Rochelle's Tattoos Are Powerful Reminders

Last summer, while riding my bike along the Belt Parkway Promenade, I met Rochelle, who was kind enough to talk with me and share several of her tattoos.

The first one we discussed was this one on her calf:

Rochelle explained that this is an illustration from Peter Rabbit, but not the one that is familiar to most of us. She explained that in the German version, the story spoke to her more, as Rochelle once had problems with drug abuse. She explained that the rabbit in this other version of the story took to stealing vegetables from the farmer, “but he grows fat and he is then cooked in stew by the farmer’s wife." Rochelle added, "So he’s, like, consumed by his desire, and I was consumed by my desire to do drugs ... I got the tattoo when I was becoming sober.”

This tattoo and several others Rochelle has were done by Mike Lucena from Brooklyn's Flyrite Tattoo, who she calls "a great artist and a good-hearted guy.”

She also shared this piece by Mike Lucena:

Located on her thigh, Rochelle explained, "It’s a pysanky egg, it’s a Ukrainian egg-decorating practice ... an old folk practice that my mother and I did when I was a child and I got it in memory of my mother when she passed.”

She also shared this tattoo on her upper arm:

Rochelle explained that this is Monkshood. She elaborated:

"It's a delphinium  flower ... it’s like a bluebell ... almost, but they call it monkshood because, if you look at the flower it looks like a monk wearing a hood. It symbolizes usually death and ill-will, but a lot of people also use it because it symbolizes warding off evil and warding off death … I got it from Becki [Wilson] the day after my mother died, so now it has a huge amount of meaning to me ... Becki was at Greene Avenue Tattoo when this was done, but she has moved shops."

And finally, Rochelle shared a fourth tattoo, on another calf:

She explained that this was also done by Mike Lucena, and is her interpretation of The Tower Tarot Card:

"I study tarot…this is my drawing and then Mike did a complete copy and ... he had done the rabbit first, and then I was like, I want you to do it like the rabbit with my drawing … so watercolor, sort of, so he faded out the inks, the symbolism of the tower tarot card is like chaos, destruction and rebirth."

Thanks to Rochelle for sharing all of her awesome tattoos 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: Geoff Kagan Trenchard

Our next tattooed poet is Geoff Kagan Trenchard, who sent us this photo:

Geoff explains:

"I don’t remember the name of the artist, but the studio was Flyrite in Brooklyn, New York. It was done in February of 2009. My wife Emily and I went to get tattooed as a spur of the moment Valentine’s Day date. At the time, we had known each other for nine years. We had said I love you to one another in at least a dozen different cities. We had just spent two years living in cities on opposite sides of the country, only seeing each other every four months or so. That Valentine’s Day, we had made dinner plans, but not reservations. We both came home from work and neither of us was hungry. We decided on this location because it’s the spot where we like to rest our head’s on each other’s chests. While it wasn't a direct inspiration, the song 'Home' by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros way playing in a lot of backgrounds that year. Can’t tell you how many coffee shops and bars and restaurants and random stores where we heard that song. The choirs goes Home, let me come home. Home is wherever I'm with you. One of the strangest places the song followed us was in the CD player of a car we rented to drive Upstate for a long weekend. Home. I’m coming home. Home is wherever I’m with you out of the speakers of this random Honda Civic from the rental car company attached to the Marriott Downtown. Like someone had put it there just for us. My eyes were welling up before we even got on to the freeway. Home. I’m coming home. Home is wherever I’m with you. Since that February, we've said I love you in a few additional cities, but many more times in cities we've been in before. We now have two children, both of whom rest their heads on the same spots.

Geoff sent us the following poem:

Untitled

At night, the blue sky moves
to where it is needed most.
Every morning I am thankful
that it comes back around.

The first thing that ever really scared me
was the wax ball of minutes
that grew in my mouth
when I waited to be picked up.
Every second made me more sure
that no one was coming to get me.

In my head there is a plastic boulder
hovering above a flowerbox.
The only thing that holds it back
is the smallest wooden door stop.

This morning, the shower
had just enough hot water
to get me in, but not enough
to keep me there for long.

When I came back into the bedroom
You were curled around the good pillow.
Smiled like it was still the weekend.

I want you to know that I quit smoking
because you threatened to leave me
but I stayed quit
because I wanted to grow
bigger than a sculpted shadow.
I want you to know that I think about
babies in a very non abstract way these days,
that I feel safe leaving before you in the morning.
I’m almost 100% sure the blue sky will be waiting for me.

~ ~ ~

Geoff Kagan Trenchard’s poems have been published in numerous journals including Word Riot, The Nervous Breakdown, The Worcester Review, SOFTBLOW and Pemmican. He has received endowments from the National Performance Network, Dance Theater Workshop, The Zellerbach Family Foundation and the City of Oakland to produce original theatrical work. As a mentor for Urban Word NYC, he taught weekly poetry workshops in the foster care center at Bellevue as well as in Rikers Island with Columbia University’s “Youth Voices on Lockdown” program. He is a recipient of a fellowship from the Riggio Writing and Democracy program at the New School and the first ever louderARTS Writing Fellowship. He has performed poetry on HBO’s Def Poetry Jam, at universities throughout the United States, and in theaters internationally as a member of the performance poetry troupe The Suicide Kings. Penmanship Books published his first poetry collection, Murder Stay Murder. He is currently a Juris Doctor Candidate for the class of 2014 at the Hofstra University School of Law. He lives in Brooklyn and can be found at kagantrenchard.com.

Thanks to Geoff for sharing his tattoo and poem with us here on the Tattooed Poets Project on Tattoosday!

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.

Moki's Pink Elephant

Yesterday we posted a tattoo belonging to my wife's cousin Erica, who had come over to our home last month for a family gathering. Accompanying her was her girlfriend Moki, who has a multitude of tattoos. Among her work is this whimsical elephant tattoo:

Moki explains:

"The elephant was drawn by a friend. He likes to label everything, like how it says saddle and elephant on the tattoo. I just think it's cute."

She had this inked by Nick Caruso when he was at Flyrite Tattoo in Brooklyn. Nick has since moved on to Bound for Glory Tattoo on Staten Island.

Thanks to Moki for sharing this fun tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2012 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.