I spotted Christina one Friday afternoon in Penn Station, sporting this awesome cherry blossom tattoo:
She took some photos in to Jason Loui, then at Redemption Tattoo in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He sketched out a design, and the rest is history. Mr. Loui now works out of Good Faith Tattooing, in Brookline, Massachusetts.
Thanks to Christina for sharing her cherry blossom tree with us here on Tattoosday!
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On Friday afternoon, I ran into Chris near the 34th Street subway station near the Manhattan Mall.
He had this wonderful tattoo on his left forearm:
Chris explained that this tree resembles a cherry blossom tree that he played on with his cousin when he was a kid. His cousin has passed, so this is, in essence, a memorial, "without being over the top".
I found it interesting and quite poignant that I spotted this piece on the day of the earthquake in Japan, when the plight of the residents in the northern part of that country was on so many minds. The cherry blossom, as many know, is often associated with the temporary, fleeting nature of life.
I particularly like the shadowy effect in the background of the tattoo:
Chris credited Ryan at ArtCore Tattoos in Naples, Florida with this tattoo.
Thanks to Chris for sharing his tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!
I met Darya coming out of the subway in Bay Ridge and asked if I could take a picture of her tattoo. She kindly allowed me to do so and share it here with everyone on Tattoosday:
Darya explained that she always wanted a peacock tattoo, and she has fourteen tattoos in all (not all peacocks). Joe Maggs at Brooklyn Ink tattooed the peacock.
The cherry blossoms, symbols of regeneration, were added by Illya at Studio City Tattoos in California.
Thanks to Darya for sharing her tattoos from both coasts here on Tattoosday!
This belongs to Rich, a musician and rap artist. He's a big Harry Potter fan, as exemplified by the magic wand. The snake at the base of the wand not only symbolizes infinity, it is a nod to Severus Snape, a character associated with the House of Slytherin, of which the serpent is the mascot.
The concept of the tattoo is exemplified by the music coming out of the wand, illustrating that sounds can be magical and that Rich is under music's spell.
When I met Rich, he was sitting with his girlfriend in Penn Station. She introduced herself as Kytti, and asked if I wanted to see her tattoo.
But of course!
She actually has two tattoos, but lifted up her shirt to show me this beautiful design:
Kytti explained that this represents her and Rich together in Japan. They've been together for over a year and they'd both love to go there together and experience the culture. The tree is filled with cherry blossoms, a flower often associated with Japan.
Chris at Lady Luck also was the artist behind this tattoo.
Thanks to Rich and Kytti for sharing their magical and romantic tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!
I met Rebecca a couple months ago in Penn Station and asked her about her tattoos.
Of the eleven, she shared this one from her leg:
This beautiful, yet battered, butterfly is a memorial to her unborn child. She lost the baby when she was just nineteen. The cherry blossoms are often symbolic of the fleeting nature of life.
The tattoo was completed on October 13, 2007 by Nate Hudson when he was at Virginia Beach Ink. He now tattoos at Folk City Tattoo in Suffolk, Virginia. As today is October 13, I've been hanging on to this post, not only to correspond with the day the tattoo was finished, but also the due date of the baby that was lost.
We here at Tattoosday truly thank Rebecca for sharing, not only this poignant tattoo, but also for allowing us to relate the emotional story behind this butterfly.
I met Sandra at the local laundromat at the end of August and she shared this lovely tattoo on her upper right arm:
There are two elements to this design, the cherry blossoms and the quote. The cherry blossoms were inked after her father was initially diagnosed with cancer. The quote was added when Sandra decided to move to New York from Oregon.
Reading "When your heart is in your dream, no request is too extreme...", this quote is from the film Pinocchio, in the song "When You Wish Upon a Star".
I met Marie outside of Penn Station last month after spotting her sleeve of naval designs. She picked this one on the inside of her upper right arm:
This tattoo reminds her the importance of "loving where you're from" and having "faith in where you live". The anchor and cherry blossoms are a nice blend of traditional tattoo designs from the East and the West.
The design is an allusion to a song called "Anchor and Hope," from the album Wall of People by alternative rock band Monty Are I, out of Cranston, Rhode Island.
Check them out in this video of them doing the song acoustically:
Marie is originally from New York, moved to Virginia, and has relocated back home to New York City.
The tattoo was done by Rob at Brooklyn Ink. Rob was a subject on Tattoosday a couple of years back. See his post here. And this tag will show you the work previously featured on Tattoosday created at Brooklyn Ink.
Thanks to Marie for sharing her cool tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!
Michelle has a lot of ink, twenty-one tattoos, all told, but when I stopped her in Penn Station, she chose to share this one with us:
Boldly planted on her upper right arm, Michelle explained that she paraphrased and pared down a longer quotation to read, more simply, "Live for the moments that take your breath away". I believe she was referring to the saying, "Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away."
The flowers in the photo are cherry blossoms that were done in blue, rather than the traditional pink because, as Michelle tells it, she's "not really a pink kind of girl".
Michelle has a lot of ink, twenty-one tattoos, all told, but when I stopped her in Penn Station, she chose to share this one with us:
Boldly planted on her upper right arm, Michelle explained that she paraphrased and pared down a longer quotation to read, more simply, "Live for the moments that take your breath away". I believe she was referring to the saying, "Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away."
The flowers in the photo are cherry blossoms that were done in blue, rather than the traditional pink because, as Michelle tells it, she's "not really a pink kind of girl".
I couldn't help notice the striking woman standing on the subway platform waiting for the R train. She was tall, had long shapely legs, a close-shaven head, and a small tattoo on the back of her left calf.
The R pulled in and, as luck would have it, we sat down next to one another on the train.
I had to introduce myself.
Turns out, I was sitting with a burlesque performer named with the stage name Legs Malone.
We didn't have a lot of time to talk, as she was exiting the train a stop or two earlier than me, but she obliged me for a photo by taking my camera and shooting the tattoo on the back of her leg:
She told me that this small tattoo (the only one visible on her frame) was inspired by a heart-shaped bruise that she wanted to replicate on her skin, but in a more aesthetically-pleasing way. The flowers around the heart are cherry blossoms.
On this final day of the Tattooed Poets Project 2010, we have a double treat - the tattoos and poetry of both Jeanann Verlee (here) and her friend Eboni Hogan.
What follows is a tat-alogue of Eboni's body art.
She prefaces her work with the following proclamation:
"A Note About The Artist: A majority of the work (the shoulder piece, the peacock and the cherry blossoms) on my body were done by an amazingly talented artist named Craig Spencer out of Whatever Tattoo II on St. Mark's Place who was also my boyfriend of almost four years until fairly recently. Yay! It's a sado-masochistic love story! Some liken this to getting a man's name tattooed across my boobs but I can say he is truly one of the only artists I trust with my flesh."
And now the ink:
"This shoulder piece is a custom design that took the most amount of tweaking before I actually got it inked. There are three quill pens, a skeleton key and a key hole, all tied together with ribbons. I'd had a strange dream one night in which a creepy old woman handed me a set of keys, tied to three feathers and told me that if I could find the door, the key would let me out...
...In my dream, I draped the key over my shoulder for safe keeping (dream logic...) but when I finally reached the promised door, the key and the feathers were adhered to my skin. The image stuck when I woke up and I talked to the artist about designing a similar piece. He suggested that the feathers be quill pens to pay homage to my love of poetry."
Next we have an image linked inexorably to the history of tattoos in the West, with its background in naval history. It was inked by an unidentified artist at Capitol City Tattoo in Madison, Wisconsin:
"I adore old school tattoos of the Sailor Jerry variety. I am also really active in the poetry slam community and every team I have ever been coined "the anchor"- the poet put up towards the end of a slam to (fingers crossed) make a home run. At the 2008 National Poetry Slam in Wisconsin, I decided it would be suitable to get this piece on my ribs."
Next up we have some cherry blossoms on the back of Eboni's right biceps:
"Blossom on the tree you know how I feel. Text by unknown artist, Addiction Ink, St. Mark's Place, cherry blossoms by Craig Spencer. If my life were a television series, Nina Simone's song "Feeling Good" would be the theme song. On my worst days, this is the never-fail anthem. The particular phrase that I decided on just happens to be the line in the song that feels infinitely more magical when sung at the tops of one's lungs. Try it."
And last, but not least, this lovely peacock:
"Peacocks are symbols of renewal and are revered by multiple cultures across the world. Furthermore, let's face it- they got a whole lotta swag. I found a vintage painting of a peacock that I loved though it's not the traditional green and blue image people are used to seeing. I got it on my left hip so that it could also serve as a cover-up for a pretty awful tattoo I got when I was 17 and foolish."
Thanks to Eboni for sending along so many tattoos for us here at Tattoosday. Be sure to head over to BillyBlog to read one of her poems, dedicated to poet Jeanann Verlee, here. Jeannann's tattoo (here) precedes this post, and her poem is dedicated to Eboni.
24 year-old poet, actress and Bronx native, Eboni Hogan, has performed in over 30 U.S. cities and facilitated workshops from refugee camps to prestigious universities. She studied theater at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. She is the winner of the 2010 Women of the World Slam Poetry Slam, the 2008 Urbana Grand Slam Champion and a two time representative of the Nuyorican Slam Team. She is published in the anthologies His Rib and Double Lives and recently released her first collection of poetry entitled Grits through Penmanship Books.
I met Grace earlier this week outside of Penn Station. She has three stars tattooed on the inside of her right wrist and had a cherry blossom (above) inked on the back of her neck.
About a year ago, she expanded it, adding the koi fish below it:
She attributed the work to an artist named Kevin, and he did in it in a small shop in Koreatown in Manhattan.
Grace says that the tattoo is purely decorative, with no underlying meaning, and that she has no plans to add color. She likes the black and gray appearance of the piece.
Thanks to Grace for sharing her tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!
A month ago, I posted a bit of tattoorism; Sean from New Jersey sent me photos of his left leg, an intricate Japanese-style piece, complete with koi, dragons, a lotus, and a pagoda.
Sean has been kind enough to update us here on Tattoosday with two more pieces, the first being this cool gypsy head that is tattooed on the inside of his upper left arm:
As he was in the last post, Sean is not only generous with the pictures of his tattoos, but he also has provided a thoughtful explanation of his work:
"I got the gypsy woman about two weeks after graduating from college. I really enjoy the traditional, old school style of tattoos and feel it’s important that this style does not disappear... from tattoo culture. Further, I always viewed these women as adventurers, constantly looking for a new journey. Especially, the woman who are looking off to the sides, almost as if into the distance, as opposed to those who look straight forward. I always envision them looking off to a new land, a new adventure, etc. This tattoo signifies my “journey” through life, especially significant due to just graduating college. It is a reminder to never stagnate and to constantly be striving for better things. I plan on getting a banner added underneath with the word "hope," for obvious reasons."
Sean also sent images from his right leg sleeve, to match the work on the left:
Again, in his own words:
"I had my right leg sleeve done for most aesthetic reasons. I explained [previously here]...that I love Asian style artwork, and to keep symmetry with my left leg this was done in just that style. Originally, I believed I had chosen the geisha image solely for its beauty.
However, about a week after my tattoo I realized that my family has a framed picture of a geisha hanging outside of my room that I have honestly never paid much attention to, until seeing it that day. So now, every time I see the tattoo it reminds me of my home and family (particularly, my mother for some reason). Your subconscious has a funny way of revealing itself.
Moving on, the phoenix has always been a very powerful image to me.
I love the idea of rebuilding yourself from the ashes of past selves. This was significant to me as I received that tattoo during my final years at college (the first two years I spent commuting to a community college, the last two years I spent living on campus away from home for the first time in my life). I feel that those two years living away from home was a period of immense change, where, metaphorically, past versions of myself “burned up,” with new versions arising from those ashes.
Finally, the bonsai tree kind of goes hand-in-hand with the phoenix imagery.
It was always interesting to me that in order for a bonsai to grow correctly, a have a long life, it needed to have branches/new growths pruned and trimmed, in essence losing a piece of itself. I feel this ideology also applies to human life. In order, for someone to fully mature, I feel one needs to be prepared to lose parts of oneself (whether they be thought processes, habits, etc.) in order to grow into a better-equipped and well-rounded person. The bonsai reminds me to strive for this."
I once again thank Sean for not only sharing his tattoos with us here, but for putting the effort into writing a thoughtful, detailed account of the meaning of the art gracing his skin. As with previous pieces featured, the tattoos in this post were done by Mike Schweigert at Electric Tattoo in Bradley Beach, New Jersey. Truly a talented artist that was able to so distinctly transform Sean's body into a living canvas. We here at Tattoosday offer our sincerest thanks and appreciation!
