April Marching into May

Last Friday, I spotted this tattoo on Seventh Avenue in the 20's:



April was happy to stop and chat about her black and gray tattoo which was a gift from her boyfriend on her 27th birthday.

The piece is fairly straight forward - cherry blossoms bloom in late March/early April. Her birthday is in March and her name is April.

For that alone these traditional tattoo flowers seemed appropriate for her.

The design of the ouroboros, or the dragon forming a circle by consuming itself beginning with the tail, represents the "vicious cycle of life".

This tattoo was inked by Iann at Armageddon Tattoo in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn. Iann's work has appeared here previously on the site.

Thanks to April for sharing her lovely tattoo with us on Tattoosday!

Ben's Amazing Back Piece

With the Tattooed Poets Series under way last month, I was a bit remiss in posting about the "regular" tattoo encounters.

With apologies to the following volunteer, I am presenting some amazing work on a gentleman named Ben, who I spotted back on April 2 while walking through Penn Station.

Ben was wearing a short-sleeve shirt and had tattoos covering his arms. When I approached him and explained Tattoosday, he enthusiastically agreed to participate. In fact, he removed his shirt to reveal an incredible back piece:



The one problem with featuring huge tattoos like this is not getting all the details in. What follows are some of the finer points of the tattoo.

At the bottom of the back is an hourglass design, within which is, Ben said, kanji representing the word "redemption":


The piece represents that he has "only so much time to redeem himself".

The main set of Chinese text in the center of the back was loosely translated by Ben as "I have trust in no man except for the trust I save for myself":


Also of note on the back are the two kanji representing "father" (the right side) and "forgive me" (the left side). These characters are in disks on either side at the top of the back.

The back was done by an artist no longer practicing at Skin Deep Tattoo on Long Island.

Imagine busy Penn Station, a guy standing there talking to a bespectacled blogger, camera in hand, beholding a subject covered in ink. Where to even begin?

It's like taking someone to the world's largest buffet and telling them they can only fill one small plate with food.

The back as a whole was impressive, but Ben was willing to share more, and we settled on this view, with a dragon and a geisha:


Ben credits this part of his body's tapestry to an artist named Loco working out of Dharma Tattoo in Miami Springs, Florida.

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

The Tattooed Poets Project: Raffaella Ciavatta's Trio of Amazing Tattoos

Today's tattoos were submitted by Brazilian-born, New York-based poet Raffaella Ciavatta. She heard about the Tattooed Poet's Project earlier this month from Jackie Sheeler at a local reading. Jackie's tattoos were featured earlier this month here.

Raffaela sent three photos:


Raffaela says that this is "my own design mixing a Chinese dragon, representing strength, and the lizard, for the soul's search of awareness, so that it could protect me and guide me through the eternal pursuit of knowledge."

This piece on the lower left side of her back/hip was her first tattoo, done at Studio Tat 2 in Brazil.

Next is a piece on the right side of her chest, near the collar bone:



The "mater" is the Latin word for mother who, Raffaella proclaims is "done for the most important person to me in this world, my mother, father, best friend!" This piece was inked at Fabio Tattoo, also in Brazil.

And finally, this last tattoo, which you get a small glimpse of in the first picture above, is just breath-taking:

These are her angel wings, "done to achieve my dream of reaching New York." She adds, "I definitely flew from Brazil to NY." They were tattooed over six months. The tattoo was started by Eric Codo ("just the outline...he had to move to Rio de Janeiro) at Steel Star Supply in Sao Paulo and was finished by the "Amazing Fabio Renato".

Head over to BillyBlog to read one of Raffaella's poems.

Thanks to Raffaella for sharing her amazing work with us here at Tattoosday!

Tattoorism: Sean's Leg Piece Represents His Transformation from Child to Adult

This installment of Tattoorism comes from Sean, a reader who offered up his leg piece for our viewing pleasure. The detail above is my favorite aspect of the tattoo, which wraps around Sean's entire left leg.

In Sean's words:

"...Even though this was done in about 4 or 5 sessions, I could not describe this in any other way except as one big tattoo. Each piece works together with each other.

I consider this my growth-themed tattoo. I started the tattoo, at the age of 18, right before I graduated from high school and finished it right before entering my first year of college, a period of immense growth in my opinion. As long as I can remember, I have been drawn to Asian artwork, so at an extremely basic level this tattoo is just extremely aesthetically pleasing to me, but there is also deeper meaning.

From the Japanese folklore I have heard, koi fish are said to grow into dragons.

That was the basic premise of my tattoo, maturing from childhood to adulthood. I decided to have the koi swimming upwards to portray the different struggles experienced in this growth. The dragon has always been such a powerful image to me and a great symbol of courage and strength, two qualities I constantly strive to achieve and portray myself.

There are also two other major images in this tattoo, the pagoda and the lotus flower.

The lotus is another symbol of "growth." I always loved the idea that a lotus begins its life in murky, dark, ugly waters, but eventually grows to become a beautiful flower despite its surroundings. It's a reminder that no matter how hard things get in life, I can make it through those times and blossom as a better person.

Finally, the personal symbolism I hold for the pagoda is a house of knowledge and discipline. I hoped to achieve, and believe I have, a great amount of knowledge and discipline through my years in college and during the growth from childhood to adulthood in general.

The tattoo was done by Mike Schweigert @ Electric Tattoo in Bradley Beach, NJ.

Thanks to Sean for sharing this amazing leg piece with us here on Tattoosday!

Sean recognized that our "posts kind of drop off, completely understandably, during the colder months." Not only did he help us with content on an ink-less day, regular readers will recognize that I generally don't run sleeves, or wrap-around tattoos, on the blog, as their characteristics make them very difficult to adequately display in their full glory. It's tough to capture them fully when on the street. So a double thanks to Sean for not only sending us an elaborate leg piece, but providing a well-written synopsis of the personal meaning behind the elements in the design!

Jessica's Back, Sharing Tattoos 51 and 52

I met Jessica back in June, prior to a Pearl Jam concert, in front of Madison Square Garden. She is an artist in her own right, doing a lot of the work her self, using her own kit and mirrors. Check out the original post here. I followed up with a post of more of her work here. I had a third post planned, as she had sent me some more photos of new work at the end of July.

I recently reconnected with her via e-mail and she responded with follow-up photos of the July pics, plus a whole bunch of others she has worked on since.

I am easily overloaded by too much information so I am going to try and space Jessica's work out over time and give her work the attention it deserves.

I'm going to start looking at the two pieces Jessica sent me back in July:




At the time, she advised me that she had "just finished starting [tattoo] #51 (Beetlejuice holding a jack o' lantern which I've wanted a really long time." She had just had "session one of a dragon started by Joe Matisa from il Bacio Tattoo in Trenton...he'll finish coloring it in after i get back from my vacation...".

So that was then, this is now.....




Jessica expanded a little more:

Beetlejuice is on my right leg. [I] always loved the movie and show. I've said if I ever got married, it would be awesome to wear Lydia's red dress, dress as Lydia and find me a Beetlejuice groom! and to have a big Tim Burton-style costume ball reception. Fall is my favorite time of the year. The leaves. The weather. All the spooky hayrides and haunted houses... Halloween!!!

[As mentioned above,] Joe Matisa of il Bacio Tattoo in Trenton, NJ did my dragon. That's on the left leg. It's a total custom freehand design he came up with. All I came up with was the awesome color scheme. The rest was the amazing Joe's work. I plan to put an Ed Hardy dragon next to it myself, which shall be my most ambitious idea to tackle so far....

Thanks again to Jessica for sharing her awesome work with us here on Tattoosday!