Joyce’s Tattoo Story (Transcript)
The tattoo needle is Joyce Winstanley’s paint brush. The human body is her canvas. Joyce opened a tattoo shop on the Main Street of Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia just a few months ago.
Three years ago it wasn’t a tattoo gun in her hand, it was a spatula. She worked at North Colchester High School as a cafeteria cook. She likes providing a rebellious treat than cooking a hot lunch.
Joyce Clip:
I like the idea that I am in a small town and that I know so many of the people and I have students now come from school that I know and we have fun.
VO:
Daniel Barrett, enjoyed Joyce’s cooking at school but also had a lot of fun when he was tattooed by her. It is his dream guitar- a Fender Strat.
Daniel Clip:
I thought, hey, I know she can draw. I know all this stuff about her. She’s a great lady and who else could say that their old lunch lady gave them a tattoo, you know. It was pretty cool.
VO:
But Joyce never planned to become a tattoo artist.
Stand Up Bridge:
It felt like normal routine for Joyce. She would get up, have her morning tea, her breakfast, get ready for work and jump into her truck. She would then drive to North Colchester High School and park right behind me. But it was one morning, in early spring of 2007, where she thought that everything would change forever.
Joyce Clip:
I remember most of it. I remember coming to work, pulling into my parking spot and then just being very confused instantly. I didn’t know how to shut the truck off. I didn’t know where I was.
VO:
Joyce had suffered a stroke. Doctors believed stress caused it.
Joyce Clip:
When he realized with the speech loss and the other things that I should go onto Truro and they took me to emerge there and on the way to Truro I lose feeling in my arm, my right arm and hand. It was all numb and tingly and strange. It was a very confusing time.
VO:
Sitting in her bed, Joyce expected the worst.
Joyce Clip:
In the hospital, even after it happened, after a few days, I thought that I was still going to die. It scared me. I was afraid that I would have another one and that would be the big one. So, I would lie in bed and look up at the sky, out the window, thinking of all the things I wanted to do that I don’t generally do and love to do and it just gave me a whole different insight into living, you know.
VO:
Joyce’s husband, Terry, had to travel a half hour to comfort her.
Terry Clip:
Unfortunately, at the time, we were that broke that her sister stayed with her because I had to go to work because I couldn’t afford to miss a day’s work or it would have been another stress on her another stress on me. So, I went but the next day I couldn’t go. I had to take the day off and I went and spent it, spent the evening with her. But I remember that day thinking everything was changing.
VO:
Everything did change. Joyce had a new zest for life after her recovery. She boarded an airplane. And spent 7 months in St. Catherine’s Ontario to learn the art of tattooing from her son, Justin. This was the longest Terry and Joyce had ever spent away from each other during their 34 years of marriage.
Terry Clip:
I used to, well there goes my image for sure but I’d used to just cuddle her pillow, hug it and we talked everyday for 7 months and we never missed a day.
VO:
Joyce finds it difficult to work long hours and her concentration is poor. She takes two types of medication. But she believes it was her dream of tattooing that helped her get better faster. Her story has left its mark on the people in her community.
Joyce Clip:
I try to hang on to it but I lose it sometimes because you get caught up in daily living. What’s important. And today’s all you have really.