Tattoos: flowers

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Senin, 17 Agustus 2015

Lauren's Floral Tattoo, with a Bluebird

At the Coney Island Mermaid Parade in June, I met Lauren, who was parading with a squadron of Roller Derby women.

She let me take this photo of her cool tattoo and promised to email me with details.

Her Roller Derby name was "Laurena Bob-it" and she credited this to Kati Vaughn from Magic Cobra Tattoo Society in Brooklyn.

I don't have any further details, but maybe one day, Lauren will find my card and email me.

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.

Jumat, 24 Juli 2015

Flowers for a Friday: Leila's Pansies

I met Leila last month in Coney Island as the Mermaid Parade was winding down. She shared these beautiful flowers on her arm:

These pansies were inked by Bryan Register, who currently works out of Ms. Deborah's Fountain of Youth Tattoo in St. Augustine, Florida.

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

Rabu, 01 Juli 2015

Merette's Sleeve Stuns With Its Beauty

On the last day of May, I met Merette, walking on 4th Avenue in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.

I'll be honest, I spotted her fifty yards away and stopped dead in my tracks, because I knew she had an incredible tattoo sleeve. Some work you know is great, even before you can see the details.

Thankfully, she let me take pictures of her amazing black and gray sleeve. Here's hoping these shots do justice to the work:

Merette credited artist Soner Turan, formerly of Citizen Ink Tattoo in Brooklyn, and now at Bang Bang Tattoos in Manhattan.

This beautiful work features roses, sunflowers, and a half-skull, half-face with a pop of color in the one green eye.

Thanks to Merette for sharing her stunning ink with us here on Tattoosday!

Senin, 01 Juni 2015

Three Roses from Jane

On Friday I met Jane while walking on Broadway, across from Zuccotti Park. She was kind enough to share these stunning roses with us:

These roses are simple in design, but were executed masterfully. Jane credited Elizabeth Markova from Bang Bang Tattoos in Manhattan. Read a small feature on Markov here.

Jane explained, "the three roses are a representation of the beauty my grandfather, grandmother and daughter have contributed into my life; molding me into the woman I am today."

Thanks to Jane for sharing these stunning flowers with us here on Tattoosday!

Sabtu, 30 Mei 2015

Mara's Flower for Her Mother

Yesterday I met, Mara, from Argentina, outside of the New York Stock Exchange at the corner of Wall Street and Broad. She shared this lovely tattoo from her upper back:

Mara hails from Argentina, and she explained that the rose bears her mother's initials in the center of the flower.

She got this done at home from an artist named Luciana who is currently tattooing in France.

Thanks to Mara for sharing her flower with us here on Tattoosday!

Jumat, 29 Mei 2015

Marina's Hibiscus, Reflowering (A Repost)

Here's a quick repost for your Friday enjoyment, dating back to the end of May 2012. I was able to edit the photo to make it a little clearer than when it appeared originally:

A couple weeks back I ran into Marina on the corner of 30th Street and Seventh Avenue in Manhattan. She had just received this tattoo only two days before:

These stunning hibiscus flowers were tattooed by Gustavo Rizerio at Invisible NYC. Work from Gustavo has appeared previously on Tattoosday here.

Thanks to Marina for sharing her lovely floral tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2012, 2015 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.

Selasa, 26 Mei 2015

Maria's Tribute to Oz and a Floral Flourish

Earlier this month I met a couple from the United Kingdom, sitting on the steps of Federal Hall in lower Manhattan.
They both had a lot of ink and I'm splitting their work into two posts, one today and one tomorrow.
Maria and Mark were visiting from Norwich, England.

Maria shared first, starting with this cool Wizard of Oz tattoo on her calf:

When I asked Maria what motivated her to get this tattoo, she replied, "I'm a massive Wizard of Oz fan, a big geek."
I then took a couple of shots of this stunning floral piece that ran from her upper left arm across her upper back, flowering with orchids (which Maria loves), plumeria and hummingbirds:

All of her work is by Fidel "SkullSugar" Quiñones at Lucky 13 Tattoo n Norwich.

Thanks to maria for sharing her tattoos with us here on Tattoosday! Be sure to check back tomorrow to see Mark's work, also by SkullSugar!
This entry is ©2015 Tattoosday.

Sabtu, 23 Mei 2015

A Sliver of Gustavo's Sleeve

Earlier this month, in what seemed like Tattoosday kismet, a tattooed gentleman got on the A train and sat down next to me. When the inkspotting gods treat me so kindly, I almost always follow their lead and start up a conversation.

And so I did, meeting Gustavo, who was rushing for a bus back to New Jersey. I snapped a shot of his arm, slightly off-kilter due the movement of the express train, and handed him my card. He promised to reach out to me.

Maybe he will, but it's not uncommon for me to never see or hear from someone I meet randomly. That said, here's the photo:

If Gustavo ever reaches out, he'll get a proper post. In the mean time, this will do.

Thanks, Gustavo, for sharing this with us on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2015 Tattoosday.

Rabu, 06 Mei 2015

June Flowers in May

Yesterday I spotted these beautiful flowers on a woman named June in Lower Manhattan, near Bowling Green:

June told me that this is a cover-up, as well. She raved about the tattoo artist, Miguel Prada at Body and Soul Tattoos in Jersey City, New Jersey.

These flowers are lilies and June said that purple is her favorite color.

Thanks to June for sharing her lovely flowers with us here on Tattoosday!

Kamis, 30 April 2015

Amy Glynn's Wreath Wraps Up National Poetry Month (The Tattooed Poets Project)

I am proud and honored to end National Poetry Month 2015 with the amazing work of Amy Glynn.

When we first started discussing tattoos several years ago, Amy was un-inked, and gave me the impression that tattoos were not for her. Not only did she change her opinion, she went big and startlingly beautiful.

For a while, it was doubtful that Amy would contribute, because of the location of her tattoo, and the desire to showcase it only if it was photographed artistically. Finally, this year, the stars aligned, and Amy sent me some wonderful shots of her tattoo in all its glory. Enjoy:

Photo by Vincent Louis Carrella

And a different, closer perspective:

Photo by Vincent Louis Carrella

What makes Amy's ink even more remarkable is how it ties in with her work as a poet. I'll let Amy explain:

"The botanical images in the tattoo reference poems in [my] book 'A Modern Herbal' (Measure Press, 2013). The white-throated swifts reference a poem published in Poetry Northwest in 2009 which will appear in a subsequent publication.

The wreath of interwoven fruits and flowers echo the primary preoccupations of the book – morning glory and salvia divinorum are powerful entheogens; brugmansia is a hallucinogen with a tendency to induce the belief that you can fly. The wine grapes represent alchemy and nod to a lifelong fascination with Sufi imagery. Ginkgo biloba represents tenacity; opium poppies are of course common tropes for oblivion. The pomegranate represents mortality and fertility; the apple, cultivation and waywardness. Sunflowers are an expression of the Golden Mean and represent order and design. Walnuts stand for memory. The white-throated swift is believed to be the fastest animal on earth with air speeds of up to 200mph."

Karen Roze of Sacred Rose Tattoo in Berkeley, California is responsible for the botanical images. Her work appeared yesterday here on another poet. Danny Chong of Black and Blue in San Francisco did the birds.

Amy sent me several poems from the collection and asked me to choose. I selected two that I thought most wonderful:

Opium Poppy

Papaver somniferum

You would’ve loved this moonrise: creepy

orange-on-purple, swollen, cloud-

occluded. It’s October’s last

gasp, litanies of rattling stuff

and the dry rain of bloodied leaves

and air a grassfire’s ghost has haunted

all day. And all of it

echoes so, darling. Quit

hanging around. Yes, I said I wanted

you always with me. But love’s

cruelly shortsighted. No, enough:

bring on the narcolepsy: vast

figureless rivers, a cold, loud,

sedating rush. I’m just so sleepy.

Last season’s stands of double poppies

still stand here, though by now the lavish

silk petals are mere memory. Not

so fragile as they looked, I guess,

and somehow more themselves like this,

as if the blossoms always were

a smokescreen for

a darker, truer, more

essential form, the cynosure,

the censer, the ripe cicatrice

sleep wells from, black and bottomless.

Go. I’ll be all right when the thought

of you no longer wants to ravish

me with its endless, morphing copies.

~ ~ ~

Apple

Malus domestica

Where do desire and fulfilment meet?

It’s here. The place where one bite makes you need

the next. Sweet. Sweet: desire’s prototype;

sweet meaning perfect, meaning ideal. It’s

a feedback loop, look: lick the sugar from

my lip, see for yourself if it’s satiety

or lust for more. Or both, a branching, each

leaf-tip light-bathed and glaucous, reaching, and

at last at last we taste it, or at least

are so lost in the dream of it we never

detect the molecule of cyanide

at the center of the thing. This is forever.

Bitter unkillable seed. Eternal return

with a twist.

~ ~ ~

Amy Glynn’s poems and essays appear widely in journals and anthologies including The Best American Poetry. She has been a James Merrill House Fellow, a six time alum of the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and the inaugural recipient of Poetry Northwest’s Carolyn Kizer Award. Most recently her essay “Apples” (northeast quadrant of the tattoo) won Literal Latte’s 2014 Essay Award.

I always thank the poets who have contributed here but, in Amy's case, to do so in a single line doesn't sit well with me.

It has been a journey working with Amy on this submission and, even though I have never met her face-to-face, I feel that I have. We've had many conversations over the years and I am eternally grateful not only for the beauty of her submission (the tattoo and the poems), but for the whole process.

I offer up my profound gratitude to Amy Glynn for her amazing contribution and for her entrusting me with sharing her tattoo and words with all of my readers.

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.

Sabtu, 25 April 2015

The Tattooed Poets Project: Virginia Chase Sutton

Virginia Chase Sutton first appeared on the Tattooed Poets Project in 2013 here.

She's returning in 2015 with the following tattoo to share:

Virginia tell us:

"It was a little, tiny shop in Dublin, by an Italian artist who barely spoke English---I don't know the name of the shop or of the artist.

It measures 4 inches by 4 inches on the back of my left shoulder. The colors are stunning, really, purples and lavenders and green. I got the tattoo, along with my 17 year old daughter's first tattoo, the Chinese symbol for winter. It was a long process, quite exhausting, but he promised me I'd adore the result. And I do. The shop did not take credit cards and I only had about $20 in Irish money, not enough, and not enough even for a tip. 'Is enough,' he said cheerily. And so it was."

Virginia sent us this poem:

ONE AFTERNOON IN DUBLIN

I want to be your tattoo buddy, my 16-year-old daughter says in the icy hostel in February. Trip on a whim, just enough cash, and we wander the city, find a shop on a forlorn side of town. Up a flight of narrow stairs to an empty, exhausted landscape---a waiting room with a slew of notebooks of flash art and a tattered couch. I’m thinking of a man who tells me once about a homemade tattoo his cousin gives him---concocting ink from cigarette ash, using staples torn from a magazine as needles. The tap, tap, tapping drives him nuts with pain and he begs his cousin to stop, tattoo unfinished. Here, my daughter goes first, the Chinese symbol for winter on her left hip, a good choice. I choose a one-inch lotus blossom for my left shoulder blade. Done, she collapses on the couch, waves me on. The Italian artist barely speaks English, is the only one in the joint. He sits me on a wobbly stool after applying the transfer. You have good tattoos, I think he says. So don’t move. He begins slowly. I lean forward, keeping the stool in place. It’s a dance. I bend lower and lower, then he re-inks his silver machine, and I bend again. This biting goes on and I lose myself to pain. Why, I wonder, is this taking so long? Finally complete, I reach for traveler’s checks but he shakes his head. I pull out Irish cash---it isn’t enough. Is okay, he says with an angel’s smile. Back at the hostel, my shoulder burns. Why, I ask my daughter, who is patting Neosporin on her little tattoo. In the bathroom, I yank off my bandage, look over my shoulder in the mirror. Gasp at the huge purple and lavender lotus blossom climbing my back. It was supposed to be so small, I say, stunned by the 4 x 4 inch design carved in my flesh. It hurt like hell, I tell her as she applies ointment. The large and the small, the old and the young, the symbol and the flower. How he makes me sign a paper adding two years so she is legal, not even asking for our passports as proof. So I say no regrets, and she smiles happily, pants slipping down, admiring how we lost ourselves, busy discovering art.

~ ~ ~

Virginia Chase Sutton’s book What Brings You to Del Amo won the Morse Poetry Prize. Her first book is Embellishments. Five times nominated for a Pushcart Prize, her poems have appeared in Paris Review, Ploughshares, Antioch Review, Boulevard, Western Humanities Review, Witness, Naugatuck River Review, the anthology ThroughA Distant Lens, and many other literary publications.

Thanks to Virginia for her return to Tattoosday and the Tattooed Poets Project!

Jumat, 17 April 2015

The Tattooed Poets Project: Susan Sweetland Garay

Our second tattooed poet today is Susan Sweetland Garay:

Here's a closer look:

Susan elaborates:

"The tattoo I would like to share is one I got recently. It has a Celtic knot modified to symbolize a mother and child. It also has California poppies, a fern, a red clover, a dandelion (the wisher part) and a thistle.

It is all to symbolize motherhood and how becoming a mother has really changed the say I see myself and who I am. The flowers all have meaning too, my mother is from California, and those orange poppies are all over where I live (rural Oregon), the fern is also just a representation of where I am from and where my daughter will grow up. The clover is because the red clover only bloom for a couple of weeks in the spring, and they were in bloom when she was born, I remember focusing on them during the drive to the hospital. The dandelion is because wishes for me will be different now, since I want things more for her then for myself. The thistle is also a representation of where we live. The spiral is also sort of about the perfection of nature, and how amazing it is what nature (and a woman's body) can do."

She credits artist Cassidy at Black Rose Tattoo at Solstice Body Arts in Dundee, Oregon, with this crisp and colorful work.

Susan sent us the following poem, which was first published in The Zoomoozophone Review Issue 3 in October 2014.

night breeze

I feel the breeze through
the bedroom window
on a summer night
as I sit with my baby
at my breast,

it’s the end of summer
and finally the coyotes
have returned.

their song comes through
the open window and in the
odd hours of the early morning
they keep me company
in the quiet and the dark.

The cool comes on quickly and
autumn makes herself known
as the warmth of the day
arrives later and later.

Daylight makes lessons learned
in the dark harder to remember.

There is a feeling of relief
and then dismay
when I realize that
I am still myself,
despite the drastic
changes to my
definition.

Stretch marks,
like any other scar,
are a reminder
of where I’ve been
a record on my body
of each destination
and crash.
A mind may forget
but the body remembers.

It is written on my bones
and this body will find a way.

In a time of crisis
I strain to remember
what coyote taught me
about the lighthearted
nature of the universe-
I say it over and over again
in my head, hoping repetition
will make it stick.

Her mouth curves into a wide grin
around my nipple and
again I am in love.

~ ~ ~

Born and raised in Portland Oregon, Susan Sweetland Garay first played among the moss and pines, then the majestic Rocky Mountains, the rolling hills of the Ohio Appalachians and now the lovely vineyards of the Willamette Valley with her husband and daughter. She enjoys writing, growing plants and making art. She has had poetry and photography published in a variety of journals, on line and in print. She was also nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2014. Her first full length poetry collection, ApproximateTuesday, was published in 2013. She is a founding editor of The Blue Hour Literary Magazine and Press. More of her work can be found at susansweetlandgaray.wordpress.com.

Thanks to Susan for sharing her work with us here on the Tattooed Poets Project on Tattoosday!

Jumat, 20 Maret 2015

Tattoosday Walks Into a Bar: Flowers in Phoenix

On a recent trip to Southern California, my connecting flight in Arizona had mechanical difficulties and I got bumped to another plane, two hours later.

As luck would have it, there is a fabulous bar in the Phoenix Sky Harbor airport – Four Peaks Brewing Company.

So while I whiled away my time, chatting with the bartender and other patrons, I caught up on email, gobbled up some delicious quesadillas and enjoyed Four Peaks’ Oatmeal Stout and their ¡Odelay!

Mexican Chocolate Ale.

The Stout was cold, dark and delicious, and the Odelay was one of the best beers I’ve had. It had the full body of a dark beer, with the delicious chocolaty taste, punctuated with a kick of spiciness. I knew it was what I’d be ordering when I stopped back on my return.

I also chatted with one of the servers, named Katie, who was kind enough to share this floral half-sleeve:

The arrangement includes orchids, lilies, cherry blossoms and daisies. “I love orchids and lilies,” she told me, adding “I have a fresh orchid in my apartment at all times.”

When I spotted the text on her inner arm, she allowed me take a photo of that, as well:

It reads “We accept the love we think we deserve,” which is a quote from Stephen Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower one of Katie’s favorite books.

She credited her work to Miguel at Body Canvas Tattoo in Phoenix.

I enjoyed my brief respite at Four Peaks and looked forward to stopping back in on my way back to New York. Alas, my return brought me in at the height of the lunch hour. The place was mobbed and I only had a brief layover.

Thanks to Katie and the staff at Four Peaks Brewing Company! Katie, for sharing her awesome tattoos, and Four Peaks, for making a delay in my travels significantly more delicious!

Selasa, 03 Februari 2015

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!

Rabu, 09 Juli 2014

Vince's Half-Sleeve: One Dragon, Lots of Skulls

I met Vince last month on Broadway in Lower Manhattan last month and I asked him about his half sleeve. He was more than willing to share it:

The sleeve includes an old gnarled tree, a dragon clutching a skull, a rose, smoke additional skulls and a moon and stars.

Vince also has this section on his inner bicep:

The playing card, aflame with a skull-faced suicide king, is bright in the center of the inner arm. You also can see another flower with a skull peeking out.

Vince had the dragon inked twenty years ago at The Tattoo Shoppe in Carlstadt, New Jersey, but all of the surrounding work was done by Charlie at Lola's Tattoos in Bogota, New Jersey.

"There's a lot of skulls in there," he told me, "I just like skulls."

Thanks to Vince for taking the time to stop and share his cool tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

Selasa, 24 Juni 2014

Maria Shows Off An Incredible Sleeve by Bugs at the Mermaid Parade

It's always exciting when I find work by artists I admire out on the street, so when I met Maria on Saturday at the Coney Island Mermaid Parade and I learned that her sleeve was by Bugs, I was thrilled:

I love Bugs' take on the Bird of Paradise flower here and the sleeve is punctuated on Maria's fist with this skull:

Bugs works out of L.A., but I've seen him work at the NYC Tattoo Convention and Maria said some of this sleeve was completed when he did some guest spots at a shop in New Jersey. See other work I have featured by Bugs on Tattoosday here.

Thanks to Maria for sharing this great work with us here on Tattoosday!

Minggu, 22 Juni 2014

A Mermaid Welcomes in Summer

Yesterday was the first day of summer and I celebrated by heading out to Coney Island for the annual Mermaid Parade.

This was my second time at the parade, having gone first in 2012, and there are wonderful tattoos everywhere. Here at Tattoosday, we'll be sharing tattoos from the parade over the next couple of weeks.
But let's start with the first person I met along Surf Avenue:

This tattoo belongs to Alix, who was dressed up as a mermaid and had a tattoo to match.

"Any story behind this?" I asked, foolishly.

"That's MY story," Alix replied, "I like mermaids."

She credited this to Alex Rios from Hard Knox Tattoo Studio in Yonkers, New York.

She also had phenomenal work on her back, as well:

Thanks to Alix for sharing her awesome work with us here on Tattoosday!