Al Shares Two for Tattoosday, Including a Rare Sole Tattoo

Back in August I received an email from Al, one of the thousands of people that commutes in and out of Penn Station on a daily basis.

As a reader of Tattoosday, Al recognized that a lot of my inkspotting occurred in this major transit hub and he had recently thought he saw me there. Of course, this was quite feasible, as I generally pass through Penn during my lunch hour, as well as before and after work.

He also sent me some photos and, as occasionally happens, the e-mail from Al got buried in the deluge known as my inbox.

But we are excavating it here to share some of Al's ink. I'll let him do the heavy lifting....

"... I often read your blog and I especially love the stories you include about how you ran in to each person or convinced them to show you their tattoos or whatever it was.  Also the fact that you include the artist info (when you can) is amazing!  So thanks, and keep up the good work!

... [Included are] pictures of two of my tattoos that are especially fun for me, and in their own ways, unique.  The first at the top of my back, and it's an image of a jaw harp done as if it were an old-school traditional piece.

If you haven't heard of a jaw harp (also called Jew's harp, trump, mouth harp, etc...) check it out!  It's a very simple instrument that has a place in indigenous cultures all around the world...and it's one of the most ridiculous and fun instruments I've ever played.  I especially love that it's considered something of a "low class" instrument in most cultures.  Sort of the underdog of the musical world!  This piece was done by Michael Hastings at the Boston Tattoo Company in Somerville, MA.

The second one is less of a serious tattoo and more of a product of "hey, you know what would be funny?"  A tattoo artist friend of mine and I were joking around, and I convinced him to tattoo the bottom of my foot, more or less to see what would happen.

Anyone will tell you that getting a tattoo down there is a bad idea, but how exactly would it work out?  Well, the first picture you see is on it's second or third day of life -- already blown out in areas and starting to fade. One month later, and you can see it's already nearly half gone.

It was a fun tattoo experiment, and it earns me major badass points everywhere I go :-)"

Thanks to Al for sharing these tattoos 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 can contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

See Emily's Foot Tattoo

I met Emily in Penn Station and asked her about this, one of her three tattoos:

The phrase "Be not afraid, only believe" is from the Bible, more specifically, the Book of Mark, Chapter 5, Verse 36, King James version.

What does this mean to Emily? "No matter what," she said, "always remember what's mean to be will happen...".

A nice sentiment indeed. This tattoo was done by "Petey" at Immortal Ink in Clinton, New Jersey.

Thanks to Emily 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.

Tattoosday Goes to Hawaii: A Floral Sneak Peak @ O'Hare, Courtesy of Jennifer

When I first booked my trip to Honolulu and saw I had a brief layover in Chicago, I challenged myself to find at least one cool tattoo at the airport.

Lucky for me, I found Jennifer from Portland, Maine, sporting this lovely hibiscus foot tattoo:


The hibiscus being the state flower of Hawai'i, I saw this as a good omen.

Jennifer explained that she based the design for this tattoo on a photo in a magazine.

Why the foot? She had one tattoo on her back and "wanted one she could see".

This floral piece was inked in about two and a half hours at Pins and Needles Tattoo at home in Portland. Work from Pins and Needles has appeared previously on Tattoosday here.

Thanks to Jennifer for humoring this traveling inkspotter and sharing her hibiscus with us here on Tattoosday!

A Little Sunshine on a Cloudy Day

I met Cristina on the R train several weeks back.

The weather was just beginning to turn cooler, and I noticed that summer had ended quickly, with no gradual diminishing of tattoo sightings, but a sudden disappearance, like shutting the light switch off in a large, bright room at midnight.

Cristina had this small, unusual tattoo on her foot:


Despite being small, I was curious to learn about this design.

Cristina explained that her husband travels a lot and that, on a whim, they each got sun tattoos while in Dallas. The designs are slightly different.


She told me her husband thought the sun tattoos were perfect for them because, he said, when they're together, he's walking on sunshine.

You can look at that as incredibly corny, incredibly romantic, or a mixture of the two. Cristina acknowledged that when she looks at her tattoo, it reminds her of what her husband said, about walking on sunshine, and that makes her laugh, which makes her happy, which can be a solace when her husband is traveling.

All from a little tattoo!

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

The Tattooed Poets Project: Rachel Mallino's Vine Entwines

Today's tattoo is from Rachel Mallino:

Rachel explains this tattoo:

"This piece was done in the summer of 2001, on a vacation to New York City. A friend and I were walking the Village together and I decided to stop at a random tattoo parlor- unfortunately, the name of the parlor escapes me. I had been playing around with the idea of getting a tattoo on my foot for several reasons, one of them being that the foot was not a popular place to have a tattoo at the time. I wanted something like a vine that symbolized my very unhealthy relationship with my mother, a subject I also write a lot about. I didn’t have anything sketched out, so I approached one of the artists and told her what I wanted. She was able to find a ready-made outline of a vine that looked similar to what I had imagined. I told her to use the outline but directed her in which direction and how I wanted the tat to wrap around my middle toe, up the foot and around my ankle. For the record: it was really painful. Artistically, I don’t think the tattoo is spectacular. Conceptually, I’m pretty pleased. People ask me all the time what it means, and I never tell them. In fact, I haven’t really told you, either."

Thanks to Rachel for sending us this tattoo.

Please head over to BillyBlog to read one of Rachel's poems here.