Join Us Saturday September 12th from 12-5 pm to help kick off our Umbrella Ink Strikes Back! campaign at our annual Popcorn Fest Party.
Kev’s dad, Roger Cole, will be serving up the Barn of Blues with music & chili — we have kid’s table (complete with baby tatts), prizes, games, and refreshments! We’ve even heard there will be a photo booth on site with prints & downloads starting at just $5 — you never know what to expect.
Inside, our artists will be throwing down for our family friend, artist Katheryn Trenshaw to help meet her treatment goals through her GOFUNDME (Please follow her updates, they are so inspiring!).
We look forward to seeing our amazing shop family to help us kick off UMBRELLA INK STRIKES BACK!
As tattooists we meet a lot of really great people from all walks of life. From nurses to hair dressers, millwrights to roofers, doctors and teachers and all the beautiful community members in between–we can’t help but to ponder the amazing diversity of our tattoo collectors.
Unfortunately tattoos aren’t the only thing our diverse family has in common. Too frequently we make tattoos to hallmark our client’s brush with the destructive force of cancer. We’ve been honored to permanently mark the passing of too many brothers, sisters, lovers, and children. Wherever the person comes from, their economic status or religion, gender or age, we see a familiar pain.
As we memorialize our clients’ lost friends and family, heartache and strength, with tattoos that heal much faster than their grieving hearts, and as we lose our own friends and family or watch them suffer the aftermath– we can’t help but feel so incredibly overpowered and helpless. It’s such a big, nasty, multi-faceted disease, the damage feels overwhelming… what can we do?
There is a blessing in every hardship; sometimes joy is shaped as much by accomplishments as it is trial and adversity, by our losses and our gains. We appreciate each moment so much deeper with an understanding of its fragility. Umbrella Ink chooses to focus our sights on the positive: humility, gratitude, compassion, courage… and unity. Together we can battle and celebrate with our friends and family suffering cancers. Together we have hope, and we get to share it. We can look at the needs of our suffering family as an opportunity to come together and love them through every step, giving them our time and our attention, helping them reach goals that seem impossible. When so much good comes out of such a shit deal, cancer loses. It can attack in its cowardly and insidious ways but we can help people stand up and borrow our courage and faith and together we can strike back at cancer with love.
We can’t cure cancer, we can’t bring anyone back, we can’t stop it from happening to people we love. We certainly CAN’T sit back and watch and hurt without getting really really pissed! Of all the things we CAN’T do, we CAN make a difference, we CAN unite and use our common love of tattoos to help (even if just a little). Together, we can pull together our talents and resources to STRIKE BACK!
UMBRELLA INK STRIKES BACK!
Each month we will feature a client, friend or family member in need of help due to cancer. We hope to draw a custom sheet of flash for each case or charity and will offer them to our clients for $50-$150 each (price depending on size and location but will be a great deal). Of the money paid for a tattoo from the ‘Strike Back sheet, 50% will go directly to the cause, and 50% to the artist. We hope to have some artwork and or other auction-able items as well as a donation jar that 100% will go to the cause that month—UISB is a work in evolution. We will have information on each survivor or charity, and how your dollars will affect them. We expect that every month will be a little different, but the gist of it will be the same—every little bit helps, together as a shop family we can make a BIG difference. It’s a simple yet serious undertaking, and we hope you’ll join us!
We begin by raising funds for a longtime family friend, artist Katheryn Trenshaw, the proceeds will go directly to the GO FUND ME page set up to help her. We will have a sheet of tattoos priced between $50-$150 for people to choose inspired by this powerful woman and her battle royale with cancer. You can support by getting tattooed or drop a couple bucks in a jar which will go entirely to her GOFUNDME. Throughout the month, her flash sheet will be available and we hope to come up with some items to auction/sell online and at the shop.
Next month we will be featuring Rusty’s Hope, his brave Jedi story and the Star Wars inspired anti-cancer flash we’ve got in the works is for is a force to behold.
*Must be 18 to get tattooed without parent’s consent, Must have proper ID proof of age, children re very welcome to come to the party, but will not be allowed in the tattooing area, see store for details, restrictions apply,
