Gabby Celebrates the Beautiful Life

I met Gabby in the laundromat down the street.

She had this lovely tattoo at the base of her neck:


This translates, in the Italian, to "the beautiful life".

Simply, Gabby has Italian heritage and she had this done at Psycho Tattoo in Georgia at a particularly "good time in [her] life".

Thanks to Gabby for sharing her three words with us here on Tattoosday!

UPDATE: Right around the time I posted this, I had heard Ina Saltz discuss typographic tattoos (see my recap here). I have since discovered a cool website tool called WhatTheFont which helps identify typefaces based on samples that can be uploaded. Using this new tool, I have identified the font in Gabby's tattoo as Commerical Script Regular. That probably doesn't mean much to a lot of people, but it's pretty neat for those who may be interested.

Only God Can Judge Him

A nice surprise last night when, out of the blue, a previous Tattoosday subject, John, sent me his latest tattoo.

I met John initially at the 3rd Avenue Festival in Bay Ridge, back in the earlier days of the blog, where he displayed a leg piece in progress here.

He later had the piece finished and we featured it, in all its glory, here. In addition, he sent me photos of his other three tattoos here.

But here is something new from John, who I haven't seen in a while. He explained this new tattoo via e-mail:

[It] says "Solo Dio Puo Giudicarmi" ... which means [in Italian] "Only God Can Judge Me"... I got the tattoo for religious reasons and for another one ... nowadays people give a shit too much about what other people think and try to conform to be like everyone else just to blend in. [The tattoo] is a reminder to me and to all that read it, regardless of belief: just be who you are. Because, in the end, it does not matter what anyone else think of you, but you.

Thanks again to John for sending this my way! We always appreciate return visits from previous Tattoosday subjects!

Fabiana Shares Two More Colorful Tattoos

A couple of weeks back, I posted some ink from a guy named Tom (here), which featured the trinacria of the Sicilian flag.

The above example, from our good friend Fabiana (see her last post here - which links to her previous ones, as well), is a more colorful and elaborate take on the design.

Fabiana explains:

"The tat of the Medusa head I got because it's on the Sicilian flag. I was born there and it reminds me of all that I left behind, kinda just reminds me of my fam there and the time I lived there and all the things I went through! I love Sicily! It's such a beautiful place, hope I can return there some day! So now I look at it and it takes me right back to where my life first began."

This piece is on her upper right bicep and, like most of her work, was inked by Lou at Third Eye Tattoo in Brooklyn.

Another relatively new piece on Fabiana is this card on her left forearm:


Again, in her own words:

"The other new one I have is the orange one that kind of looks like a card. I got that because of my ex-girlfriend. I used to say to her 'I love you to the moon and back and all the stars in the universe.' So because of that, I got a moon and seven stars with the color orange because that was her favorite. She meant a lot to me but things just didn't work out. I will love her always!"

Yet again, a hearty thanks to Fabiana for letting me post her ink here, and for sharing the deep personal meanings behind the tattoos.