If you are searching for an unusual way to memorialize loved ones who have passed, you may want to contact a couple of morticians in Ohio.
Father and son duo Michael and Kyle Sherwood have spent years creating a unique process that preserves a person’s skin and the tattoos on it after their death.
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They came up with the idea over drinks with some friends. One friend had just lost his father and mentioned to the pair that he wanted to preserve his father’s tattoo. The Sherwoods chuckled at first, but the friend’s persistence got them thinking. Kyle said:
With the art in tattoos and how much they mean to people, why not keep them after they die. People put ashes in urns on mantles and visit stones with their loved one’s names on them. Why not keep their tattoos as a memorial?1
Eventually, the Sherwoods launched a company called Save My Ink Forever, located in Northfield, Ohio. The business offers people the option to preserve their late loved one’s tattoo as a piece of artwork.
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According to Kyle, the process takes three to four months. The tattoo is surgically cut out of the body at the funeral home within 72 hours of the person passing. And it can be done before or after embalming is completed. He added:
Our process does not interfere with traditional viewing or cremation.1
Once completed, the parchment of tattooed skin is framed as a wall piece for the family to mount on their wall as a memorial of their lost loved one. Kyle said:
There is no maintenance, just treat it as you would fine art.1
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The Sherwoods do have some limitations on their services. They will not preserve facial or genital tattoos, and the only option they offer for the final product is to frame it as a wall piece. Kyle mentioned they have received (and denied) requests for the tattoed flesh to be turned into things like book covers or lampshades. Kyle said:
We are helping families and fulfilling their last wishes, We are not trying to create a freakshow.1
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The Sherwoods’ work has received some reaction from conservative members of the community. Some have likened them to notorious serial killer Ed Gein, who was known for digging up corpses from graveyards and making trophies, including lampshades, out of their skin and bones. Other social media commenters say the practice reminds them of the character “Buffalo Bill” in “Silence of the Lambs.” His character is a serial killer who murders women to preserve their skin thein order to make an article of clothing.
Kyle said the backlash doesn’t bother him, adding:
It’s the family we care about – who am I to say how they should remember their loved one? Most super conservative people disagree with tattoos in general and have no idea what they mean to people.1
