Ryan Ashley is like a
long cold drink on a hot summer day. Cool, confident and extraordinarily
talented. She made history as the first woman to win Ink Master after
eight seasons of the tattooing reality tv show competition which led to her
participation in the spin-off show Ink Master: Angels – and despite her
prominence in a male dominated industry, she seems to have no arrogance in her.
Ryan is not the kind of woman you would expect to find in
Israel. Her visit becomes even more extraordinary when you know its purpose –
to use her art to help IDF wounded warriors heal.
I am very glad I had the opportunity to watch Ryan at work.
A natural born artist, she began her career as a fashion designer and when she
fell in love with tattooing, flesh became her canvas.
I, who am incapable
of drawing a straight line with a ruler, was flabbergasted when she showed me
the tattoos on her leg and said nonchalantly: “The cat I did myself,
upside-down.” For her, many of her tattoos
are drawings she just felt like doing, as others might doodle on paper in their
free time, Ryan creates permanent art for herself and others.
Israel is becoming more open to tattooing although once it
was an absolute taboo. Tattooing is explicitly forbidden in the Torah (Leviticus
19:28): “do not tattoo yourself”. The verse comes in a section of laws that
explain how Jews are supposed to live. This verse refers to two practices
common to other nations of the time that are both forbidden to Jews as pagan
customs are not to be emulated. Modern day Jewish aversion to tattoos was
strengthened by Nazis forcibly tattooing Jews with numbers during the
Holocaust.
Today it is becoming more and more socially acceptable to
get a tattoo. Sometimes parents and their teenage/twentysomething children get
tattoos together. Sometimes grandparents get tattoos of the names of their
grandchildren.
Healing Ink brings tattoo artists of an international
caliber to Israel, to give tattoos to selected survivors of terrorism and war. The
session that took place in Haifa’s Museum of Modern Art was dedicated to IDF
wounded warriors. At first tattooing and healing might seem like a strange
combination but when it’s understood that extreme trauma changes the body and
the mind, it makes sense to take back a feeling of control by choosing to
tattoo yourself with an empowering symbol or image.
Some of the tattoo recipients choose to cover physical scars
with beautiful imagery, turning the ugliness inflicted on them into something they
can love. Others choose symbols of strength, freedom and being able to leave
the past behind. It is about choice and control over what happens to your own
body.
Ryan, like the other tattoo artists in the group, came to
Israel to use art to heal, to lessen trauma with kindness. There was no
political agenda involved. Most of the artists who came were not Jewish and had
no knowledge of Israel. Their interest was not in politics or an agenda but
simply in humanity.
We Israelis are rarely given this kind of human
consideration.
Haifa’s Museum of Modern Art had arranged a day for this
special tattoo event. The artists, recipients and museum visitors became living
art. Tomer, the man Ryan tattooed was not talkative. He obviously felt a little
uncomfortable at being an “exhibit” but Ryan’s calm confidence created a
peaceful bubble in which he too could relax.
Unlike some of the
other recipients, he was reluctant to speak of the trauma he experienced. He
was willing to say that it was in one of the Gaza wars and that he hoped the
dream catcher Ryan was creating would help. Looking at him no physical injury
was visible. Possibly all that is left is trauma to the soul.
It is not often that one can feel the caliber of a person
just by being in their presence but, despite his few words, the quality of
character was obvious. When the event was over, I asked him how it felt to have
such a special woman come across the ocean, just for him. His eyes sparkled and
a huge smile lit up his face. In a typical Israeli understatement, it was his
expression that gave meaning to the words: “It’s something! Really
something!”
As a people, we more often than not, feel very alone in the
world. For those carrying the weight of trauma, this feeling is even more
extreme. Now, every time Tomer looks at his leg he will see Ryan’s art and know
that someone cared about him enough to fly halfway across the world, to give
him a piece of herself, just to make him feel better.
That is very powerful.
Hate is very strong. It steals our lives, ruins families,
breaks bodies and bends the psyche, damaging the soul but sometimes, art can
overcome.