Tattoos tell tale of love

<p>Tattoo artist Matt Howse distinctly remembers reading about the accidental death of Phoebe Washer and thinking, “What a terrible waste.”</p><!-- Nothing to do. The paragraph has already been output --><p>The promising 20-year-old artist fell from the Marin Headlands while hiking with her boyfriend on April 14.</p><p>“It was such a heartbreaker, and it stayed with me for a while. Then, a month later, Phoebe’s father, Dave Washer, walked in our door,” said Howse, who works out of Spider Murphy’s Tattoo in San Rafael.</p><p>Phoebe Washer had grown up in Petaluma among an extended family of artists and had exhibited her work in numerous shows, so perhaps it’s not surprising that 21 people so far have had 28 images of Washer’s artwork tattooed on their bodies to memorialize their friend.</p><p>Howse inked “Phoebe” on her dad’s wrist in elegant script, the elder Washer’s very first tattoo.</p><p>“When your daughter dies, you become very spiritual. I have a relationship with a spirit now and a very powerful one,” said Dave Washer. “There’s a lot of sorrow but love and appreciation, too.”</p><p>Washer’s art is dreamlike with lots of images of homes, boats, sailors and animals. She also had a way with titles and often incorporated poetic lines within her artwork.</p><p>Dave Washer was inspired to compile a sleeveful of his daughter’s poetic text, which is now indelibly rendered on his arm. A third tattoo inspired by his daughter covers a muscular shoulder.</p><p>Washer’s father and mother, Drew Washer-Haye, are divorced but remain part of a loving extended family that includes Washer’s teen brother, Henry. Both parents have remarried — Dave to Pam Wolff and Drew to Jack Haye. It was Jack Haye who quickly and quietly took the first ink needle.</p><p>“I didn’t need to think about it really. . . . I wanted it before Phoebe’s memorial,” said Haye, who has four Phoebe Washer images with one more anticipated.</p><p>Part of the healing process for the people who loved Washer is carrying her art out into the world on their bodies. The images are on arms and chests, wrists and backs, ankles and shoulders.</p><p>Matching skeletal images grace the tops of family friend Erio Brown’s feet. Drew Washer-Haye’s godson Peter Greeley has a tattoo from Washer’s painting “All our Little Secrets” that incorporates a carpenter trying to hold onto two blue jays.</p><p>“It’s definitely a tribute. It reminds me what a gift her life was,” said Greeley. “I take comfort in being one of many who got tattoos.”</p><p>All parents and stepparents now bear Washer’s artwork on their bodies. Stepsister Jordan Wolff already had a tattoo identical to one Washer had; it incorporates the date they met.</p><p>Within the tight-knit circle of family and friends, even tattoo hold-outs are asking questions about the pain involved and not even grimacing at the answers.</p><p>Phoebe Washer’s mother and stepfather are at the center of the energetic art scene in Petaluma, holding regular gallery shows at her business, HeeBe JeeBe’s on Kentucky Street. They support and encourage a wide range of art forms. Their home is often filled with friends and frenetic energy focused on art and civic projects. That hasn’t changed since Washer died, but it has been harder, her mother said.</p><p>“The great thing is, we truly are surrounded by a big loving group of friends,” she said. “When Phoebe died, her friends came to the house right away, and we needed that. They came and stayed and they check back in, and we need that.”</p><p>She was the mom who wouldn’t consider getting a tattoo ever, for any reason. Now she has two of her daughter’s creations looking up at her from her own wrists. One wrist is ringed by a rope of pennants — a common motif of Washer’s. The other hosts a spritely character riding a fuzzy-faced bumblebee. She found that image while gathering up her daughter’s journals. The sketch on a small scrap of paper fluttered out. She just knew it was meant for her.</p><p>“In Phoebe’s work there is so much of this going-away imagery. A lot of leaving home, sailing away,” said Drew Washer-Haye. “At times it all feels so unreal, but I am grateful for so much grace around me.”</p><p>In the days following the accident, Drew Washer-Haye noticed startling words painted on her daughter’s last piece, an unfinished paper lantern.</p><p>Next to a drawing, a slender script spelled out “Begin Again.”</p><p>Caitlin Helms and Melissa Long are Washer’s longtime friends and shared a San Francisco apartment with her when the Petaluma chums left for college and adventures. They chose their tattooed images carefully. Helm’s wrist has a home image while Long chose to cover her midsection with a girl holding a goose with the words, “As we sprout stems and leaves and close our eyes forever . . .” </p><p>“I couldn’t imagine not doing it. It was my favorite painting she ever did,” said Long, who attended junior high and high school with Washer.</p><p>Traditionally, tattoos typically marked passages, triumphs and losses. They have evolved into pictographic messages that convey what matters most to the bearer.</p><p>“For some, a tattoo has become a fashion accessory. Many of our circle, our little clan, had none,” said Jack Haye, who has lent images for many to share with tattoo artists. “For some people, all of a sudden to get them is such an impulse of love, respect and affection.”</p><p>Several local tattoo artists have inked Washer images deep into the skin of friends and family, but none has done as many as Matt Howse. At more than a dozen with more bookings anticipated, he has been overwhelmed by what he has witnessed.</p><p>Those seeking the tattoos usually come to Spider Murphys in twos and threes, he said. They hold each other’s hands and bring music Washer loved to drown out the needle buzz.</p><p>Howse has listened to the stories behind the tattoos. Clients often cry as the name of a lost loved one takes shape. But he’s never had one person inspire so many others to brave the painful process.</p><p>“It’s so dear to them, and they trust me to do it,” Howse said. “It makes me wish I had known Phoebe myself. She meant a lot to a lot of people.”</p>