Kristina: Aon Grá

Over the summer, we were having a yard sale, when Kristina stopped by to peruse the goods. She shared this, one of her four tattoos:

Located on the inside of her right arm, the phrase "aon grá" is Irish for "one love". This decorative tattoo with a powerful message was tattooed by Rob at Brooklyn Ink in Bay Ridge. Work from the shop which, due to its close proximity to "home base" for Tattoosday, has appeared often over the years on the site, and can be seen here.


Thanks to Kristina for sharing her tattoo 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.

Emily Picks Her Poison

It's always interesting when I meet someone with a lot of tattoos, trying to guess, when you ask them to pick just one, which piece they will choose to share. A couple weeks ago, I met Emily, who has two full sleeves, along with her chest and back tattooed. She selected this tattoo on her right forearm for our readers to enjoy:

This is a take on the famous Sailor Jerry design, like the one seen in this post from 2008:

Emily created a male version of the classic "Posion" Sailor Jerry woman. She explained:

"I was a Women's Studies major an an undergrad and when I started getting a lot of tattoos, I thought, 'This'll be funny'. That's what most of my tattoos are."

The tattoo was done by Alex Franklin when he was at Sinister Ink in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Sinister Ink has long since closed (Revolver Tattoo is located in its place) and Alex has been working out of Brooklyn Ink in Bay Ridge for many years now.

Thanks to Emily for sharing this cool tattoo 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.

Darya's Bi-Coastal Peacock and Cherry Blossoms

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!

Tattoo from a Francophile

Earlier this summer, I posted a couple of tattoos from Joe, seen here.

Needless to say, Joe became a fan, and updated me with a new tattoo, below:

Joe explains:

"The picture is fresh from the artist finishing it. It is "C077X" and is a nod to James Franco and General Hospital. He is my fav actor and I have been watching General Hospital for at least 21 years. It is the the tag that "Franco" sprayed on everything when he recently guest starred on GH as an artist/serial killer. His character's name is Franco, reflecting that art imitates life. A motto the actor and character believe, and so do I. That is why I got the tattoo. To prove art imitates life!"

Photo Credit: ABC via http://sn.soapnet.go.com

The tattoo was inked by Rob at Brooklyn Ink. Rob originally appeared here as a contributor here. And is one of several artists that has represented Brooklyn Ink over the years on Tattoosday. This label links all of the work from the shop previously seen on Tattoosday.

Thanks to Joe for sharing his new tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

Sara's Psalm Speaks to the Desires of Her Heart

I met Sara on the 36th Street subway platform in Brooklyn last month during the late afternoon rush hour commute.

What can I say? I'm a sucker for words and this tattoo looked poetic:

Sara filled me in. She has three tattoos and this passage "spoke to her". She wanted something religious for her 30th birthday.

This is an excerpt (verse 4) from Psalm 37 in the Bible.

The verse reads "Delight thyself also in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart" [King James Version]. Sara changed the thee and thine to read me and my, respectively, making the verse more personal.

This was tattooed by Alex Franklin at Brooklyn Ink in Bay Ridge. Work from Brooklyn Ink (and much from Alex) can be seen on this Tattoosday label here.

Thanks to Sara for sharing her source of inspiration with us here on Tattoosday!

Two Segements of Renae's Arm

I spotted a whole lot going on with Renae's left forearm, while browsing at the Chelsea Salvation Army store, so I just had to ask.

Let's deconstruct:

The first part of this tattoo is the dark heart on the inner part of the forearm. Renae attributes this to Rob at the Orlando branch of Hart and Huntington. In over three years of inkspotting, this is the first piece on Tattoosday that has been credited to one of their shops.

Renae, who has "no idea" how many tattoos she has (which is synonymous for "too many to count"), wanted to add to her arm, so she headed to Brooklyn Ink in Bay Ridge.

Alex Franklin was given free reign, according to Renae. Her exact quote was "use your imagination and run," which must be music to many a tattooists ears.

Alex did the flourishes around the original tattoo, along with the phrase "gutta cavat lapidem," a Latin phrase by Ovid which translates to "dripping water hollows out a stone," which is a shortened version of the line "Dripping water hollows out stone, not through force but through persistence." This quote is known to many New Yorkers who have seen it inscribed underground here (with a broader description here).




And he tattooed the piece on the other side of the arm:

Work from Brooklyn Ink (and a lot by Alex) has appeared previously on Tattoosday here.

Thanks to Renae for sharing her tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

Marie's Anchor of Hope

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!

Anthony's Dragon (and more!)

I spotted Anthony on the N train in Brooklyn and was happy to see him also switching for the local R train at 59th Street.

As luck would have it, both of us were headed home to Bay Ridge.

Anthony has a bunch of tattoos, and I snapped this photo of the dragon on his upper right arm:

It was inked by Joe at Brooklyn Ink.

He estimated that the work so far has been completed in about three two-hour sessions.

Work from Joe and other artists at Brooklyn Ink has previously appeared quite frequently on Tattoosday (all posts tagged as such here).

Anthony later emailed me photos of these shots as well:

The praying hands holding the rosary, I recall him telling me, were tattooed at Distinction Ink in Brooklyn. The tattoo reads "Forgive me Father, for I have sinned".

He did not tell me where he had this tribal sun done, but it's definitely an attention-grabbing piece and certainly worth a mention.

Thanks to Anthony for sharing his tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

John's Tattoo Identity (With a Bonus Vendetta)

I met John recently in a local drug store in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn.

I had actually seen John once previously in the store, but had been unable to speak to him at the time, so I was happy when I ran into him again.

His upper right arm is a Star Wars tribute, but I shot the left arm instead. He was laughing because he had just been questioned by several people at a nearby department store and now that he had escaped to a different shop, here I was questioning him about his work.

This is a shot of his left arm:

Like the Star Wars theme on his right arm, the left arm embraces outer space, what John called his "tattoo identity".

He did note that this had been reworked and represented the repairing  of a much smaller piece. He sung high praise to Alex Franklin of Brooklyn Ink, who did the majority of this work and made the piece what it is today. Alex and Brooklyn Ink are no strangers to Tattoosday. This link takes the reader to all posts tagged "Brooklyn Ink".

Before explaining that tattoo to me, however,  he had shown me something that had not been visible in the department store. He pulled up his shirt to reveal this awesome V for Vendetta tattoo in the top center section of his back:

John loved the graphic novel and the movie as well.

The character of V makes a striking tattoo. This was inked by the incomparable Designs by Michael Angelo in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. Work from his shop has appeared previously here on the blog.

Thanks to John for sharing his incredible tattoos with us here on Tattoosday! We hope to bring his Star Wars sleeve to the site some time in the future.

Siobhan's Phantom Tattoo

Although it is April and we are posting the tattoos of thirty poets over the thirty days, it's hard to ignore the good people who make Tattoosday possible, my fellow inked New Yorkers, and visitors from afar.

It's even more difficult to ignore the unseasonably warm weather and the resulting flurry of tattoos that reveal themselves after a cold and inhospitable winter.

So it is with pleasure that I can share some tattooed folk who are not necessarily poets, to go with our inked writers.

Take for instance, Siobhan (pronounced shuh-vawn for those unfamiliar with this Irish name), who walked by me in my neighborhood in Brooklyn, flashing this recognizable tattoo:


Perched above her left ankle, this design is based on the artwork for the widely-popular Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, The Phantom of the Opera.


You would imagine that someone who would go so far as to tattoo their leg with a show's artwork would be a huge fan. You'd be correct.

Siobhan informed me that (as of April 2010), she had seen Phantom over twenty-five times, including productions in Minneapolis, San Francisco, London and, of course, on Broadway.

This is her first tattoo and was inked by Joe Mags at Brooklyn Ink, in Bay Ridge. Work from Joe and the crew at Brooklyn Ink has appeared quite often on Tattoosday, and can be seen collected by clicking here.

Thanks to Siobhan for sharing her inspiring tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

Any Port in a Storm: Chris Wears His Clipper Ship with Pride

I spotted this beauty of a tattoo in Bay Ridge on the calf of Chris:


He explained that it is a cover-up and took Alex Franklin at Brooklyn Ink about four hours to complete. Work from Alex and the other artists from Brooklyn Ink have appeared previously on Tattoosday here.


Chris is originally from Boston and he said the clipper ship tattoo just "seemed like the New England thing to get". He later elaborated, in an e-mail:

"I wanted to get something true to where I've grown up and my heritage. A clipper ship is a very New England type tattoo and I was born and raised in Boston before setting off to NYC. Ships also mean a lot to me as 3 of my relatives left England for NYC on the Titanic and 1 of them perished at sea with the ship. In addition, my grandfather was aboard the Navy's USS Allagash in the Korean War. Any Port in A Storm is an important saying for me, because I am a cop in Brooklyn. Essentially it means, when you're in trouble, any way out is a good way out, whether or not you like the decision.

Thanks to Chris for sharing this wonderful tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

Re-post: Paul's 9/11 Memorial

This post ran last year and it seems appropriate to re-run it again today:



Earlier this month, I mentioned meeting Paul here, on the bike path that runs along the southern tip of Brooklyn.

I saved the other tattoo photo I took of Paul's work for today, the seventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

What I didn't mention in the previous post is that Paul is a federal agent who grew up in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

From his vantage point there, he watched the World Trade Center being built in the late 1960's. He was working in 6 World Trade seven years ago for the U.S. Customs Department when the towers came down, and he spent four months at Ground Zero and the Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island, searching for remains.

The tattoo is a poignant piece, with the sun shining between the towers. Below is Paul's badge from the Department of Homeland Security, which has evolved into U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Particulatly unusual is the depiction of 9/11 in Roman numerals:

IX XI.

I don't believe I had ever seen it represented that way before.

Like the tattoo in the earlier post, this piece was inked by Joe at Brooklyn Ink.

Thanks to Paul for sharing this WTC memorial piece with us here on Tattoosday.

Click here for work from Brooklyn Ink appearing previously on this blog.

Valarie's Sugar Skull

Tattoosday is no stranger to sugar skulls. They are popular tattoos and always welcome additions to the site. It certainly seems, like snowflakes, no two sugar skull tattoos are exactly alike. Clicking here will allow you to see all the sugar skulls in the Tattoosday family.

Well, it certainly has been a while since I posted one here and, running into Valarie on the subway platform at West 4th Street, afforded me the opportunity to capture another for Tattoosday readers to admire:


Valarie is working on a half-sleeve and has both feet inked. She is particularly sentimental about this sugar skull because it was the first tattoo she received.

Like many folks, she loves the color and symbolism of Mexican Catholic art and the way they translate so well into tattoos. This traditional piece is on her inner left forearm and she has a sacred heart on the outer side.

Alex Franklin at Brooklyn Ink is the artist of this lovely tattoo.

Thanks to Valarie for sharing her first tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

Meredith Shares Two Inspirational Pieces for Tat-Twosday

Let's just say the third time's a charm.

It started with me getting off the subway in my neighborhood and noticing the woman walking several paces ahead of me. I saw that she had words inked around her wrists. As I generally shy away from tattoos that circle a limb (they don't translate well on a blog page, in my humble opinion), I made a mental note and we went our separate ways.

A few days later I was walking home, carrying dry cleaning (an activity that has delayed more than one Tattoosday post, for sure), when I ran into her again.

This time, we approached from opposite directions and I was able to introduce myself and maneuver my cleaning in order to give her Tattoosday info.

I was pleased to see, as well, two heretofore unnoticed pieces that she told me about and admired. Both were significantly original and very cool. We tentatively agreed to talk at a later date about featuring her work on the site.

A week later, our paths crossed again, and this time I was ready. So here are two of Meredith's tattoos, just in time for Tat-twosday!

We'll start with the wonderful piece dancing along the inside of her left forearm:


What we have here is the phrase "searching through the static" in an unusual font. With Photoshop, Meredith flipped the text to create a design with the phrase, base to base, almost zig-zagging across her arm.


Meredith is an artist (see her blog here) and she has lived in several places, trying to find her way through life. She did, here in New York City, and the phrase "searching through the static" resonates with her, as she has ventured through the chaos of life experiences to find her true path. She particularly loves this font because it resembles a cityscape, with some of the letters rising like skyscrapers over the street-like valleys between words.

The second tattoo she offered up is this stunning black and gray chest piece:


The center of the design is a broken snow globe, modeled after one that Meredith's grandmother gave her many years ago. Even though it is cracked, she has kept it as a treasure by which to remember her. She did change the snow globe design to contain a tree, not small people, like in the item on which this is based. The tree, she felt, was more appropriate for the tattoo.

The phrase that brackets the snow globe is "Keep going farther Beautiful Seeker." It is a mantra that she has adopted to keep her motivated and focused on a higher goal.

Both of these tattoos were inked by Alex Franklin at Brooklyn Ink. Work from Alex has appeared previously on Tattoosday here here and here. And clicking here will take you to all the posts from Brooklyn Ink that have appeared here on Tattoosday. As I've mentioned before, the proximity of the shop to my residence makes it the most frequently-featured purveyor on the site.

Thanks again to Meredith for sharing her wonderful tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

Xavier's Pocket Watch Flies Through Time

I knew my birthday was going to be a good one when I not only spotted ink first thing in the morning, but I talked tattoo and got a story before 7:00 A.M. on the R train at 95th Street.

Xavier has a dozen or so tattoos which he wears with pride. All are inked by Joe Maggs at Brooklyn Ink. Just by virtue of my close proximity to the shop, Brooklyn Ink's work has appeared on the blog more than any other shop. Click here to see all the posts.

The tattoo that Xavier offered up is on his left hand:


This clock is frozen in time at 3:35, the moment when Xavier was born.

It's worth noting that Joe Maggs' use of negative space on this piece lends to the illusion that the pocket watch is floating over Xavier's skin. It's a nice effect.

Xavier designs streetwear and some of his work can be seen on his MySpace page here.

Thanks to Xavier for sharing his tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

A Viking Design Commemorates Brian's Ancestry

Back on June 29, while pacing the 59th Street platform in Brooklyn, waiting for an R train, I spotted this interesting design on the right calf of Brian:


According to Brian, the piece is based on an ancient Viking symbol representing land. He had this tattooed to commemorate his Swedish ancestry.

The piece was done by Rob (who appeared on Tattoosday here) at Brooklyn Ink.

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

Jerry's Sparrows Represent an Ocean Crossed

I met Jerry just outside of our local grocery store in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.

He was kind enough to let me photograph one of the sparrows flying on each side of his neck:


Jerry estimates that 50% of his body is inked. Today being January 4, a lot of that was covered against the elements, so the sparrow it was.

He has been getting tattoos since he was 17 years old.

He went with the sparrow tattoos to represent the traditional aspect of the art, and the fact that he had crossed an ocean (The Atlantic). This is one of the meanings that sparrows possess when represented in ink.

This piece, and most of his recent tattoos, was created by Alex Franklin at Brooklyn Ink.

Work by Alex and other Brooklyn Ink artists has appeared previously on Tattoosday here.

Jerry also has knuckle tattoos, which I also snapped pictures of his hands for KnuckleTattoos.com, but a shadow (mine) interfered with a clean shot:


The knuckles read "Ride Hard" because Jerry is a biker and he says it's best to "ride hard or not at all". If I get the opportunity to get a better shot of his knuckles, I'll send them over to KnuckleTattoos.com.

Thanks again to Jerry for sharing his tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!