Tattoos remind Louisville woman with visual impairment to live in the moment

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) - In the world of advertising and graphic design, it takes a certain eye to obtain success, but one WAVE Country woman sees the industry a little differently.

Amanda Mattingly is an Advertising and Creative Design Specialist at ARGI.

Sometimes people make the mistake of looking at someone and thinking they have them all figured out, but with each creation, Mattingly is proving people probably shouldn't do that.

"I kind of do a little bit of everything, but I mainly focus on graphic designs," Mattingly said.

Those close to her say her designs are great and her photography is pretty good, too.

“Just her vision of how to create things,” Winnie Green, a coworker and friend of Mattingly, said. “It kind of blows my mind.”

That vision is what Green said is one of her strongest assets -- and that might be because how she sees the world most likely isn’t how others do.

“It was really scary because for a long time I didn’t know what it was,” Mattingly said.

When she was a teenager, Mattingly slowly began losing her central vision. It took more than a decade, but she was finally diagnosed with Stargardt Disease last summer. She calls it an inherited retinal dystrophy, similar to macular degeneration.

“I’ve just learned to find ways to do what I want to do no matter what,” Mattingly said.

She said her prognosis is not terrible. Her visual impairment will most likely stop at the level it is now, and she still has peripheral vision.

“There are definitely times where I think, what if I would eventually not be able to see my grandkids’ faces or something,” Mattingly said.

It’s a thought that she said now also comes to mind looking at the three tattoos she has.

“It says ‘be here now,'” Mattingly said, describing a white ink braille tattoo on her wrist.

She said it’s reminder for all to live in the moment, because you don’t know what the future holds.

“It’s also a reminder that I do still have vision, like I can see things, and kind of like, I’m going to be alright,” Mattingly said.

Spelled out in white ink, people might never know the tattoo was a message of reassurance at first glance.

Mattingly said she’s open to getting more tattoos, if she gets a good reason to.

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