Two Peacocks for a Tuesday

Back in June, I met two women on separate days who had peacock tattoos.

First was Charlotte, a filmmaker who I spotted on the uptown 3 train. I snapped these pictures when we got off the subway at 72nd Street:

 

Charlotte credited Daniel Albrigo as the artist, who did this when he worked at Brooklyn Adorned. He now tattoos out of Three Kings in Brooklyn.

She explained that she "wanted something beautiful to offset the Kali tattoo on her right shoulder".

A week later I met Emily near Penn Station, who had this different perspective on the peacock, inked on her calf:

Emily explained:

"My mother used to work at a school in Dallas, Texas, where I'm from, that has peacocks that roam wild on campus ... when I was a child I used to go play with them (or just watch them)."

Emily told me she "drew it and designed it with the help of Dave Wallin." Dave tattooed this when working at Tattoo Culture in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, but he now works out of Eight of Swords Tattoo Studio.

Thanks to both Charlotte and Emily for sharing their very different peacocks here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2011 Tattoosday.

If you are reading this on another web site other than Tattoosday, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://tattoosday.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

Kerry Unveils Some Masterpieces

A couple weeks ago, I felt like I had won the Tattoosday lottery. In my own neighborhood, I ran into Kerry, who had a bit of a tattoo peeking out of her left sleeve. I stopped her and introduced myself, and she shared some simply phenomenal work. We'll get to that left sleeve in a second, but Kerry figured I'd be impressed with this tattoo on her upper right arm:

Well, she was certainly right about that!  This is a piece by Anil Gupta at Inkline Studio in Manhattan. The detail of this work is astonishing.

 

Anil Gupta is considered a master of the biomechanical tattoo. Kerry explained:

"I'd seen Gupta's work and I really wanted something in the biomechanical style ... I just thought of a butterfly, which is usually something very feminine and soft, just made it out of parts and steel ... like a cool mix of the styles ... we just kept building and adding more stuff to the design ... he was great to work with."

To get a full appreciation of the tattoo, check out the work from Gupta's portfolio. Simply stunning!
 

 

That's twenty-five hours of work by a master of the biomechanical.

Remember, it wasn't the Gupta tattoo that caught my attention, but this colorful section of a sleeve, on the lower part of Kerry's left arm:

 

Kerry rolled up her sleeve to reveal the entire arm:

What you see is approximately forty-two hours of work by the talented Kaz at New York Adorned.

Kerry explained the genesis of this sleeve:

"I saw this picture when I was looking up samurai stories, because I'm a martial artist and, initially, we were just going to do it half-sleeve, but then just decided to go whole hog. Kaz is really good, so I just let him go crazy with it."

Kerry's focus in martial arts is grappling and kick-boxing. 

And to think, I would have missed all of this amazing work, had I not been intrigued by the head of this Japanese monster, peeking out from one of her sleeves!

Thanks to Kerry for sharing her simply stunning tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2011 Tattoosday.

If you are reading this on another web site other than Tattoosday, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://tattoosday.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

Nicole Takes Us to Candyland

At the beginning of the month, I had the pleasure of encountering a young lady named Nicole in Herald Square (34th Street and 6th Avenue, for you out-of-towners).

Nicole is heavily inked, estimating that "about 45%" of her body is tattooed.

So with so much work, where to begin? She offered up her lower left leg, which is fully-sleeved.

I always find photographing sleeves challenging, because it is so hard to capture all of the details accurately and perfectly in a photograph. So here's a collage of Nicole's Candyland sleeve:

Why a Candylamd-themed sleeve? Nicole explained,

"Growing up, that was my favorite game in the whole world.

Getting my tattoos never really meant anything, so that was kinda the one, like, childhood thing . . . I feel like if you're a girl, you should have pretty, colorful tattoos ... otherwise, you don't look 'girly' anymore.

So that's why I did that."

Nicole credited Brian Randolph, formerly of New York Adorned, with this work

Nicole informed me that Brian had moved to California, but he comes back and forth every six months.  She did say that, although this work is solely from Brian, she also gets tattooed by Justin Weatherholtz at Kings Avenue Tattoo in Massapequa, New York.

Thanks to Nicole for sharing her incredibly colorful leg sleeve with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2011 Tattoosday.

If you are reading this on another web site other than Tattoosday, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://tattoosday.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

Tova's Mockingbird Takes Wing

Late last month, I met Tova at my local Borders store. She was sporting this incredible tattoo on her upper left arm:

When she told me she had it recently inked at New York Adorned, I guessed correctly that Virginia Elwood had been the artist. Virginia in incredibly talented, and seems to especially excel at bird tattoos (her work has been seen previously on Tattoosday here, here and here).

Tova explained that she loves birds, and that this mockingbird reflects a turn of events that occurred in Southern California. She described to me how, the night before she had to take defend  her Ph.D. exams dissertation, her husband had a guest staying with them, and this individual seemed particular insensitive to the momentous occasion Tova was facing the next day, as he was playing loud music well into the night.

Tova recalled how her anxiety and displeasure over this guest’s inconsiderate activity forced her from her home in search of a little peace and quiet. As she circled her block, she was struck by the large number of mockingbirds that were flying around.

She successfully passed her exams defended her dissertation and associates the mockingbird with this landmark event in her life.

As her Ph.D. Is in English, I asked her if she was familiar with one of my favorite poems, Charles Bukowski’s “The Mockingbird”. She wasn’t, so I suggested she check it out and I thought it appropriate to share here:

the mockingbird

the mockingbird had been following the cat
all summer
mocking mocking mocking
teasing and cocksure;
the cat crawled under rockers on porches
tail flashing
and said something angry to the mockingbird
which I didn't understand.

yesterday the cat walked calmly up the driveway
with the mockingbird alive in its mouth,
wings fanned, beautiful wings fanned and flopping,
feathers parted like a woman's legs,
and the bird was no longer mocking,
it was asking, it was praying
but the cat
striding down through centuries
would not listen.

I saw it crawl under a yellow car
with the bird
to bargain it to another place.

summer was over.

 ~

Thanks to Tova for sharing her stunning tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is Copyright ©2011 by Tattoosday, with the exception of "The Mockingbird," which is Copyright ©1972 by Charles Bukowski.

If you are reading this on another web site other than Tattoosday, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://tattoosday.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

Melanie's Marilyn

A trip to the laundromat on Saturday yielded a meeting with a young lady who had a couple visible tattoos on one of her feet and an ankle. Fortunately, my curiosity got the better of me because, when I asked her about them, she revealed much better work, namely this phenomenal Marilyn Monroe portrait on her inner right forearm:

This stunning work was created by the incomparable Virginia Elwood at New York Adorned. I have been fortunate to encounter Ms. Elwood's work previously here and here.

Melanie is a huge fan of Marilyn Monroe and she is proud to wear this icon on her sleeve. Clicking on the tag for Marilyn Monrow below will reveal other Marilyn tattoos that have appeared previously on Tattoosday.

Thanks to Melanie for sharing this phenomenal portrait with us here on Tattoosday!

Stacy's Amigo Tugs Her Back to Milwaukee

At the end of July, I ran into Stacy waiting for the F train at West 4th Street in Manhattan.

She had a panther peeking out from under her shirt on her back, but we couldn't get the whole tattoo in a shot, so she offered up this piece on her right arm:

Stacy is a poet and the Artistic Director of The Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church in New York City. She has been here five years and originally hails from Milwaukee.

Living next to Lake Michigan has many benefits. Having always lived in a location near a large body of water, I can relate to her admiration for the beauty of a seascape, whether it be an ocean or a great lake.

Stacy told me she enjoyed watching the tugboats in her home town, and that these small vessels are a "connective image" that draws her back to her original home.

This tattoo was designed and inked by Stephanie Tamez at New York Adorned. Work from Stephanie on Tattoosday can be viewed here.

This is also the second tugboat of the summer. The first one is here.

Thanks to Stacy for sharing her tugboat with us here at Tattoosday. Perhaps we'll see her panther when the Tattooed Poets Project returns next April for its third year!

Under One Small Star - Two Tattoos from Anna

I met Anna earlier this month in Penn Station. I felt compelled to stop her when she walked by and I caught a glimpse of this amazing tattoo:

I love seeing ink that is new and original, and I had never seen a line of anything run up the length of a leg like this.

Anna explained that this was a line of poetry that reads "My apologies to time for all the world I overlook each second" that she heard on a trip to Cambodia. Her group leader, Jan, had shared the poem, "Under One Small Star" by Polish Nobel Laureate Wislawa Szymborska, and the verse meant a lot to her during her trip there. This one specific line really resounded with her, so she first "paid a Khmer translation site and then had a friend [she] made in Cambodia, Ponheary, check the translation just to make sure it was correct".

I love the international flavor of this tattoo - a poem originally in Polish, translated to English, then re-translated to Khmer, transcribed in flesh in America!

The line runs from top to bottom and was inked by Jason at Powerhouse Tattoo Company in Montclair, New Jersey.

The poem is reprinted in its entirety at the end of this post.

Since it is Tat-Tuesday, let's look at a second tattoo from Anna, this one on the back side of her right arm:

This is Joan of Arc, "a hero of mine," says Anna, who admires her from the feminist perspective and finds her an "unbelievably inspirational" historical figure.

This piece was tattooed by the wonderful Stephanie Tamez at New York Adorned. Stephanie's work has appeared previously on Tattoosday here.

Thanks again to Anna for sharing these two of her seven tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

Under One Small Star

My apologies to chance for calling it necessity.
My apologies to necessity if I'm mistaken, after all.
Please, don't be angry, happiness, that I take you as my due.
May my dead be patient with the way my memories fade.
My apologies to time for all the world I overlook each second.
My apologies to past loves for thinking that the latest is the first.
Forgive me, distant wars, for bringing flowers home.
Forgive me, open wounds, for pricking my finger.
I apologize for my record of minuets to those who cry from the depths.
I apologize to those who wait in railway stations for being asleep
today at five a.m.
Pardon me, hounded hope, for laughing from time to time.
Pardon me, deserts, that I don't rush to you bearing a spoonful of water.
And you, falcon, unchanging year after year, always in the same cage,
your gaze always fixed on the same point in space,
forgive me, even if it turns out you were stuffed.
My apologies to the felled tree for the table's four legs.
My apologies to great questions for small answers.
Truth, please don't pay me much attention.
Dignity, please be magnanimous.
Bear with me, O mystery of existence, as I pluck the occasional thread
from your train.
Soul, don't take offense that I've only got you now and then.
My apologies to everything that I can't be everywhere at once.
My apologies to everyone that I can't be each woman and each man.
I know I won't be justified as long as I live,
since I myself stand in my own way.
Don't bear me ill will, speech, that I borrow weighty words,
then labor heavily so that they may seem light.

--Wislawa Szymborska

Claire's Hemaris Thysbe Flutters on Her Forearm

Butterfly tattoos can be a dime a dozen (no offense, butterfly fans), but moths, on the other hand often get a bum rap, taking a back seat to their more flamboyant insect cousins. To the chagrin of some inked lepidopterists, you don't see as many moth tattoos. This, however, is a lovely exception, perched on Claire's forearm:

This is Hemaris Thysbe, more commonly known as the Clear Wing Hummingbird Moth, a beautiful insect that gets its name from its large size and rapid wing speed.

Claire, who I met in Borders at 2 Penn Plaza, is originally from Vermont and this moth reminds her of back home. There are certainly no Hummingbird Moths fluttering about New York City!

She found a picture she liked and took it in to Yoni Ziebler at Brooklyn Adorned where he recreated this lovely specimen.

Work from Adorned appears here often and can be seen together under this tag.

Thanks again to Claire for sharing her Hummingbird Moth with us here on Tattoosday!

Brian's Mat-tree-monial Tattoo

Late last month, I met Brian on the 34th Street A platform and he shared this amazing tattoo:

The piece was relatively fresh, having been inked only a couple weeks before.

He explained that this tree represents the Tree of Life. He alluded to the roots that spread out, firmly symbolizing family.

Brian also explained that it was an investigation piece: he added a key, hanging from a branch. This symbolizes his desire to unlock the meaning of life.

What's doubly special about this tattoo is that it is also a marriage tattoo. Brian's wife has a similar tree on her right arm (Brian's is on the left), only with cherry blossoms instead of a key, and a baby in the design as well.

The couple are linked not only by their vows, but by their similar ma-tree-monial tattoos. Sorry, I couldn't help it.

The tattoo is by Kaz at Brooklyn Adorned. Work from Kaz has appeared previously on Tattoosday here. And this tag, links all previous Adorned work on the blog.

Thanks to Brian for sharing this amazing tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

Kristina's Rooster Crows in Honor of Her Son

It was funny, now that you think of it, the way everything came full circle.

I was picking my younger daughter, Shayna, up from camp, when I spotted a woman approaching from the opposite direction.

It was after six, on a weekday, and she had a small boy in tow, wearing a t-shirt indicating that he was in the same camp, albeit a younger group, as my child.

She was displaying an amazing rooster tattoo, covering her upper left arm.

Initially, Kristina seemed hesitant to let me take a photo, but as we talked, she changed her mind, and let me snap away.

This was inked by the incomparable Virginia Elwood, who does incredible work, especially with bird tattoos. Work from Virginia, at New York Adorned, has appeared previously here on Tattoosday.

In all fairness, the right side of the tattoo is compromised in the photo above by the sun (and the bane of a borrowed camera), so the best view is the front part of the rooster:

Kristina explained that she chose the Rooster because that was the year in the Chinese Zodiac in which her son was born. It certainly is a wonderful way to commemorate her child.

Almost as an afterthought, Kristina mentioned that a couple years back, on a subway platform, someone had asked her if he could take a picture of her tattoo, still in progress, for his blog, but she politely declined.

I thought about it for about a second when I smiled and exclaimed "That was me!"

In three years, I've approached a lot of people about their tattoos, and they all blur together.

But I still recall the disappointment I felt at 34th Street, when the woman with the unfinished rooster tattoo from Adorned politely declined my request.

Lucky me, time solved that missed opportunity, and I got to see the finished product, in the bright afternoon soon, years after I had asked.

And it was certainly worth the wait.

Thanks kindly to Kristina for sharing her incredible rooster tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!