A well-known Canadian tattoo artists had a strange request for his wife before he passed away.
Before he passed away at 41 on Oct. 28, Chris Wenzel requested that his ink-adorned skin by removed and preserved before he was buried.
Wenzel, the owner of Electric Underground Tattoos, wanted his kids and grandkids to be able to see his life’s work long after he was gone.
"He thought that would be really cool," his wife, Cheryl Wenzel, said Wednesday. "I thought, that’s different but, yeah, that’s cool. I don’t care what it takes. I’m going to get this done for him."
Before he passed, Wenzel discovered a U.S.-based company that preserves tattoos called Save My Ink Forever.
His wife contacted the company, Save My Ink Forever, who had never worked on such a scale before.
Only a small portion of Wenzel’s body wasn’t covered in artwork and he wanted it all preserved.
Save My Ink Forever COO Kyle Sherwood went to Saskatoon himself to perform the surgery, excising about 70% of Wenzel’s skin and preserving it with a special frame.
The job will take about three months and cost around $80,000.
Once complete, Wenzel’s skin art will hang on the wall of his tattoo studio and his wife calls it a fitting tribute to a man with a “great spirit.”
With files from the Canadian Press.
