If a picture is worth a thousand words then tattoo artist Guy Daniels writes biographies.
"You can find out quite a lot about a person just by giving them a tattoo and talking to them," said Guy Daniels, owner of Expressions Ink in downtown Wausau.
Few connections are as personal and as permanent as the ones written by tattoo artists like Daniels.
"Most of the tattoos I do have I went through a hard period," said Randy Waldherr, whose four-year-old grandson has autism.
Daniels says many of his customers at Expressions Ink expressed their struggles raising children with autism. Saturday Daniels gave a family with an autistic four-year-old a permanent reminder of their battle, and a gift to the entire autistic community: profits from Saturday's sessions will go towards autism treatment.
"There isn't a lot of support groups around and I want to be able to help out any way I can," said Amanda Mrozek, who bought an autism puzzle piece tattoo Saturday. She says it's been a struggle getting her autistic child to be social and share what's on his mind.
But for Daniels and his customers, it is as much about raising money as it is recording another chapter in their illustrated autobiography.
"It's just a very big part of my life, it always will be," said Mrozek. "I want to be reminded of the things we've gone through, the good and the bad."
