Tattoos

Selasa, 09 Juni 2015

Melissa Shares a Kiss That Transcends Life

At the Fifth Avenue Festival in Bay Ridge a couple Sundays ago, I met a couple, Matt and Melissa, who are significantly tattooed.

We'll see Matt's tattoos tomorrow, but today we are checking out this cool tattoo on the back of Melissa's right calf:

These are two Day of the Dead skulls, with roses, caught in an embrace.

The work is by Jessica Lockard from Third Dimension Tattoo Studio in Marshalls Creek, Pennsylvania.

Come back tomorrow to see work by Brian Murphy from Third Dimension on Matt.

In the mean time, thanks to Melissa for sharing this cool tattoo with us here on 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.

Senin, 08 Juni 2015

Nick's Brooklyn Back at the Fifth Avenue Festival

Last week at the Fifth Avenue Festival in Bay Ridge, there was a lot of ink on display for all to see. One of the most impressive things I saw was this back piece on a guy named Nick:

I didn't get all the details on this, but the top of the tattoo reads "King's County Brooklyn" and the bottom reads "Rapid Life." The Brooklyn Bridge spans the center of the back with the Manhattan skyline in the background.

Nick credited the artist Yosh from The Ink Gallery in Staten Island with this amazing back piece. You can see work from Yosh, including this tattoo, in various stages, on his instagram @theinkgallery_tattoo.

Thanks to Nick for sharing this great back piece with us here on Tattoosday!

Jumat, 05 Juni 2015

Tom Cloud's Colorful Ink (The Tattooed Poets Project)

The first tattooed poet of the week for June is Tom Cloud, who is not your typical poet that we generally see here on Tattoosday. Tom can't be found in the pages of literary magazines, but that doesn't disqualify him as a poet. And his tattoos are bright, colorful, and heavy with meaning.

I'll let Tom do all the heavy lifting in this post:

"My name is Tom Cloud and my wife and I own a store in Mountain View, Arkansas called For Mother Earth.

I am 60 years old and write poetry purely for pleasure and for emotional release. I am not published outside of a couple of forgotten vanity press books and an odd website or two.

When my Doctor saw my tats she asked if I was some kind of ' Hindu Sailor'? The truth is that I love Eastern Indian art and mythology. While I do not believe in the Gods as such, each symbolizes an important concept and that is why they were chosen as my tattoos.

The Krsna tat is on my left forearm and represents the Call back to Eternity, and the Peace of the Spirit. On the right forearm is Ganapati... or Ganesha... who is Overcomer of Obstacles and brings wisdom and learning.

On the ankles are anklets made up of lotus flowers, two with the OM inside to represent Everything and two with nothing inside to represent the Silence. They are joined by chains in Sanskrit that read OM SHANTI SHANTI SHANTI, a call to Peace and a reminder for me to walk each step in Peace.

The White Rose is on my left thumb and is for Die Weisse Rose, for the young people who published under that name in resistance to the rise of the Nazi Party and it's precepts and wars as a commitment to speak my Truth about such things in my own times.

All tattoos were done by Dessa Blackthorn, who owns Tattooz By Sassy in Mt. Home, Arkansas."

I really love these tattoos on Tom. He also sent us this poem:

Tao Walker

The Mountain’s so lonely,
that I have to come down…
wandering my way from
the peak to the town.

Through a maze of trails
that are never the same,
finding lost pilgrims,
who are looking for names…

sometimes guiding the pilgrims
toward where they need go, or
telling others they seek for
things I don’t know.

I try to walk quietly-
to learn what I see…
so not to shock Nature from
Her Great Reverie…

Then comes the outskirts, the
sprawling of town…
the bustle picks up, and
the hustle goes down!

Kaleidoscopic, the busy-ness!
It’s always a shock
to enter a Reality of
numbers, of clocks…

they all speak my language
all talking to me, but
I am buffeted by Purposes,
dazed by the Meanings I see…

indeed, Human RACE!
God’s Sacred Zoo!
I absorb this Reality as
equally True.

Then, I reach overload, and
must slip away…
redeemed in the calmness as
I accept my own Way…

at home on the pathways
that wind toward a Peak…
joining lone pilgrims
for a time, as they seek

some golden Grail,
some symbol of Tao
encouraging their searching for
that lost Sacred Cow,

before reaching a cross-road
where I pass them by, to
go my pathless Way
to my home in the sky…

~ ~ ~

Thanks to Tom Cloud for his contribution to the Tattooed Poets Project on 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.

Kamis, 04 Juni 2015

Josh's Slice of Ecstacy

This past Sunday was the 5th Avenue Street Fair in Bay Ridge and there were tattoos a-plenty strolling down the boulevard among the fried food stands, kid attractions and bands playing out of storefronts. The first person I chose to interview was Josh, who had this interesting piece on his upper left arm:

Josh explained that he got this because he really appreciated the art and wanted it as a tattoo. It is based on a painting called "Ecstacy" by Alex Grey, and it was tattooed by Mike Brummett at Top Shelf Tattooing in Bayside, Queens. Here's the work upon which it was based:

You can explore the world of Alex Grey here.

Thanks to Josh for sharing his cool tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

Rabu, 03 Juni 2015

David's Sleeve of Justice

I met David last week after stopping him on Broadway, near Zuccotti Park, in Lower Manhattan.

He and his friends were visiting from Austria and their tattoos prompted me to stop and ask about them.

David's sleeve features Batman and Wonder Woman:

Superman and Green Lantern:

and The Flash:

The work is truly remarkable.

"I wanted a full sleeve with the whole theme," David told me, "and I love Justice League and so I decided to do that."

He had this done over a one and a half year period by the artist Dalia Ibrahim from Tattoo Rot(h)werk in "Iron City," which is really Eisenstadt, in eastern Austria.

Thanks to David for sharing this incredible sleeve with us here on Tattoosday!

Selasa, 02 Juni 2015

Three Tattoos, Three Artists, Courtesy of Alice from New Zealand

I knew Friday was going to be a great day when I got off the subway at Whitehall Street and waiting at the corner was a woman with tattoos named Alice.

Alice is part of our ongoing international theme, as she hails from New Zealand. She was kind enough to share several of her tattoos with us, starting with this portrait of Christoper Plummer from The Sound of Music:

Alice credited Michele McLaughlin at Jackson Street Tattoo in Wellington, New Zealand. She got this because The Sound of Music was her favorite childhood movie.

You may notice a tortoise shell in the lower corner of the photo, which is part of this tattoo just below:

No story there, just that she liked the idea of a sea tortoise. This was done by an artist with the moniker Nursey, from Dr. Morse INC Tattoo, also in Wellington.

Finally, I spotted a feline on Alice's left thigh. I just had to ask:

We're seeing a lot of memorial cat portraits these days. This one is in memory of Alice's tabby Vodie, who was a rescue cat. Kev from Tattoo City in Wellington was the artist who inked this lovely work.

It was great meeting someone from New Zealand, to be sure. I don't recall ever having featured work from that country before, and to find a contributor who had work from three talented artists was quite a bonus for me.

Thanks to Alice for visiting New York City and being so kind as to share her work with us here at Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2015 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!