Ink on 45, Courtesy of Erica (Musician Monday!)

It has been a while since we celebrated "Musician Mondays" here on Tattoosday so, it is with pleasure that we return with a musical tattoo.

Last month I had the pleasure of meeting my wife's cousin Erica for the first time.

She and her girlfriend Moki came over to visit for a small gathering at our home set up to memorialize another cousin who had recently passed away overseas.

And, whereas Moki had significantly more tattoos (we'll see one tomorrow), Erica has only one, and she was kind enough to share it here:

People born in the CD age might not recognize this as a "spider," which was a piece of plastic inserted into the center of small 45-rpm records that allowed them to be played on the small spindles on record players. Records were those things that we, back in the Dark Ages, listened to music on.

Erica currently is the bass player for a band called Poof Pony. She has played in other acts as well, including Turbonegra (a San Francisco-based all-girl tribute band to Norwegian punk band Turbonegro) and punk stalwarts MDC (in the 1990's).

Erica explains how she came by this tattoo:

"I got it done at Temple Tattoo in Oakland - it may have been by Jonah Levin but I wouldn't swear by it ... My friend Kristen had twin hellions that must have been two or three at the time - she had an appointment at Temple and let me know in no uncertain terms that I had a choice - I could either babysit the monsters or go with her to get my own. That meant no choice to me! Since I was turning 45 and love records, the tattoo was a no-brainer. Perhaps I should have thought about it though because quite soon after the ink had settled it was pointed out to me that I had actually put the Spin Magazine logo on my arm and that was just about as cool as getting the Rolling Stones tongue logo (not). I have since seen another bass player with it in exactly the same spot, and it's been confused with being both a swastika and a hazardous waste symbol, which just proves that I don't always run with the brightest crowd."

Thanks to Erica for sharing this iconic tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

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A Moment to Pause and Appreciate Our Children

Camille Boivin, right, Philippe Aumond, left, show their tattoos with their son Jacob, in this undated photo. Click to enlarge. 

There's been a lot of negativity in the news, what with the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut dominating our collective consciousness.

A good friend on Facebook posted Buzzfeed's "26 Moments That Restored Our Faith in Humanity This Year" and #8 caught my attention.

It features two parents who got insulin pumps tattooed on their bellies so that their diabetic child would feel better about his real pump.

Read the whole, heart-warming story here. It's actually dated back in December 2011, but I think it is still important to read life-affirming things when so many of us are focused on tragedy.

Our thoughts and prayers go out, this holiday season, to the families of Newtown, Connecticut.

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.

Caitlin's Faulknerian Tattoo and Language

This past summer, while attending the 2nd Annual New York City Poetry Festival on Governor's Island, I saw a lot of great ink. I have a soft spot for word tattoos, and was drawn to this one, on the back of Caitlin:

This reads, in Latin, "Et ego in Arcadia."

"It's actually grammatically incorrect, but it's as it appears in a Faulkner novel [The Sound and the Fury] ... something Quentin's father says to him," Caitlin told me. "And," she added, "he says it with that wording, but it's really supposed to be Et in Arcadio ego."

Loosely interpreted, she understands it to mean "I am even in paradise."

When I asked her why she had that phrase tattooed on her, Caitlin elaborated:

"It's difficult to say ... I just think, reading Faulkner, when I was a teenager was sort of the first time that I realized what language could do. I thought ... it had certain constraints ... that is part of why I chose the saying from the Faulkner novel, I also liked the idea that ... language is fluid, there aren't really rules to it. We're changing language every day ... It's sort of comforting, walking around New York City and you see, like, all of these signs and they have grammatical errors in them ... it's sort of comforting to think of language as this living, breathing thing."

She had this done at White Rabbit Tattoo Studio in the East Village.

Thanks to Caitlin for sharing this literary 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.

Donna's Hamsa at Max's Bar Mitzvah

You'd think a bar mitzvah would be the last place I'd see interesting tattoos but, over the years, I've posted photos from work that I have encountered at such events. Today we have the third, from my friend Max's bar mitzvah, earlier this month in Brooklyn.

I was at the reception in the evening when I met Donna, who shared this, one of her many tattoos:

Donna credited this to Brian Paul, who works at Kings Avenue Tattoo in Massapequa. He splits his time between Kings Avenue's Long Island and Manhattan locations.

For those unfamiliar with this design, it's called a hamsa, and it is a popular talisman in Middle Eastern cultures, as well as in Judaism.

Donna explained a little bit more about the tattoo:

"By nature I am not a religious person but I am however a touch superstitious. I think it comes from growing up with a Jewish mother and a Jewish grandmother ... I felt like I really wanted something to help keep the 'evil' eye away. I really like the look of a cross but because I am not Christian I felt like it wouldn't be appropriate to get it tattooed on me. I like the clean lines of the hand and the tattoo artist and I personalized the inside of the hand. It took me a few months to get used to having it on my wrist but I absolutely LOVE it now!!! I get a lot of compliments on it." 

Indeed, it's not a huge piece, but it's very well done. I'd expect no less from an artist working at Kings Avenue - they're a top-notch custom shop.

Thanks to Donna for sharing her hamsa 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.

A Chance Encounter with an Amazing Artist (with Brando and Lady Day)

I was getting off of the subway at Bryant Park last June when I spotted Marlon Brando:

This amazing portrait graces the arm of Davinia Do Santo, a tattoo artist from Spain who was visiting New York City and doing a guest spot at White Rabbit Tattoo in the East Village.

She credits this portrait of Marlon Brando to Xavi García Boix, another artist from Valencia, Spain. This iconic image is of a young Brando in the film The Wild One.

When I stopped Davinia, she wasn't alone. Another young woman was accompanying her, and Davinia permitted me to photograph this tattoo, which she had done:

That's the legendary Billie Holiday.

You can check out more of Davinia's amazing work on her website here or on her Facebook page here.

Muchas gracias to Davinia Do Santo for sharing her work 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.

Two Chickens for Tattoosday

I met Amy back in June while walking in Penn Station. She has a lot of tattoos, and offered up these chickens:

Amy told me that she got these from Joanne Martin at the Jade Mermaid Tattoo Parlor in Portland, Oregon. She and a friend were supposed to get the same tattoo. Amy elaborated:

"She [Joanne Martin] was offering the deal that, if [two people] got the same tattoo, it'd be one price for both of them and we [Amy and her friend] decided to get the chickens because we had both sort of raised them. But he 'chickened' out at the last minute ... and I got it anyway. A lot of people seem to like it, especially in Costa Rica. They dug it there."

When I asked if the chickens had names, she confirmed that "one's Esther and one is Henrietta. Pun intended." She concluded, "Everyone has to have one hen named Henrietta."

Thanks to Amy for sharing her chickens with us 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.

Max at the Mermaid Parade - Where the Wild Things Are

It may be December, but I've been spreading out all the tattoos I spotted at last June's Mermaid Parade in Coney Island, and I'm sharing the last in the 2012 series, which also happens to be the last piece I photographed on that wonderful day at the beginning of the summer.

When I saw this guy's tattoo, I just had to stop and ask him about it:

Appropriately, the owner of this tattoo is Max, which is also the name of the boy at the center of Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are, the book upon which this tattoo is based. Mr. Sendak, a Brooklyn native, passed away earlier this year, in May.

Max explained why he got this tattoo:

"I'd been thinking about getting inked for a long time, like for a good five years and no idea stuck for more than six months. And I have, actually, an original printing of the book from 1963. I grew up with a stuffed Max in my crib and it's always been a part of my life. And one day I was just flipping through and for no particular reason came across this image and locked my finger on it: That's going on me. And I let the thought sit for a little while and a little while later got it, that was three or four years ago and never looked back ... The most exciting part of it, oddly enough for a tattoo, was showing it to my mom because in the book the illustration stops right here [at inside of arm] ... I showed her just this inside and just from recognizing the style, she jumped up in her seat and started clapping and yelled out 'Oh I hope it's that I think it is!' It's a very rare mother-tattoo story."

Max had this done by Alex Dawes who works at Skin Deep Tattoo in Lahaina, Maui.

Thanks to Max for sharing this great 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.