Elisa's Pulp Tattoo by Karel Mato

Once in a blue moon, I'll get off of my bike on the bike path to ask people about their tattoos. I rarely will disembark and hop off onto a sidewalk to interview someone. However, this summer I did just that, back in August, when riding along Ridge Boulevard in Brooklyn, I saw a woman with an amazing tattoo in front of the Bay Ridge branch of the Brooklyn Public Library.

I can only imagine how disconcerting it is to have some guy jumping off his bike to ask about your tattoo but, fortunately for me, Elisa was forthcoming and allowed me to take a photo of this gorgeous piece on her upper left arm:

Elisa gave me some details about this incredible tattoo:

"I love pulp paperbacks, and the art work on the covers. I collect them. One of my favorite artist's is Robert Maguire. His covers are beautiful. I also love Jim Thompson. This is the cover art from [his 1957] book called, Wild Town. I love her, and identify with the emotion and clandestine darkness of this cover. 

It was hard to choose a cover, I have many I adore... but I am 100% happy. I can hardly wait for my the next one...."

Elisa credited this tattoo to an artist named Karel Mato, who works out of Electric Church Tattoo Parlour in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Karel is a good friend of Elisa's and he tattooed this piece on one of his visits to New York. If you're interested in Karel's work, check out his shop's Facebook page, linked above, and see some more of his amazing tattoos.

Thanks to Elisa for sharing her tattoo and the story behind it with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2014 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.

John and the Savannah Bird Girl

Long time readers of Tattoosday may remember I used to find a lot of contributors in Penn Station, across the street from where I worked for many years. This past September, I started a new job downtown, on Broad Street, and this tattoo was the first one I found for the site in my new neighborhood:

This tattoo is on the back of John's calf, and was inked by Lisa from Whatever Tattoo on St. Marks Place in Manhattan.

He explained it was the Savannah Bird Girl, most familiar to many people as the statue on the cover of John Berendt's Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil:

John explained, "I loved the book and I just fell in love with the statue.”

Thanks John for sharing this cool tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2014 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.

See Naomi's Tattoo: Life Doesn't Frighten Her

Well, it's a new year here on Tattoosday, and we still have leftover posts from 2012. But since it's in the 20s today in New York City, and we don't see a lot of work over the winter, I'm always happy to share posts from warmer days.

Going back to July, I was on the DeKalb Avenue subway platform in Brooklyn when I passed Naomi and had to stop and talk to her about her forearm tattoo:

Being a big fan of books, I recognized this as the cover of Maya Angelou's children's story Life Doesn't Frighten Me. Of course, while talking with Naomi, she reminded me whose art graced the cover.

The book is beautifully illustrated with the art of Jean-Michel Basquiat, a popular New York artist whose paintings exploded into popularity in the 1980s.

She told me she got this more than fifteen years ago from a tattooist named "Batman" who worked out of Sacred Tattoo at the time.

She explained, "I really like Basquiat and then I saw the cover on the book and I really liked the book and thought I have to have this done."

Thanks to Naomi for sharing her tattoo with us for the first post of a new year!

This entry is ©2013 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.