Tattoos

Minggu, 05 Januari 2014

Familiar Ink: Meister Returns to Tattoosday with an Awesome NYC Tattoo

There's something therapeutic about running posts of work I spotted over the summer. The warmth from these encounters is brightening these winter days.

Case in point, on a bike ride out to Coney Island, I was cruising along the boardwalk when I spotted a woman on a bench, reading a book. She had tattoos so, naturally, I stopped.

It was after I introduced myself that she recognized me, and I saw the sparrows on the backs of her calves. This was Meister, who had contributed back in January 2012 here.

Meister blogs at The Nervous Cook and is a food writer and coffee columnist. Now, she is a repeat subject on Tattoosday. I first met her in December 2011 on 23rd Street and 7th Avenue in Manhattan. Here we were, 19 months later, in another borough and another season.

What would have been impossible to see in the winter, was now visible in the summer, and Meister rolled up her shorts and shared this awesome tattoo on her thigh:

This is, if you look at it closely, an aerial view of world-famous Central Park. Meister explained:

"It's a map of Central Park, with some birds, and a little squirrely-o ... I love Central Park, it's my favorite part of New York City and I wanted to honor it ...it's my home. And on the other [thigh] I plan to get a lake in my husband's home town, which is Oklahoma City, to finish it off, my last piece, but I've been hesitating because it will be my last piece of work..."

In addition to the red-tailed hawk and the New York City pigeon, there's a peacock because, as Meister explained, "I was running past the park the day that the peacock escaped" from the Central Park Zoo. You can re-visit that newsworthy event here.

Like her previous work featured here, Meister had this done by Myles Karr. If you're going to stick with one artist, Myles is among the best to choose from. He's currently with the amazing shop Three Kings Tattoo, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Myles and the good people at Three Kings have had work featured on Tattoosday many times before. Click here to see everything from Myles on Tattoosday and here to see all the work from Three Kings we've showcased.

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.

Sabtu, 04 Januari 2014

Three Views of Byron's Leg (from the 4th Annual Urban Tattoo Convention)

Yes, we're still working on summer posts, like this one from Byron, who shared some work done on his leg:

Byron told me that the section of teeth and eyes was done freehand.

He also told me that the skull with tentacles was based on his own sketch.

All of this incredible work was done at Inked City Tattoo in Trenton, New Jersey. The artist is Marco Rodriguez, and it took about a year to complete.

Thanks to Byron for sharing this incredible work with us here on Tattoosday!

Rabu, 01 Januari 2014

Out with the Old, In with the New

Nothing new to share today, other than this link to Buzzfeed's "Top Tattoo Designs Of 2013 According To Pinterest"

via Buzzfeed via Flickr: whitneyarlene

A great way to start 2014!

Jumat, 27 Desember 2013

Alfredo's Back Piece Honors Mexican History (from the 4th Annual NYC Urban Tattoo Convention)

One of our lost posts of the summer was from the NYC Urban Tattoo Convention. I met a guy named Alfredo who shared this back piece:

Alfredo explained, “It’s all Mexican history … all about independence about Mexico … from Aztecs … to the independence from Spain.”

He credited Marco Rodriguez from Inked City Tattoo in Trenton, New Jersey with this amazing work.

Thanks to Alfredo for sharing this with us here on Tattoosday!

Minggu, 15 Desember 2013

Barred For Life: An Encounter and A Tattoosday Book Review

As a Gen-X child, the Black Flag bars are familiar to me. I’ll be honest, I was never a huge fan, but I had friends that were, coming of age in the 1980’s.

I remember first seeing Black Flag on film in the groundbreaking The Decline of Western Civilization, screened at the University of Hawaii Physical Science Auditorium, whose film series had a cult following among teens in Honolulu in the early 80’s. It was there that I saw Rocky Horror (many times), Ralph Bakshi’s Wizards, Russ Meyer's Up!, The Song Remains the Same, and the Black Sabbath/Blue Oyster Cult concert film, Black and Blue.

And, Decline.

The film didn’t shake my core like it did many of my friends, but my middle-aged memory cites it as my first encounter with Black Flag. Their emblematic bars found their way onto my notebooks, sharing the doodling of metal band names and logos. The bars remind me of adolescence and rebellion.

Other people’s rebellion, not mine, mind you.

I won’t claim to be someone I’m not, or someone I wasn’t.

I don’t have any Black Flag tattoos on me, and I never will.

This past summer, on my way to a job interview, I was in lower Manhattan in a suit on a sweltering day when I met Harley, a woman with a lot of ink. I had a few minutes before my interview and asked her about her work. She showed me her back:

Running into Harley and having her share this tattoo seemed fortuitous, as I had just received a copy of Barred for Life in the mail. Subtitled “How Black Flag’s Signature Logo Became Punk Rock’s Secret Handshake,” this book was on my list of titles to review, and there had just been several events in New York celebrating its release.

I envisioned a big post, combining Harley’s tattoo and the review. This is that post (obviously), but just fashionably late to the party.

A word first about Harley’s tattoo, which she credited to Troy Denning at Invisible NYC. Harley told me, when I asked her why she got the "Rise Above" tattoo, simply, “to rise above.” She added later, “And to … let nothing keep you down...”

As for Barred for Life, I can’t think of a more compelling gift for someone who is either a 1) punk/hardcore fan; or 2) a fan of simple tattoos that mean a whole lot. So, if you know someone looking to use a bookstore gift card this holiday season, tell them to special order this book.

Let’s face it, the Bars are fairly rudimentary – four rectangular blocks offset in equidistant parallel orientation. Barred for Life unveils a wide array of variations on the tattoo, which anchors album art and other punk sentiment. The really compelling aspect of each tattoo is that of the interview that accompanies it.

We get an inside view into the minds of people who have been “barred for life,” including the fan’s relationship with the band, the story behind the tattoo (right up our alley!), and the favorite singer/song/album trifecta. We’re also treated to interviews with current and former band members, with Henry Rollins noticeably absent.

The scope of this volume is magnificent. The number of people who are “barred for life” is staggering, just based on this sampling alone. Think of the thousands of others who have been similarly branded – where a tattoo of a band logo goes above and beyond one’s appreciation of the group itself.

That said, this is more than just a tattoo book – it’s a chronicle of a mindset, a visual exploration of a family that united around a symbol that inserted itself as a logo of a punk band, and evolved into a cultural icon.

Thanks to Harley for sharing her Black Flag tattoo with us here on Tattoosday, and to Stewart Dean Ebersole for putting together such a great chronicle of bars tattoos.

More info on the book here.

Kamis, 28 November 2013

Thanksgiving Re-Post: A Holiday Tattoo from 2010

Every year at Thanksgiving, I am thankful for many things, with my lovely wife and two amazing daughters at the top of the list. My new job cracks the top five this year, although it might appear as though my intense love of this blog is suffering as a result. As I've said before, you, the readers out there in the world, are also people for whom I am thankful. Mahalo, as they say in my childhood home, for visiting often.

Posts have been few and far between, I realize, this fall. Nonetheless, I wanted to celebrate the holiday with this post from Thanksgiving 2010, slightly edited, which appeared here.

Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

In honor of the holiday, I am sharing this, my newest tattoo, located above my knee on my right thigh:

This was done at Hand of Glory in Brooklyn yesterday as part of the shop's $75 Thanksgiving Tattoo Special ...

For those of you just tuning in, check the pre-post here, which includes all the Thanksgiving flash designed for the occasion. I asked readers to vote on which tattoo to get, and this one sneaked out a narrow victory over the traditional Native American profile.

I like this design because it combines a lot of traditional tattoo elements and delivers an image with a sociopolitical subtext. We have the traditional American flag and handshake designs, but the added element of crossed fingers serves as a reminder that, despite apparent good intentions, there was subsequently a historical betrayal of that initial good will.

But that's just one perspective, of course, and the Thanksgiving holiday focuses on the positive in our society. The mere existence of the tattoo reminds me to be thankful, which I alluded to in my original post.

I was fortunate enough to have BJ as my artist again. He had inked my Friday the 13th tattoo last August, and I appreciate that he works quickly and concisely.

BJ at Work

It was nice, also, that this design was one of his contributions to the flash sheet, as he was kind enough to embellish slightly on the original design, and it always seems better when an artist is tattooing his or her own design. As for the idea behind it, he was trying to represent graphically a broken treaty. I'm extremely pleased with the end result.
...

I want to thank all of the readers who voted for designs, and for everyone who reads and supports the site.

And thanks again to ... BJ at Hand of Glory, and to my family, at home in Brooklyn and across the U.S., for their support

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 can contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

Minggu, 17 November 2013

Jeff Shares Some Amazing Work by Caesar Tattoo

Last Sunday, I met a guy named Jeff at my local laundromat, where I happen to meet a lot of the contributors to Tattoosday, it seems.

Jeff has a ton of work, including neck tattoos and some amazing black and gray sleeves. Turns out tattoos were created by Caesar, an amazing artist who works out of New York City.

He allowed me to grab a few samples of his work:

And this spine running down the length of his arm:

Unfortunately, these photos really don't do the work justice, but I was able to find some of the work on his Facebook page here.

You can check out more of this amazing artist's portfolio at Caesar Tattoo in Manhattan's East Village. Our friends at Needles & Sins ran a short profile of Caesar here. Jeff even told me that some of his work has ended up in one of Marisa Kakoulas' black and gray tattoo compendia.

You can see an even more extensive collection of Caesar's work on his Facebook page here.

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