I often wonder how may Tattoosday encounters would have been lost had my apartment come with its own laundry facilities. I raise this point because, yet again, I met someone cool with tattoos at my local laundromat and he was generous enough to share his ink with us here on Tattoosday.
In fact, Ryan, who is this particular contributor, and I share a common bond, which is that we have both been tattooed by the same artist, Peter Caruso a.k.a. "Brooklyn P," who originally shared his work with us here on the site way back in 2008 here.
Ryan currently has a back piece in progress, but he shared two tattoos from his legs. First, on his right leg, is this work:
This pin-up girl is classic old school Brooklyn ink, based on flash by the legendary artist Tony Polito. Brooklyn P is an admirer of Polito, and even shared a piece that Tony did on him here.
Ryan also has this tattoo of butterflies on his left leg, which is based on a original design by Brooklyn P:
Ryan estimates he has about fifteen tattoos in all.
Thanks to Ryan for sharing his tattoos with us here on Tattoosday! And thanks again to Brooklyn P, who continues to work hard at keeping that old school style of Brooklyn tattooing alive!
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.
I met Devin walking down Third Avenue in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, back in September.
He had a lot of ink, so I just grabbed a shot of his left leg:
He broke these three pieces down for me, explaining that the butterfly on the top is an old Sailor Jerry flash piece that was his friend Shawn first tattoo as an apprentice at Ron & Dave's Tattooing on Staten Island.
His friend Shawn's second tattoo as an apprentice was the skull at the bottom:
In the middle of these two pieces is a piece of art that Devin attributed to artwork from the first album by a Staten Island band called The Cable Car Theory:
Thanks to Devin for sharing these three tattoos with us here on 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.
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!
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.
Last month, I ran into Natalie on Seventh Avenue and 24th Street. She had several tattoos, but shared this geisha, with butterfly wings, floating on the top of her back:
She got this about six years ago in the city of Leeds from an artist named Diego.
When I asked why she got this particular tattoo, she replied, "I kind of just wanted something that was quite girly, yet strong at the same time."
Natalie is a professional photographer whose work can be seen on her website here.
Thanks to Natalie for sharing this cool tattoo with us here on 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.
I met Sabrina on Penn Plaza back in June after stopping to admire her tattoos. She has three and talked me through them chronologically.
She explained , "I like to get [a tattoo] for every place I lived," and her first one was this butterfly armband:
Sabrina is from upstate New York. She went to one of the shops in Utica and spoke to the owner about getting an armband. He dismissed her initial request, saying "I don't do armbands anymore, they're too 1990". So, Sabrina explained, "he designed a different sort of armband and went with that ... ".
She added, "I like butterflies because I like things that fly ... I feel like I'm a free spirit." One of the butterflies is based on a necklace that she wore every day.
Her second piece is on her right forearm and is what she referred to as her "college tattoo":
Sabrina told me, "I just wanted another tattoo and I like Egyptian hieroglyphs." This is one of the symbols that really appealed to her, and she had this inked at a shop in White Plains, New York, near where she went to college.
Her third tattoo, also inspired by hieroglyphs, is the one she got after coming to New York City:
This owl tattoo is more realistic, although she wanted it positioned like a hieroglyph. It is a great horned owl and was tattooed by Bang Bang at East Side Ink.
Thanks to Sabrina for sharing her tattoos with us here on 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.
I was riding my bike along the water and the Belt Parkway in South Brooklyn last month, when a woman passed me on her roller skates, headed in the other direction.
I quickly reversed directions and caught up with her because I wanted to ask her about her half-sleeve:
It's really quite stunning, and I was interested in who was the artist responsible for this work. Tara credited Christian Masot at Silk City Tattoo in Hawthorne, New Jersey. I've seen a lot of cool stuff come out of the shop and Christian was responsible for the work on the last two people I've met having been inked there. Check out all the Silk City work that has appeared previously on Tattoosday here.
As for Tara, she's a Roller Derby Girl, who skates under the handle PMA, with the number 24/7, because she has a Positive Mental Attitude, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
She explained, "I was going through a lot of stuff in my life a couple years ago and finally I had clarity ... so the lotus symbolizes ... clarity."
As for the butterfly, Tara told me that her butterflies "symbolize change and freedom."
Tara elaborated, saying that she brought three pictures in for reference [there's a monarch butterfly on her inner arm] and Christian "made it his own," in part by adding the design that represents the wind.
When I asked Tara how many tattoos she has, she said, "I lost count."
Thanks to Tara for sharing these stunning tattoos with us here on Tattoosday! Keep on skating with that positive mental attitude!
If you want to see more of Tara's ink, you can glimpse it on various videos on her YouTube channel here. She talks a lot about Vegan and Gluten-free recipes. I'm including one below that features her skating on the Shore Road promenade where I met her:
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.
Over the past several years on Tattoosday, we've run into several musicians in our travels, many of whom have generously shared their tattoos with us. We've decided to post tattoos from these talented folks on the first day of the work week, and call them "Musician Mondays."
We got a sneak peek at our first Monday Musician yesterday, as we shared a couple of Meaghan Farrell's tattoos in recognition of mother's day. The tattoos she has honoring her grandmother (here) are truly wonderful.
I was fortunate to run into Meaghan, who loved sharing her ink with me. Her enthusiasm for body art was evident in her excitement. "My tattoos mean the world to me," she beamed, and added that "there is no greater commitment to art." Considering that a tattoo is a permanent installation on one's body, I totally understood what she meant.
Aside from the two of Meghan's tattoos we posted yesterday, she shared a couple of more. Here's a wonderful piece on her left wrist that symbolizes her craft:
Of course the central object in the tattoo is the old-style microphone. As a resident of Queens, she pointed out that the skyline of Manhattan that serves as the tattoo's background is inked from the perspective of her borough, looking west toward the city.
Meaghan also shared this stunning monarch butterfly:
Meaghan explained that the monarch represents her sister, who she spoke of with great admiration. She called her the "matriarch of the family" and acknowledged that she was a solid presence that, despite huge challenges (she was widowed, a single mother, and is now remarried to a man who is wheelchair-bound), she retains the strength and grace of a butterfly.
I love how the artist created the shadow below the monarch's wings:
Like the work we saw yesterday, the artist responsible for these tattoos is Mr. Beans, at Fat Cat Tattoos NYC in Astoria, Queens.
Meaghan is a singer and she shared her debut CD, "Waitress," with me and let me tell you, it's a wonderful album. She has a very distinct voice and her songs are well-written and catchy. You can visit her website here to listen to her songs and see where you can hear her perform. In fact, she has a show this coming Saturday, May 14th, at the UC Lounge in New York City.
Check out her video for "Lost in My Life":
Thanks again to Meaghan for sharing her music and tattoos with us here at 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.
I met Christine at the Trader Joe's on the Upper West Side yesterday evening and she shared these four tattoos:
Moving clockwise from the upper left in the photo above, we start with an outline of Brooklyn, in honor of the borough in which Christine was born and raised.
At the top of the other forearm is an om symbol, which captures her focus and has occasionally "helped with panic attacks."
The two butterflies on opposite arms were inked in honor of her nieces, who both love these colorful insects. The shade of each represents their favorite colors.
The Brooklyn piece was inked at Asylum Studios in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. The om and the butterflies were done by artists at Three Kings Tattoo. Both shops are in Brooklyn and have had work appear on Tattoosday previously here (Asylum) and here (Three Kings).
Thanks to Christine for sharing these four of her eleven (!) tattoos with us here on 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.
It's safe to say that Maida has been a fan of Tattoosday from its earliest days.
Over the last three years, a day generally doesn't go by without our discussing ink. As a co-worker, and a friend, she's a regular visitor to the site.
Which is why one might wonder why her tattoos have taken this long to appear on Tattoosday. I even recall discussing with her potential designs as she researched new ideas.
We always talked about me taking pictures, but it never came to fruition.
However, yesterday the stars aligned and we got our collective acts together. Let's take a look, shall we?
I'm starting with my favorite pair of the three she is sharing (out of four, in all):
These two are pretty cool, and the top one. a triquetra, I remember her spending a lot of time thinking about. She feels that it also acts as protection, warding off the evil eye:
Below that is a butterfly that is not your standard design. The wings' patterns resemble skulls:
Maida says this dual image, the softness of the butterfly and the roughness of the skulls, represents the two sides of life, and is a double-edged sword. The kanji represent the symbols for power (top) and strength (bottom).
Maida also shared this tattoo on the outside of her right calf, above the ankle:
Maida got this, along with her friend Kathy, as a testament to "the strong bond and love between two best friends". They each have it on the same spot, although Kathy's butterfly has lavender wings, whereas Maida's are turquoise.
All of Maida's tattoos above were inked by an artist named JStar, whose website is here. The site includes photos of more of her work and is well worth a look.
Thanks to Maida for sharing her tattoos with us here, finally, on Tattoosday! We look forward to seeing more in the future!
I burnt my past. I ignored the foreboding seeds of sprouting destiny. I waded through the strewn ashes of past & future fears.
I am the eternal present. I tore to shreds the cocoon of ignorance with the sharpness of my will.
I am thy...butterfly of eternity, sweeping through immeasurable time. The beauty of my nature-wings I spread everywhere, to entertain everything. Suns & stardust are spread on my wings. Behold my beauty! Cut all the silken threads of thy shrouding folly: follow me in my flight to myself.
The butterfly symbolizes transformation, a phase everyone goes through at one point or another in time.
Also among her twenty-two tattoos is this formula at the top of her arm:
Mari explained she loves math and generalized that, with this equation, "you can generate anything in the universe". In theory, at least. Here, it gets a little hazy for me. Part of this tattoo contains "f(z) = z^2 + c" which is described as a complex function. Then there is the part that equates the square root of -1 to the value i. This is a formula for an imaginary number. I'm bowing out here, knowing there's no way I'll be able to explain this part of the tattoo adequately. Readers are welcome to try in the comments section, below.
Mari's work was inked by Kevin at The Tattoo Shop in Lansing, Michigan.
Thanks to Mari for sharing her tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!
Let's take a moment and pause from our regularly-scheduled programming this Veteran's Day to remember the men and women who serve our country bravely. I've dug into the archives and reposted a friend's tattoo, which appeared originally here on Tattoosday in January 2008. Be sure to thank a Veteran today, and to appreciate not only our soldiers at home and abroad, but their families who support and inspire them to serve our country courageously.
Tracy is a friend of mine who lives in Fort Drum, New York. She was in town last weekend, visiting family, and this was the first time I have seen her since Tattoosday was born over the summer.
I knew Tracy had at least one tattoo, because she and my wife have talked ink before. So when I saw her on Saturday, unexpectedly, I was happy that I had a couple of Tattoosday printouts in my pocket.
I explained the blog and asked if she'd like to participate. She was happy to oblige and, as fortune would have it, she was coming to an indoor soccer game the following day. Her nephew plays on the same team as my daughter Shayna.
After the game Sunday, I asked if she was ready. She lifted the back of her shirt to reveal:
I was surprised, honestly. I was not expecting butterflies, but expecting the one above it which, as fate would have it, is later in this post. But I wasn't about to pass up a cool tattoo, so I took a picture of this one as well.
Tracy is a mother of two boys, Matthew and Danny, and these butterflies represent each of them, as they flutter and transform, as ones children are apt to do, growing from infants into people. Tracy had these inked three years ago in Victorville, when she was living at Ft. Irwin. She said that they had been done at "Victorville Designs," which has either changed names or gone out of business, based on this link.
These butterflies are nicely inked and really seem to float over the skin. Definitely a nice tattoo, from design to execution.
Above the butterflies is the tattoo that I had heard about:
A simple, basic script. The arced triad of three pillars of strength in many people's lives: "Faith. Family. Friends."
In order to understand this tattoo, we have to take a little side journey.
Whatever one's politics may be, or however one feels about what we are doing in Asia and the Middle East, one thing must be acknowledged: the men and women in our military are there to do a job, to serve our country, and to fight to not only protect the people there, but here as well. Thousands of American men and women have given their lives and their souls to serve our country.
As one may have guessed by two prior references (Ft. Drum and Ft. Irwin), Tracy is closely tied to the United States Army, as she is married to Pete, who is a soldier with the 10th Mountain Division, Light Infantry.
On October 31, 2006, Pete's friend and fellow soldier, Major Douglas E. Sloan, was killed in the line of duty in the Wygal Valley in Afghanistan, while serving with Company B, 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment. You can read more about Doug here at the Arlington National Cemetary website.
As every drop of spilled blood in the line of duty hits home, the loss of Major Sloan was devastating to his family and friends back in the States. The community of Fort Drum mourned Doug's passing and hearts went out to his wife Kerry and their children.
In December 2006, to pay tribute to Doug's memory, Tracy and three friends, including Kerry, went to Tattoos Forever in Evans Mills, NY, and each had the same inscription inked. In hindsight, Tracy recalls how funny it must have appeared, for four moms in minivans to drive up to the shop and collectively get tattooed.
It is a recurring theme on tattoo shows. Memorial tattoos are among the most popular types of body art. People mourn, heal, and remember through the art of the tattoo. And a piece of the loved one lives on, for years, in the flesh of the survivors, who gain strength and hold on to the memory of the departed.
The alliterative mantra of "Faith, Family, and Friends" reminds not only the tattooed, but those around them, of the most important things in life.
I want to thank Tracy for sharing her tattoos, and the stories behind them. I would add a special nod of gratitude to the memory of Major Douglas Sloan, who I never knew. Yet, by virtue of this tattoo, helped remind me of the sacrifice that our soldiers make day in, day out, and their families they leave behind.
Tracy's husband Pete subsequently returned from Afghanistan, but has since returned to duty overseas. On behalf of all of our Tattoosday readers, I want to thank Tracy and Pete, for their commitment and sacrifice, and for sharing this one story among thousands, with us here at Tattoosday.
I met Rebecca a couple months ago in Penn Station and asked her about her tattoos.
Of the eleven, she shared this one from her leg:
This beautiful, yet battered, butterfly is a memorial to her unborn child. She lost the baby when she was just nineteen. The cherry blossoms are often symbolic of the fleeting nature of life.
The tattoo was completed on October 13, 2007 by Nate Hudson when he was at Virginia Beach Ink. He now tattoos at Folk City Tattoo in Suffolk, Virginia. As today is October 13, I've been hanging on to this post, not only to correspond with the day the tattoo was finished, but also the due date of the baby that was lost.
We here at Tattoosday truly thank Rebecca for sharing, not only this poignant tattoo, but also for allowing us to relate the emotional story behind this butterfly.
Last summer, my wife Melanie met Tammy on the staff message board of their company's website, where she and other employees across the country can exchange ideas and feedback. As a leader for Weight Watchers, Melanie often comes across members and co-workers who have used tattoos for inspiration and to mark milestones.
When talking to Tammy, a leader in Texas, she learned that she was inked, as well. She sent her the link to Tattoosday, and Tammy sent us photos of a few of her eleven tattoos.
We'll let Tammy describe them for us:
"I got my very first [tattoo] when I was 21 in Virginia while getting a tattoo for my younger brother but I didn't get another for several years at which time I had my uncle in Arkansas place a rose under the butterfly I had done first. It is old and faded but holds so much meaning to me as my uncle passed away in his 40s about 5 years ago so I have him with me at all times...I then waited a couple more years and had a dolphin put on my left ankle as a reminder of a trip we had made to Florida. About a year later an apprentice in Shreveport added an ankle wave under the dolphin.
I then took a long break from tattoos and the rest have all been done in the last 5 years here in Wichita Falls, Texas, with the exception of the tribal butterfly [seen below]. I had it done in Lawton, Oklahoma, when my son was getting his rib piece finished up [a subject of a later post].
On my right thigh I have the New York Yankees logo:
On my left shoulder blade my husband and I got kanji symbols for Eternity for our 19th wedding anniversary. I have a tribal butterfly (the only tattoo I have ever picked off a wall) put on the top of my left foot and I love it:
When I hit 50 pounds gone, my oldest son paid for the star that everyone sees in pictures I post:
And a Pisspot with my husbands name [pictured left]. My husband just retired with 26 years in the service and was AMMO-I always wanted this but was never brave enough nor skinny enough for that so called "tramp stamp"... it actually looks awesome although this picture is a little blurry.
And of course when I hit Lifetime [when a Weight Watchers member reaches their goal and maintains it for six weeks], my rib piece came alive:
The photo above is the tattoo right after it was completed. Here is how it healed:
I met Susan at the laundromat a couple weekends back and took pictures of the butterfly tattoos on her right arm:
She loves these colorful insects and, like many people who get butterfly tattoos, appreciate them as symbols of freedom:
Susan has her whole back tattooed (she showed me a bit of her lower back and said she'd think about sending in a photo) and got these tattoos on an impulse, in December 2004. She was living in the Bronx at the time, and when she was unable to get into Manhattan due to the last transit strike, went to a local shop and had the butterflies added to her arm.
Thanks to Susan for sharing these cool tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!
And now we're coming back to Fabiana to see what else she has to share with us here on Tattoosday.
This post is called "Under Saraswati".
In Fabiana's words:
"And under [Saraswati] on my wrist is also a matching tat with one of my exes, the same one that broke my heart. Well, it was once again butterflies because I love them and suns because she liked them. I love butterflies, they mean freedom. Oh, wait, my big giant butterfly is under the saraswati! I drew that one!"
Just to clarify, the tattoos at the bottom of the wrist (the small butterfly and the sun) were the matching tattoos she got with her ex. The larger butterfly above those, under Saraswati, was the one she drew.
Butterflies have appeared on Tattoosday before here.
Fabiana recently e-mailed me and told me she has some new ink to share, so I thought I'd post these leftover ones from the last batch she sent me, before I introduced some more.
Thanks to Fabiana again for sharing her ink with us here on Tattoosday!
