written by Joni Kabana | photography by Young Kwak
In Spokane’s South Perry neighborhood, where tree-lined streets give a sense of continuity and care, one artist’s life story unfolds as a leap of faith. Born in Seoul, Korea, Susan Webber grew up in Spokane after her parents moved there sight unseen, guided only by friends’ recommendations. It turned out to be a gift. Webber loved growing up in Spokane and now loves raising her own children in the same city that shaped her.
Art has always been a constant in Webber’s life. For decades she practiced oil and watercolor painting, sculpture, mosaics, jewelry making, printmaking and mural painting. Professionally, she followed a different path, becoming a lactation consultant, a career she believed would last a lifetime. But creativity never loosened its grip.
Everything shifted at age 40. While learning to tattoo, initially just for fun, Webber fell for the craft immediately and obsessively. Two weeks after first holding a tattoo machine, she was unexpectedly laid off from a job she’d held for thirteen years. At the same time, she was recovering from her first breast cancer diagnosis, marked by multiple surgeries and a year of chemotherapy. Faced with mortality, the message felt unmistakable: Focus on what you love most.
Today, Webber works at The Missing Piece Tattoo, a studio space brimming with art. Tattooing with needles, she said, “offers finer lines than any pen,” and she relishes the profound intimacy of working with the human body as canvas. Her work is built on trust, something Webber holds with deep honor. A second breast cancer diagnosis later forced Webber to take a year and a half away from work, leaving her with neuropathy and arthritis in her hands. But she’s again back in her tattoo studio, grateful, stronger and newly aware of how much joy tattooing brings her.
Webber offers advice for anyone wishing to enter this field of work by relaying a simple formula: “Draw daily, build a style, stay curious, escape boxes. It’s guidance for artists of all kinds, and for life.”
