good point: ‘You would never burn a Picasso or any piece of art you invest in and had a passion for.’ ‘Your tattoo is also art with a unique story, just on a different canvas.’"
Hyperallergic: "The process is open to only members - 18 years old and up - of the nonprofit association, who pay an initial fee in addition to yearly dues. Those ready to pass along their dermis for posterity identify the piece they wish to preserve (which cannot be inked on the face or genitalia) and designate a beneficiary; within 18 hours of one’s passing, the beneficiary then alerts NAPSA who will overnight send a removal kit and paperwork to the funeral home. The embalmer has to then remove the tattoo - or tattoos - within 60 hours, place it in a “nontoxic temporary preservation compound,” and send it back to NAPSA, who will preserve the tattooed skin and return it to the beneficiary within three to six months. According to NAPSA, most funeral homes and embalmers are willing to follow through with the fairly easy removal process, although the organization also has a master embalmer who is building a network of funeral home providers for the service."
Vice: "'How are you going to deal with the discoloration and fading that can occur as tattoos age? Does your process restore them?' 'We didn't expect this to happen, but when you remove layers of skin, the ink pops out more, so it looks better and much brighter. It's a phenomenal byproduct.'"
Chicago Tribune: "Hamm, who formerly worked in accounting, hopes the tattoos that have meaning for him also will carry lasting meaning for his family. A gorilla signifying protection on his chest will go to his wife; a lizard his grandson designed will go to him; his son will get his back."
Decor from the Haus of Leatherface.
We don't need artisanal Ed Gein. This is the kind of thing for which photography was invented.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 8:06 AM on September 24, 2015 [10 favorites]
We don't need artisanal Ed Gein. This is the kind of thing for which photography was invented.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 8:06 AM on September 24, 2015 [10 favorites]
Since this seems relevant to this topic...The Mutter Museum has a few tattoos in their collection.
posted by Wolfster at 8:07 AM on September 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Wolfster at 8:07 AM on September 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
My beau (who is quite heavily tattooed) and I have been talking about this all week. I would love to have his chest tattoos if god/dess forbid something happens to him. But I feel like paying dues to an organization that may or may not be around in 10 years is not the way to do this -- why not just pay a one-time fee, based on the size of the tattoo and difficulty of preserving it, when someone dies? Once you get past the first macabre shudder.
I'm hopeful that people across the country will learn this technique so it can be opened up to many, many people. I would so miss not ever being able to see his tattoos again.
posted by fiercecupcake at 8:07 AM on September 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
I'm hopeful that people across the country will learn this technique so it can be opened up to many, many people. I would so miss not ever being able to see his tattoos again.
posted by fiercecupcake at 8:07 AM on September 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
Nah. I'm taking my tattoos with me when I die.
posted by chaoticgood at 8:42 AM on September 24, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by chaoticgood at 8:42 AM on September 24, 2015 [6 favorites]
Once you get past the first macabre shudder.
Can't get past it--trying to figure out how this would be respectfully displayed. But, I also lack tattoos, and have no significant loved ones with them, either, so I can't empathize with the memorial aspect of it, either. Taking a step back, I can see how it would be important.
On the other hand, there are books bound in human skin. It almost seems like a synergy.
posted by MrGuilt at 8:42 AM on September 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
Can't get past it--trying to figure out how this would be respectfully displayed. But, I also lack tattoos, and have no significant loved ones with them, either, so I can't empathize with the memorial aspect of it, either. Taking a step back, I can see how it would be important.
On the other hand, there are books bound in human skin. It almost seems like a synergy.
posted by MrGuilt at 8:42 AM on September 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
Artisanal Ed Gein's first album, Mother's Day, will be released next Tuesday.
posted by mr. digits at 8:43 AM on September 24, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by mr. digits at 8:43 AM on September 24, 2015 [4 favorites]
I am heavily tattooed and NOT A FUCKING CHANCE.
posted by mollymayhem at 8:45 AM on September 24, 2015
posted by mollymayhem at 8:45 AM on September 24, 2015
I'm not tattooed, so maybe I'm missing something, but why is a good high resolution photograph not good enough to preserve the artwork? Why do we need the actual skin? There are more options than just remove the skin or lose all record of the tattoos.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 8:48 AM on September 24, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by Pater Aletheias at 8:48 AM on September 24, 2015 [3 favorites]
I have tattoos. If those close to me like them so much that they want to save them after I die, knock yourself out. I won't be missing them.
posted by Splunge at 8:51 AM on September 24, 2015
posted by Splunge at 8:51 AM on September 24, 2015
Yeah, I probably won't care either way once I'm dead, but one of my favorite things about my tattoos is that they aren't as permanent as some people think and will likely only last until a short time after I die. So I won't sign up for this service, I also won't stop anyone after the fact.
posted by dogwalker at 8:54 AM on September 24, 2015
posted by dogwalker at 8:54 AM on September 24, 2015
Welllll for the same reason you might want something done with your ashes after you die.
(Let it be known that I have told him repeatedly, scatter some of mine at Favorite Place, but do something freaky with the rest of them, like mix them into tattoo ink.)
posted by fiercecupcake at 8:54 AM on September 24, 2015
(Let it be known that I have told him repeatedly, scatter some of mine at Favorite Place, but do something freaky with the rest of them, like mix them into tattoo ink.)
posted by fiercecupcake at 8:54 AM on September 24, 2015
"Where'd you get that new skin for your iPhone?"
posted by Kabanos at 8:58 AM on September 24, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by Kabanos at 8:58 AM on September 24, 2015 [3 favorites]
The Nazis were accused of preserving tatoos, in addition to using tatoos to identify prisoners, and the history of this period of WWII, and earlier collecting of tatoos, given HERE
posted by Postroad at 9:04 AM on September 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Postroad at 9:04 AM on September 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
From a purely legal POV... is this?
Use of human tissue medically is heavily regulated, and I wonder if the laws aren't written so broadly that some body might run afoul of them.
posted by IAmBroom at 9:50 AM on September 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
Use of human tissue medically is heavily regulated, and I wonder if the laws aren't written so broadly that some body might run afoul of them.
posted by IAmBroom at 9:50 AM on September 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
Faint of Butt beat me to it... That Roald Dahl story is extraordinary.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 9:56 AM on September 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 9:56 AM on September 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
Then, in a few decades, they can recover my DNA from the skin, and--voila!--grow another me in a vat. While they are about it, maybe I need to have them freeze my head, too. Gotta cover all the bases. Next time around I'm gonna try to remember to leave tobacco alone. Yeah, I know, the new me won't remember any of this, but maybe I could leave him a note.
posted by mule98J at 10:22 AM on September 24, 2015
posted by mule98J at 10:22 AM on September 24, 2015
They ought to give tattoo artists a percentage for referrals.
posted by box at 10:40 AM on September 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by box at 10:40 AM on September 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
If I go, the map to the treasure is going with me.
posted by Poldo at 10:56 AM on September 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Poldo at 10:56 AM on September 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
Historically, it is not unusual to use human skin as book-binding. It's plentiful and cheap. I don't mean to sound macabre. There is actually a kind of grace to live on as a volume that someone will touch and read.
posted by SPrintF at 11:30 AM on September 24, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by SPrintF at 11:30 AM on September 24, 2015 [4 favorites]
Of course, I'm hoping I'll be used the the Necronomicon, so there's that.
posted by SPrintF at 11:33 AM on September 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by SPrintF at 11:33 AM on September 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
Mine will look great on the wall at the Naive Design Choice Museum.
Nah, I'm keepin' them.
posted by Cookiebastard at 12:01 PM on September 24, 2015
Nah, I'm keepin' them.
posted by Cookiebastard at 12:01 PM on September 24, 2015
There is actually a kind of grace to live on as a volume that someone will touch and read.
So, you just spilled coffee on the skin of a human being who once loved another, who was once a laughing child that ran into the arms of a mother, who was once a kicking murmur in her belly. As the child kicked, she wondered about its life to come, and she hoped and dreamed.
That child deserves more dignity, if only a reverent cremation, than to be a fucking book.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 1:06 PM on September 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
So, you just spilled coffee on the skin of a human being who once loved another, who was once a laughing child that ran into the arms of a mother, who was once a kicking murmur in her belly. As the child kicked, she wondered about its life to come, and she hoped and dreamed.
That child deserves more dignity, if only a reverent cremation, than to be a fucking book.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 1:06 PM on September 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
William Gibson talks about this in The Peripheral. It's a WTF part of a WTF book.
posted by Nevin at 1:12 PM on September 24, 2015
posted by Nevin at 1:12 PM on September 24, 2015
....That child deserves more dignity, if only a reverent cremation, than to be a fucking book.
Maybe if we treated books a bit more carefully and didn't spill shit all over them more people would see the dignity there. But yeah, a cremation can be just as gross and disrespectful, which I guess is why it had to be described as "reverent."
posted by dogwalker at 2:14 PM on September 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
Maybe if we treated books a bit more carefully and didn't spill shit all over them more people would see the dignity there. But yeah, a cremation can be just as gross and disrespectful, which I guess is why it had to be described as "reverent."
posted by dogwalker at 2:14 PM on September 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
This brings all new meaning to "I've got your back"
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 2:36 PM on September 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 2:36 PM on September 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
I once visited a tattoo parlour in New Orleans which had the flayed skin from a former customer's full-back tattoo framed and displayed on the wall. The guy running the place explained the art's former owner had been so proud of the work done that he left his back's skin to the artist who'd inked it in his will. When he died a number of years later, the legacy was honoured, and the parlour got a striking new piece of decor.
posted by Paul Slade at 3:22 PM on September 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Paul Slade at 3:22 PM on September 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
That child deserves more dignity, if only a reverent cremation, than to be a fucking book.
That child deserves more dignity, if only to stay in it's loved ones lives as part of an object, than to be burned and the ashes tossed away.
It's not unusual for humans to keep parts of dead loved ones, hair in lockets, a jar of baby teeth, shit, even the scorched remains. There's no inherent dignity to death, and no right thing to do with a dead body. The only dignity to be found is in the loved ones doing whatever they choose to do to remember a person, be it a book bound in skin, a jar of ashes or a rock and a plot of land.
I actually want to be cremated and I see no logic in your point.
posted by neonrev at 4:17 PM on September 24, 2015 [7 favorites]
That child deserves more dignity, if only to stay in it's loved ones lives as part of an object, than to be burned and the ashes tossed away.
It's not unusual for humans to keep parts of dead loved ones, hair in lockets, a jar of baby teeth, shit, even the scorched remains. There's no inherent dignity to death, and no right thing to do with a dead body. The only dignity to be found is in the loved ones doing whatever they choose to do to remember a person, be it a book bound in skin, a jar of ashes or a rock and a plot of land.
I actually want to be cremated and I see no logic in your point.
posted by neonrev at 4:17 PM on September 24, 2015 [7 favorites]
Artisanal Ed Gein
That is not a shop I would patronize, no matter how hipster it was.
I have seen a few tattoos that were good enough to merit framing and preserving. Most that I see have value to the owner but aren't of a quality to be of interest absent that context.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:45 PM on September 24, 2015
That is not a shop I would patronize, no matter how hipster it was.
I have seen a few tattoos that were good enough to merit framing and preserving. Most that I see have value to the owner but aren't of a quality to be of interest absent that context.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:45 PM on September 24, 2015
Cool Papa Bell: "So, you just spilled coffee on the skin of a human being who once loved another"
Utterly unlike real life, where nobody ever spills a drink on anyone else.
I mean, if your argument is "we shouldn't use people's skin as toilet paper," then, sure. But we're comparing binding a book to burying underground like garbage in a landfill or burning like garbage in an incinerator. Compared to that, possible coffee spills are way less disrespectful.
posted by Bugbread at 8:53 PM on September 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
Utterly unlike real life, where nobody ever spills a drink on anyone else.
I mean, if your argument is "we shouldn't use people's skin as toilet paper," then, sure. But we're comparing binding a book to burying underground like garbage in a landfill or burning like garbage in an incinerator. Compared to that, possible coffee spills are way less disrespectful.
posted by Bugbread at 8:53 PM on September 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
Considering my last wishes involve my ashes being mixed with a ceramic glaze (cone 10 or nuthin' thankyooverymuch) and fired on my utilitarian ceramic pieces, this seems wonderfully fitting. I do have some friends now on living out all remaining time on various sculptures as parts of glazes, so spending a lot of quiet mornings with my friends over coffee, albeit as part of the mug, is pretty much my ideal hopes for eternity.
posted by 1f2frfbf at 9:24 PM on September 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by 1f2frfbf at 9:24 PM on September 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
Nothing like tattoo talk--whether it's wearing in life or preserving after death, apparently--to bring out Metafilter's nonreflexive body police! I don't see anyone saying 'yes! let's no longer honor the wishes of the dead and just skin them all and make trinkets of them!' If people want their skin preserved, why on Earth would that matter to you more than if they wanted to be cremated, buried, etc?
I like the idea, myself, but don't think the model this organization is working with to do it makes much sense. Plus I want as much of my remains as possible to sink slowly into the earth, and so I don't think I want all of my tattooed skin excluded from that process. It's coming with me!
posted by still bill at 4:43 AM on September 25, 2015 [2 favorites]
I like the idea, myself, but don't think the model this organization is working with to do it makes much sense. Plus I want as much of my remains as possible to sink slowly into the earth, and so I don't think I want all of my tattooed skin excluded from that process. It's coming with me!
posted by still bill at 4:43 AM on September 25, 2015 [2 favorites]
Sounds like a great idea, if you're the wife of the Butcher of Buchenwald
posted by Pressed Rat at 2:24 PM on September 25, 2015
posted by Pressed Rat at 2:24 PM on September 25, 2015
Your godwin-fail is both inappropriate, and godwinnish.
posted by IAmBroom at 4:37 PM on September 26, 2015
posted by IAmBroom at 4:37 PM on September 26, 2015
The first thing I thought of was Digger.
(In point of fact, what actually thought of was these two strips: (SPOILERS) 1 2, which are downright heartwarming, but those are from the very end of the story and contain gigantic spoilers, so if you haven't read Digger then I recommend starting at the beginning and enjoying the whole thing end-to-end.)
posted by McCoy Pauley at 4:51 PM on September 27, 2015
(In point of fact, what actually thought of was these two strips: (SPOILERS) 1 2, which are downright heartwarming, but those are from the very end of the story and contain gigantic spoilers, so if you haven't read Digger then I recommend starting at the beginning and enjoying the whole thing end-to-end.)
posted by McCoy Pauley at 4:51 PM on September 27, 2015
« Older "we pick and choose, the creators pick and choose" | Death is the Mother of Beauty Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:03 AM on September 24, 2015 [1 favorite]