For Stacie-Rae, tattoos are more than a hobby or profession, they are a lifelong passion that has followed her going as far back as 1989, when she received her first tattoo and fell in love with the process. Since her entry into the tattoo artist community, much remains the same. Her passion, skill, and ability to exceed at what many within the industry believed to be impossible. And yet, in 2009, immediately after her mother’s death to cancer, she received a BRCA1+ diagnosis and chose to have a preventative mastectomy upon her doctors prompting when a mass was found. This would forever change the way she viewed her career.
Stacie-Rae still works within the world of body art, but with a new emphasis: medical tattoos. Following her own mastectomy in 2012 she realized something important: the tattoo industry was well-positioned to empower survivors to reclaim their bodies, but needed some work. She started her journey by changing the way nipples are drawn by tattoo professionals. She has since pioneered a new approach to areola tattooing and encourages the entire industry to raise their standards. Today she is an industry leader in the world of tattoo nipple restoration, and speaks on the subject to tattooers and survivors internationally.
In addition to drawing lifelike areolas, Stacie-Rae has also served as a true trailblazer, creating Nipplebacks, 3D temp nips, as well as co-designing an areola ink pallet that is designed to perfectly replicate skin tones. Every ethnicity is represented in Stacie-Rae’s work, and she is even responsible for creating the first-ever breast scar tissue practice skin.
Even after more than a decade of changing the way that nipple restoration is done in the tattoo industry, Stacie-Rae is still pushing the envelope. Her journey continues this fall as she releases a new line of cartridges in collaboration with TATSoul that are specifically designed to aid in the practice of nipple restoration. Optimized to work best on scar tissue, they are well equipped to better serve the community of tattoo artists and survivors that deserve every resource available to them. Thanks to Stacie-Rae, the world is truly a better place for breast cancer survivors.
