Tattoos: Bible

Senin, 09 Juni 2014

Christian, Jonah and the Fish

I was at my favorite local watering hole, Lock Yard, last Wednesday night, and I approached a table of three heavily-tattooed gentlemen. One of them, Christian, generously offered up this really cool piece on his arm:

Christian explained the tattoo:

“It’s a character from The Bible. His name’s Jonah. He gets swallowed by a big fish. I really like the idea, in the New Testament, in the Gospels, Jesus says, ‘You guys want signs and wonders and miracles, but the only thing you’re going to get is the sign of Jonah….I’ll be in the ground for three days, just like he was in the fish for three days, and I’ll come out again. It’s kind of a resurrection idea. I like the idea of resurrection and that’s kind of what it means to me when I look at it. And from a human level, I like the fact that God would use Jonah to save a town and then Jonah would sulk about it, be a butthole about it, kinda see a parallel there with just how we are and how God uses people."

He credited the work to one of Tattoosday's favorite artist's Nick Caruso, from Bound for Glory Tattoo in Staten Island.

Christian added, "This is a piece of Coptic church art that I had Nick trace and embellish…so originally it was a painting and I said, you know, make the fish a little scarier."

We joked about how it was not like the big whale in Disney's Pinocchio, which is how I always envisioned the fish that swallowed Jonah when I first heard the story as a child.

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

If you are seeing this on another website 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.

Senin, 02 Juni 2014

Christin's Exorcism

I was standing in front of Federal Hall, at the corner of Wall Street and Broad, when I noticed two women sitting nearby. One of them had an epic tattoo on her left thigh, so I introduced myself.

The woman’s name was Christin and she was visiting from Germany. Her friend, whose name I never
caught, was very helpful as an interpreter.

Check out the tattoo:

Christin explained that this is a passage, in Latin, from the Bible. More specifically, it refers to a section concerning exorcism, how, in her words, "the blood will drive out the evil and how everything will end up good.”

You can make out the word "Exorcism" behind the written text. The scratches and blood smears are part of the tattoo design.

The artist responsible is Emrah from Lausbub Tattoo in Heilbronn, Germany. When I reached out to him about the piece, he knew exactly which one I was talking about. "I love this tatt," he said, "but I never ever would do it again ... because of the tiny lettering."

When I asked Christin why she got this huge, intricate tattoo she said (through her friend, interpreting):

"There are two stories: One, the show Supernatural kind of got her on this idea. So that’s what brought her on the general idea of looking into what it is, reading up on it. And she kind of was fucking up her life a little bit much and so this was her way of putting her life back on the proper road so when she looks at it she knows I can’t go down that route again."

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