Tattoos form missing ink between dying art and the art of dyeing

Time lines … Lauren Winzer and her handwritten tattoos. Photo: Tamara Dean

IS HANDWRITING set to ''vanish from our lives altogether?'' Are emails and texts robbing us of ''the most powerful sign of our individuality?'' So asks Philip Hensher, author of the new book The Missing Ink: The Lost Art of Handwriting.

But Lauren Winzer would beg to differ. A tattoo artist with Sydney's Hunter and Fox, she says a growing number of people over the past year have requested their loved ones' handwriting be permanently marked on their bodies.

''It's definitely more popular, it's always something meaningful that they want to get tattooed in handwriting,'' Winzer says. For instance, she has had mothers request their own names, as written by their kindergarten-aged children, be inked on them.

Pure appeal ... handwritten tattoos by children and friends are all the rage.

''And two weeks ago, a guy came in; his friends know him specifically for having really horrible handwriting. He drew the stencil of the phrase, 'I've had a gutful' … in his own handwriting, and I just traced on top of it. It's [the writing] shocking. There's two 'a's in there, and they're completely different from each other. He was like, 'This is kind of what I'm known for; I'm going to kind of embrace it.''

 

The chief executive of Bondi Ink, Wendy Tadrosse, has witnessed the same trend. She says, in the case of children's handwritten tattoos it is the ''purity'' inherent in the frequently wonky scrawls that account for their appeal. ''You just look at it and … 'Yeah, that's just pure. It's just innocence'.''

Tadrosse has also had several sailors recently come in to have love letters written decades ago by their grandmothers, to their grandfathers, tattooed on their ribs.

Personal touch ... a man known among his friends for his terrible handwriting decided to have it tattoed on him.

''They've had their grandparents pass away, and it's love quotes and sonnets and things like that,'' she says. ''I would never think to do something like that. Usually you'd have a symbol of the grandmother, not actually her handwriting.''

According to Winzer, these tattoos do, indeed, fulfil what Hensher says is one of the most meaningful functions of handwriting - to show how ''distinctively human'' we are.

As an example, she gives the two tattoos she has of her best friend JJ's handwriting; the phrases ''Sick as hell'' and ''Pretty wise'' - which are inside jokes - on the front of her ankles.

''Because it's a boy's handwriting, it's just overly shitty looking. I think it's kind of harder for boys to write, so when they actually put the effort to try and write something out, it's kind of cute.''