Dispatch from the 2011 New York City Tattoo Convention (A Recap)

 

Yesterday I spent a half dozen hours at the Roseland Ballroom, where the New York City Tattoo Convention was holding court. This was my third trip to the show, and each year, I have a different experience, as Tattoosday has evolved as a site (read about 2009 here and 2010 here).

In years past, I have only highlighted one or two pieces, as I go into sensory overload. What, outside of a convention's setting, would normally pique my interest, seems commonplace and ordinary. This year, however, I took many more photos, and actually interviewed four people, so this will be Convention Recap Week.

I do want to say the best part of the show was hanging and chatting with Marisa and Brian from Needles and Sins, as well as with Nathan from Knuckle Tattoos. It's not a portrait of future world domination, yet, but here's the three of us, masterminds of three of the best tattoo sites around, and hands and above, the best three inkbloggers at the show:

Nathan, Marisa and Me (photo by Brian Grosz)

That moment of self-adulation aside, I spent the first few hours talking to vendors about advertising, chatting with colleagues, and saying hello to people I've met in years past, like Greg who was the high point of last year's show for me.

I also like to introduce myself to artists whose work has appeared on the Site before, so I said hi to Adam Rosenthal of Th'Ink Tank in Denver, and Vinny Romanelli at Red Rocket in NYC.

I also took a slew of photos of people I didn't interview, so I will just throw them up here. Unfortunately I can't credit any of the amazing artists responsible. However, if you see your work here, shoot me an email and I can give you your proper due. Many of these shots were taken during the first round of the contest, which centered around black and gray work:

This one was one of my favorites, especially considering the woman's reflection in the blade of the knife:

And this Star Wars leg was totally cool:

Finally, through social media, my friend Ben in Hawai'i requested a shot of "80s West Coast punk rock logos." I thought I had failed in my quest until, as I was leaving, I captured this tiny Black Flag tattoo on a guy named Crash, who works for Tattoo Artist Magazine:

Mini-Black Flag Bars Tattoo by Oliver Peck

and this incredible Misfits piece to boot:

Tattoo by Frank Lee at Tattoo Blues in Ft. Lauderdale

Yes, we know, Misfits are an East Coast band. But it was too nice a tattoo to not photograph. Can you blame me?

Check out the Tattoo Artist Magazine blog here.

Check back throughout the week to see what four tattoos I found most blogworthy for us here on Tattoosday!

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Renee's Feathered Serpent

I was walking down 31st Street in Manhattan when a woman walked by with a hummingbird and flower on her left shoulder. I turned back to talk to her and I was stunned to see a bright colorful tattoo spanning the top of her back> I called after her and had a nice chat.

To my delight, Renee was my familiar with the site, as her artist, Joy Rumore, had just been featured on Tattoosday here. Taking a photo of the tattoo in question was not possible due to the presence of clothing covering sections of it, but I gave Renee my card and asked her to keep in touch. However, after a few messages on Twitter, not only did I have the link to photos of the tattoo from the artist's blog, I also had an open dialogue with Renee, who explained the tattoo for me.

As Joy says on her original post here, "All hail the mighty Kukulcan!":

I asked Renee to elaborate on why she got this incredible tattoo across her back. I'll let her words speak for themselves:

"I got this feathered serpent tattoo when I advanced to candicacy in my doctoral program where I study Aztec art. I think we did it over three or four 90-minute sessions ... The feathered serpent was an old Mesoamerican god, a version of which dates back to the Olmecs (about 400 BCE) and is seen at a number of Mexican sites like Teotihuacan, Chichen Itza, Tula, and the Templo Mayor in Mexico City. The Aztecs called him Quetzalcoatl which translates from Nahuatl (their spoken language) into bird-snake. Joy refers to him on her blog as Kukulcan, which is the version that is seen at Chichen Itza in the Yucatán.

I wanted a tattoo of a feathered serpent because he so relevant to the Aztecs and they took great care in carving beautiful stone images of the animal.  I also knew of Joy's penchant for amazing feather work, and I knew this would be a good match.  I brought Joy a series of images, one from a mural at Teotihuacan, one from a Mixtec manuscript and another of an Aztec stone carving of a feathered serpent.  She used those and her knowledge of imagery from the Yucatan to create a more composite image of the god."

 A huge thanks to Renee and to Joy at Twelve 28 Tattoo for their cooperation in making this post possible!