Larry's Back (at the NYC Tattoo Convention)

Last weekend at the NYC Tattoo Convention, I met Larry, the owner of Bklyn Ink Works, a shop down in south Brooklyn in the Bensonhurst/Dyker Heights area.

Larry was proudly standing outside of his booth whenever I saw him at the show, talking to people and proudly showing off the work of Andrey, one of the Brooklyn Ink Works tattooers, which he wears proudly.
Here's his back:

This religious-themed black and grey work is pretty impressive.

Check out Bklyn Ink Works on Facebook here.

Andrey Tarasov can be found on Facebook as well and on Instagram (@sverlo1).

Thanks to Larry for sharing his work with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2015 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.

Emma's Tattoo for Her Faith

Yesterday afternoon, while walking to the subway through Bowling Green park, I met a couple of Korean tourists after they stopped to ask me if the National Museum of the American Indian was closed (it was).

I noticed that one of the women, Emma, had a tattoo on her thigh and I asked if I could take a photo for Tattoosday. She consented:

She told me "I got it for Jesus ... because I am a Christian."

It's a pretty cool variation on the standard Jesus with the crown of thorns, in black and grey, with a rose added at the bottom.

She got this at Wild Rose Tattoo in Seoul, Korea.

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

This entry is ©2015 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.

The Tattooed Poets Project: K.R. Copeland

Our next tattooed poet is K.R. Copeland:

She tells us,

"I currently have seven tattoos. The two that best represent me, as a human, spiritual being, would be the Om on my left deltoid and the cross on my right (with the word, “Unity” scrolled above.). In my journey through life I have studied and embraced aspects of both Eastern (Hinduism) and Western (Christianity) philosophies. I was baptized a Lutheran, and the word Unity is the literal translation for yoga, of which, I am a regular practitioner."

She credited the work to Bob Garrity, owner and artist at InknUm, Calumet City, Illinois.

She offered up the following poem, in which she "bed[s] down a Hindu deity on the Taj Mahal lawn." She adds that the audio version (https://soundcloud.com/krcopeland/brahma-spoken-word-poem-kr) kicks butt

BRAHMA

Your fingers, weapon-free
read my body

like a brand new Braille Rigveda.
Page by page, you make me

come alive! I am your story,
you’re my sighs.

We halcyon upon
   the Taj Mahal lawn –

glorifying
my-om-I-om-mys .

~ ~ ~

K.R. Copeland is a widely published Chicagoland poet preparing to transplant herself in NYC, where some of her poetry will be included in the off-off-Broadway theatrical production Isolated Incidents, adapted from the book by the same name by Kevin L. Thomas. And, no, street vendors, she does NOT want to buy a watch.

Her book 2057 is here.

Thanks to Ms. Copeland for sharing her tattoos and poetry with us here on the Tattooed Poets Project!

This entry is ©2014 Tattoosday. The poem and tattoo are reprinted with the poet's permission.

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.

The Tattooed Poets Project: Shann Ray

Today's tattooed poet is Shann Ray, who sent us this photo of his tattoo:

He explains:

I got this tattoo the year I married my wife Jennifer, a bright fire of a girl who has only increased in incandescence. We've been together 27 years now and have 3 daughters. The lion symbolizes the mysterious sacred text notion that the lion is the inverse of the lamb. In the Christian tradition, Christ who was called the Lion of Judah appeared as a lamb that was slain. This is a reminder to me to sacrifice the self-embedded ways that sometimes arise in me and live with a generous and kind heart toward Jennifer for the rest of my life. The lion and the thorns remind me to help create the milieu of our marriage to be one in which Jennifer is deeply loved, respected, and given hope for each new day. What a life it has been with her! I still love this tattoo. It is like a secret kindness between us that reminds us all we share. 

When I asked if he recalled the artist who did this, he explained,

"The guy did become famous for tattooing the stars. It was in Garden Grove down in the greater Los Angeles area. Can’t recall his name or the name of the shop. All tribal oriented tattooing." 

By way of a poem, Shann sent us this:

NIGHT OVER THE SAPPHIRE RANGE, WESTERN MONTANA

Tomorrow you lead
the people in worship
but tonight let me hear you
in the quiet strength of our bedroom
where I watch silver birds fly
from your mouth and remember
how you break me all the way down.

How good it is to be
a vessel for the song
of this everyday world.

Cup my hand to your hipbone
and give me darkness through the window.

 ~ ~ ~

Shann Ray is a poet and prose writer whose work has appeared in some of the nation’s leading literary venues including Poetry, McSweeney’s, StoryQuarterly, the Northwest Review, Best New Poets, Montana Quarterly and Poetry International. A National Endowment for the Arts Fellow, he is the winner of the Breadloaf Writers’ Conference Bakeless Prize, the High Plains Book Award, the American Book Award, the Subterrain Poetry Prize, and the Crab Creek Review Fiction Award. He is the author of American Masculine (Graywolf), and Forgiveness and Power in the Age of Atrocity (Rowman & Littlefield/Lexington). His book of poems called Balefire will appear with Lost Horse Press in the near future. He lives with his wife and three daughters in Spokane, Washington where he teaches leadership and forgiveness studies at Gonzaga University. His website is www.shannray.com.

Thanks to Shann Ray for sharing his tattoo and poem with us here on The Tattooed Poets Project!

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.