Jolee's Ghost Light Shines Through the Pandemic

Yesterday, when the world was acknowledging the first anniversary of the delcaration of the COVID-19 pandemic, I was thinking about today, the anniversary of the lights going out on Broadway and in theaters across New York City. 

This was a particularly big deal in our home, as my daughter Jolee is an actor and worked front of house at The Public Theater.

This made me think of an amazing tattoo she got back in 2018, a "ghost light" on her thigh:

Jolee explains:

"A ghost light is an electric light that is left lit on the stage of a theater when the theater is unoccupied and would otherwise be completely dark. The light stands on a wheeled mount, and the bulb sits within a wire cage, and is placed center stage. Ghost lights also have superstitious justifications, as there are countless stories from centuries of theater about ghost lights being left lit to either appease the ghosts of a theater or to scare them away while no one is there to do that themselves."

She adds:

"I chose a ghost light for a variety of reasons. I wanted a commemorative tattoo for the art in which I've dedicated most of my life's work, but also had a sort of ambiguous nature. A deeply personal tattoo, yet also has a universal understanding amongst other artists. I like to think that the light for my love of theater remains lit throughout my life, no matter what happens."

As we look forward to the future, I like to think that the "light at the end of the tunnel" that is just out of reach is a ghost light, illuminating our way to a day when theaters will be open and vibrant again, as actors re-take their stages and bring their art back to life. 

This super cool tattoo was designed and crafted by the incomparable Alex McWatt (@alexthreekings) at Three Kings Tattoo (@threekingstattoo) in Manhattan. Alex has tattooed everyone in our family and his work has appeared numerous times on Tattoosday previously (click here to see what else we've featured).

Thanks to Jolee for sharing her tattoo and words with us here on Tattoosday! I look forward to seeing her on stage in the future, emanating her own light as an actor, and continuing to make me proud.

This entry is ©2021 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.

Repost: Blaise's Sugar Skulll

I wanted to post something appropriate for this, the last day of June, as several million people are anticipated to be celebrating Pride in Manhattan.

This tattoo was spotted back in 2012, and was done by our "family" artist, Alex McWatt (@alexthreekings) , out of Three Kings Tattoo (@threekingstattoo) in Manhattan.

Behold:

I met Blaise on a sunny spring day [in 2012] near the corner of 8th Avenue and 33rd Street.

He has a lot of ink, the majority of which was tattooed by Alex McWatt of Three Kings Tattoo in Brooklyn.

Blaise pointed out the sugar skull in the center of his arm:

This is a sugar skull with a twist - note the rainbow spilling forth from the jaw and, in case you can't tell from the photo, that's a shark riding the rainbow wave.

Blaise singled this out because the tattoo was conceived in partnership with his little sister. It refers to a project they had done together.

Thanks to Blaise for sharing this cool tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2012, 2019 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.

Three for Thursday: Hamsas All Around

Late last year and, at the beginning of this year, three very dear and close people to me got hamsa tattoos. Hamsas are talismans that span cultures and religions and are thought, in some cases, to ward off the evil eye. The symbol has great significance in some aspects of Jewish culture and thus, when my wife, my younger daughter, and one of our closest friends all wanted a hamsa, it happened, one could say almost mystically, in threes.

What's cool about these three hamsas is that they are so different - they are not "matching" tattoos, yet each one is a companion to the others, as they were all crafted and tattooed by the talented Alex McWatt (@alexthreekings) and Three Kings Tattoo (@threekingstattoo) in the East Village.

First up is our dear friend Felicia's, above her inner ankle:

Most hamsas include an eye, and other design elements are included. In Felicia's case, she had Alex add a branch, representing the Tree of Life, the Hebrew word "Chai," and a red heart. Chai also has a lot of meaning in Judaism - it literally means life. Felicia's hamsa is symbolic and has the outline of the traditional protective hand.

My wife Melanie got her hamsa on her inner left forearm: 

Alex McWatt at work on Melanie's hamsa

One of the cool things about hamsas is that, as designs, they can be interpreted in so many different ways. Melanie's is oriented differently than Felicia's and consists solely of the traditional eye and a full Tree of Life, whose branches extend throughout the tattoo:

Last up is my daughter Shayna, whose hamsa is on the outer part of her leg, above the ankle:

Shayna's hamsa has no tree, but holds a "Chai" in its palm, in the middle of a six-sided star, the Jewish Star of David. It is purposely unshaded, except for the blue in the eye, and the three fish on the fingers. Alex used bold thick lines to create a really striking tattoo.

Three women, three hamsas, three different tattoos that hold deep personal meaning to their wearers.

Note I do not have any direct quotes from Felicia, Melanie, or Shayna. Meaning is interpreted differently, and it is hard to say "this means this" and "that means that," when the tattoos possess a higher spiritual significance.

You can see a half-dozen or so other hamsas featured on Tattoosday over the years here.

Thanks to Melanie, Shayna and Felicia for sharing, and to Alex McWatt, who continues to amaze us with his work!

This entry is ©2018 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.

Remembering Beth, One Year Later

A year ago today, our family was shocked to learn that our cousin Beth had passed unexpectedly over night.

Although she was my wife Melanie's cousin, Beth's personality and caring nature had endeared her to me and to m y children, as well. But that was who Beth was, she drew you in. She cared. She was family.

Beth and I bonded over tattoos and she first appeared on Tattoosday in 2011 in this post that featured a Yankees logo shaded with the stars and stripes.

Last year I had taken a photo of her most recent tattoo, but didn't post it when she was still alive. But when I did post it at the end of the year, I was able to follow it the next day with my wife Melanie's lovely tribute tattoo for her here.

My younger daughter, Shayna, was a kindred spirit with Beth, as their love of the New York Yankees was a common thread that they shared.

Shayna turned eighteen earlier this year and did not wait long to get her first tattoo.

She chose to take the opportunity to honor Beth by replicating the tattoo we all knew and loved on the same spot that Beth had hers. Shayna's new tattoo is below, with Beth's below that:

Shayna's tattoo was inked by Alex McWatt from Three Kings Tattoo in the East Village.

Shayna sat like a champ, as they say, and I know that Beth would have been proud of her and tickled to see her honoring her this way.

She was taken from us too soon. We have the memories, but Melanie and Shayna also have the tattoos that serve as tributes for our cousin who lit up the room with her smile and brought everyone together.

We miss you Beth!

This entry is ©2017 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.

We Are TEN!

Ten years ago today, Tattoosday was born out of BillyBlog.

A decade and 2078 posts later, we are approaching 4 million page views and still puttering along.

Alex McWatt at Three Kings helped me ring in my 50th year on earth, and 10th year of Tattoosday with this custom-designed eagle with a New York City theme.

Stay tuned as we celebrate our tenth year with lots of fun stuff, including visits from some old friends.

Thanks to you, our loyal readers and contributors, who have been so kind to us over the last decade!

This entry is ©2017 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.

Melanie's Jacaranda-monium

Anyone familiar with the jacaranda tree knows how beautiful they can be. It is this time of year in Southern California, in the months of May and June, when they explode into bursts of purple blossoms that are simply breathtaking.

It only seemed fitting that my wife Melanie, who loves jacarandas, feature them in her next tattoo, and this was the end result:

Here's a closer look:

Melanie elaborated a little more on what inspired her to fill her arm with jacarandas:

"First of all, I love purple. And when I got the purple flower tattooed on my ankle, I realized purple looks really good on my skin.

Also, they remind me of our time in California where we met, the college campus where I met my husband, and so many of my friends, and Pasadena, the only place I really liked living in California.

It was on my list, there were two or three other ideas I really wanted. I knew I wanted this one.

Since I've gotten this, talking to people who were familiar with jacarandas from South Africa, which we only discovered was a place they grew while researching them. This makes me want to go there and visit."

One of the sources for inspiration was this street in Pasadena, Del Mar Boulevard:

This lovely tattoo was done by the incomparable Alex McWatt (@alexthreekings) at Three Kings Tattoo (@threekingstattoo) in Manhattan.

He met with Melanie to discuss the concept and just ran with it, turning this:

into the explosion of purple on Melanie's arm, with the finest attention to details:

Thanks to Alex at Three Kings for another great tattoo, and to Melanie for sharing her jacarandas with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2017 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.

Revisiting My Friday the 13th Tattoo from 2012....

Well, it's Friday the 13th, and I'm travelling today, but I though it would be cool to go back five years, to 2012, and revisit the time I got one of my Friday the 13th tattoos:

People familiar with Tattoosday have seen my Friday the 13th tattoo posts. [As of 2012], Melanie has two and I have one, and I remember watching enviously when she got her first (here), but it was her birthday, so it didn't make sense for me to get one then.

Someone commented on the site back then that I should check out Three Kings Tattoo in Brooklyn, that we wouldn't have to have to wait all day like at Dare Devil, but when the next opportunity came along, we were already looking at Hand of Glory, which was a little closer to home. 

This past January, we missed our chance and as our turned out, HOG was packed and a late arrival would have been for naught.

But there are three Friday the Thirteenths this year, and in April, I called Three Kings. "Sorry," I was told, "we're not doing it this month." Well, I thought, there's always July.

However, it didn't look good for July. My company is closing and as head of Human Resources, I have been coordinating and overseeing layoffs. We had twenty separations scheduled for Friday the Thirteenth.

I didn't want to wait until next May, so I reached out to Alex Mcwatt at Three Kings to see if maybe they could squeeze me in. Not really following the first-come first-served rule, but I thought having showed his work on Tattoosday before (here, here, and here) and showcasing a lot of work from  the other amazingly talented artists at the shop (a full history here), he might consider it. The worst he could do was say no, right?

Alex promptly replied, but he had an unexpected response. My heart sank when he told me they were no longer doing the event. However, he did say he would tattoo me with a piece of old flash if I wanted, just without the Friday the Thirteenth mayhem.

I was, as you might imagine, completely stoked. I got why they decided to stop doing the event. most likely why Hand of Glory also skipped this month as well. Its a great deal if you want a cheap tattoo experience, but who can blame artists for tiring quickly of people wanting cheap experiences? Especially when many of the people getting these novelty items were not always loyal customers, but merely bargain hunters who would only show up once or twice a year to zip in, zip out, and that was that. I totally got it.

It just so happened we were in the neighborhood last Sunday, so Melanie and I stopped in to meet Alex and nail down the details. We confirmed I'd come in on Friday, after a brutal day of work, and I'd pick something off the walls. I had also invited Alex to draw up something new, if he wanted, and that I would be very open and receptive to it, as long as it didn't "gross out my daughters or piss off my wife".

I had once been told by someone I once interviewed that he liked to go into a shop, ask an artist what they were drawing, and ask for that to be tattooed on them, if he dug the art. The concept is, an artist will be much more excited about doing something new and fresh than doing something they modified or have done before. The more enthusiastic the artist is about the design, I believe, the more care and passion they'll put into their work. That's not to say they'll do a poor job on an old piece, but they'll be happier doing something more interesting, and that can only positively impact the final product.

So, I arrived on schedule Friday and Alex showed me something new he has drawn up, a profile of a knight in armor. Way cool. I love the image and I immediately started relating to it. My name, "William," has etymological roots in Europe and derives from Wilhelm, which is a compound of will (or desire) and helm (protection).

I had also been doing some work earlier in the week, looking at my family ancestry on my mother's side. I descend from Englishmen on one branch of the family tree and the Scottish clan Graham on another branch. The design, which he had only recently drawn up resonated with me. When I told Alex this, he nodded and said, "it was in the ether".

From his perspective, when they had been toying with the idea of doing more Friday the 13th flash, Alex said he had been considering drawing from Masonic and the Knights Templar. There's a lot of 13 imagery in those deep mysterious traditions, and back in 1307, there was even an infamous event when a French king had many of the knights arrested on Friday, October 13. See the 13's in the date? I am oversimplifying here, but these arrests led to a wave of anti-templar frenzy in Europe and in the Catholic Church. Many of these knights were tortured and executed, and that initial date of Friday the 13th has often been cited as one of the earliest example of the superstition surrounding the unlucky thirteenth day.

But, I digress. Let's cut to the chase. Alex did a phenomenal job:

This is just above my right ankle, on the outer side of my leg. The lines and shading are brilliant. The photo above was taken by Alex on my Samsung Galaxy IIs, so it is still a little bloody, but you can see what a great job he did. 

Thanks again, from the bottom of my heart, to Alex McWatt, for making this an awesome Friday the Thirteenth to remember!

This entry is ©2012, 2017 Tattoosday.

If you are reading 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 Sugar Skull for Beth

Yesterday we shared our late cousin Beth's tattoo (here).

After her funeral, my wife Melanie was talking with her tattoo artist Thomas "Thomi Hawk" Hickey, and she knew she wanted a new tattoo paying tribute to her cousin.

Although she would have loved to have something from Thomi, it was logistically challenging, as we do not have a car and Thomi works out of New Jersey. The idea for a tribute evolved to include several ideas and, eventually, Melanie knew what she wanted. The question was, who would be the best artist for the job?

In the end, the answer was simple, and we headed back to Three Kings Tattoo in the East Village to meet with Alex McWatt, the artist who did Melanie's previous tattoo,

She consulted with him first to come up with a basic concept and talk about the elements she wanted incorporated into the piece, and then a few weeks later, she was back in the shop, with that old familiar sound of a tattoo machine buzzing in her ear.

Alex McWatt in Action

And when she first saw it, she was pleased:

This is the tattoo, as it was first completed:

And a healed version, from a different angle:

Melanie wanted a Sugar Skull to honor Beth. Beth's favorite holiday was Halloween, and the sugar skull is associated with the Mexican celebration of Día de los Muertos, which coincides with Halloween,and All Saints' Day in early November, when people gather together to remember, honor and celebrate friends and family members who have died.

Because we are Jewish, Alex replaced the cross often found in sugar skulls with a Star of David. The paw print in the middle of the star is an homage to Beth and her wrist tattoo, shared yesterday, which Alex used as a reference to add to the design.

Melanie also asked for the spider, perched on top of the rose, also as a nod to Beth and her love of Halloween. One of Beth's sisters told us that, when they went to Beth's house after the funeral, there were a lot of spiders around the house, and that they had never noticed spiders there before.

Melanie loves her new tattoo and wears it proudly as a fitting tribute to Beth.

Thanks to Alex at Three Kings, who we cannot praise enough, for his fine work.

We miss you Beth, but Melanie's sugar skull makes us smile and think of you. We know you'd love it too.

This entry is ©2016 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.

Melanie's Birthday Rose

When my wife said she wanted a new tattoo for her birthday, which fell on Friday the 13th this year, I was eager to help. She was born on s Friday the 13th and, after her father counted all her fingers and toes and determined she had the correct amount, 13 became her lucky number.

The last time her birthday fell on Friday the 13th was back in 2009 and I documented it here. I'm guessing she will be getting another one the next time it rolls around in 2020.

Anyway, I wanted to surprise her, because spending an entire day getting one of the typical Friday the 13th specials is worth doing once (or maybe twice), but it can be tiring. I also knew that she would prefer to get inked by a good artist, one that she was familiar with, and not necessarily in the chaotic setting of a bargain flash frenzy.

So I reached out to Alex McWatt, from Three Kings Tattoo, a shop that has stopped doing these events, but had churned out some of the better Friday the 13th designs in the past.

Alex tattooed my second Friday the 13th piece back in 2012 (documented here) and I loved it. Melanie met him at the time, as well, so she was familiar with him and his top-notch work.

So I contacted Alex and he had me coordinate with Antonio, from their new Manhattan shop, and the plans were set in motion. I gave some general ideas to Antonio to pass on to Alex, and we set up a time to come by on the 13th.

After a birthday dinner with our daughter and one of her college friends on 1st Avenue, we strolled around the East Village and Melanie wondered where we were headed. Since Three Kings opened up last summer in Manhattan, she had no idea where we were headed. When we walked past East Side Ink, I said "Nope, not there."

As we neared the shop, I realized why the address was familiar - they had taken over the space where Thicker Than Water had been, Melanie and I had both been tattooed there when it was under different management.

When we reached the shop, she saw it was Three Kings, and then saw that Alex was there, she was grinning. She knew she was going to get something good, and from an artist she knew.

Alex brought out a sheet with 4 designs on it - a traditional skull with Friday the 13th themes, an osprey, a fierce tiger exhaling a 13 of smoke, and a rose.

After some wavering between two of the designs, Melanie decided on the rose for her outside left ankle (she has another flower on her right ankle).

So, Alex set to work, laying on the stencil:

and then outlining it:

Alex was great, working quickly  and efficiently:

Until we had the finished product:

Wait, you may be wondering, what makes this a Friday the 13th tattoo?

This lovely rose has thirteen leaves.

Melanie was extremely pleased with her birthday rose and we loved the atmosphere in the shop. She's already talking about going back to Alex for more work, and I don't think she wants to wait until 2020.

Thanks to Alex and all the staff at Three Kings in Manhattan for helping make Melanie's tattoo birthday surprise a great one!

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.

A New Tattoo on Friday the 13th, or, the Templar of My Familiar

People familiar with Tattoosday have seen my Friday the 13th tattoo posts. Melanie has two and I have one, and I remember watching enviously when she got her first (here), but it was her birthday, so it didn't make sense for me to get one then.

Someone commented on the site back then that I should check out Three Kings Tattoo in Brooklyn, that we wouldn't have to have to wait all day like at Dare Devil, but when the next opportunity came along, we were already looking at Hand of Glory, which was a little closer to home. 

This past January, we missed our chance and as our turned out, HOG was packed and a late arrival would have been for naught.

But there are three Friday the Thirteenths this year, and in April, I called Three Kings. "Sorry," I was told, "we're not doing it this month." Well, I thought, there's always July.

However, it didn't look good for July. My company is closing and as head of Human Resources, I have been coordinating and overseeing layoffs. We had twenty separations scheduled for Friday the Thirteenth.

I didn't want to wait until next May, so I reached out to Alex Mcwatt at Three Kings to see if maybe they could squeeze me in. Not really following the first-come first-served rule, but I thought having showed his work on Tattoosday before (here, here, and here) and showcasing a lot of work from  the other amazingly talented artists at the shop (a full history here), he might consider it. The worst he could do was say no, right?

Alex promptly replied, but he had an unexpected response. My heart sank when he told me they were no longer doing the event. However, he did say he would tattoo me with a piece of old flash if I wanted, just without the Friday the Thirteenth mayhem.

I was, as you might imagine, completely stoked. I got why they decided to stop doing the event. most likely why Hand of Glory also skipped this month as well. Its a great deal if you want a cheap tattoo experience, but who can blame artists for tiring quickly of people wanting cheap experiences? Especially when many of the people getting these novelty items were not always loyal customers, but merely bargain hunters who would only show up once or twice a year to zip in, zip out, and that was that. I totally got it.

It just so happened we were in the neighborhood last Sunday, so Melanie and I stopped in to meet Alex and nail down the details. We confirmed I'd come in on Friday, after a brutal day of work, and I'd pick something off the walls. I had also invited Alex to draw up something new, if he wanted, and that I would be very open and receptive to it, as long as it didn't "gross out my daughters or piss off my wife".

I had once been told by someone I once interviewed that he liked to go into a shop, ask an artist what they were drawing, and ask for that to be tattooed on them, if he dug the art. The concept is, an artist will be much more excited about doing something new and fresh than doing something they modified or have done before. The more enthusiastic the artist is about the design, I believe, the more care and passion they'll put into their work. That's not to say they'll do a poor job on an old piece, but they'll be happier doing something more interesting, and that can only positively impact the final product.

So, I arrived on schedule Friday and Alex showed me something new he has drawn up, a profile of a knight in armor. Way cool. I love the image and I immediately started relating to it. My name, "William," has etymological roots in Europe and derives from Wilhelm, which is a compound of will (or desire) and helm (protection).

I had also been doing some work earlier in the week, looking at my family ancestry on my mother's side. I descend from Englishmen on one branch of the family tree and the Scottish clan Graham on another branch. The design, which he had only recently drawn up resonated with me. When I told Alex this, he nodded and said, "it was in the ether".

From his perspective, when they had been toying with the idea of doing more Friday the 13th flash, Alex said he had been considering drawing from Masonic and the Knights Templar. There's a lot of 13 imagery in those deep mysterious traditions, and back in 1307, there was even an infamous event when a French king had many of the knights arrested on Friday, October 13. See the 13's in the date? I am oversimplifying here, but these arrests led to a wave of anti-templar frenzy in Europe and in the Catholic Church. Many of these knights were tortured and executed, and that initial date of Friday the 13th has often been cited as one of the earliest example of the superstition surrounding the unlucky thirteenth day.

But, I digress. Let's cut to the chase. Alex did a phenomenal job:

This is just above my right ankle, on the outer side of my leg. The lines and shading are brilliant. The photo above was taken by Alex on my Samsung Galaxy IIs, so it is still a little bloody, but you can see what a great job he did. 

I also got the opportunity to further support the shop by purchasing t-shirts for me and Melanie - it was her consolation for not getting new Friday the 13th ink.

I got this classic Dan Trochio-designed tee:

photo courtesy of Three Kings Tattoo (that's not me modeling)

and I got Melanie this cool new shirt designed by Josh Egnew:

photo courtesy of Three Kings Tattoo (that's not Melanie modeling)

You can check out a lot of other cool merchandise at the shop here. 

I found the shop clean, friendly, and I saw some amazing work being done. The line-up of artists in house is one of the most talented groups in New York City. I would highly, HIGHLY recommend Three Kings to anyone looking for great custom work in Brooklyn.

Thanks again, from the bottom of my heart, to Alex McWatt, for making this an awesome Friday the Thirteenth to remember!

This entry is ©2012 Tattoosday.

If you are reading 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.

Remembering the King of Pop, Three Years Later

It's hard to believe that it has been three years since Michael Jackson's tragic passing. It only seems fitting that we pay our respects by sharing this tattoo, which illustrates the King of Pop in one of his most famous incarnations: a zombie in Michael Jackson's Thriller.

This piece belongs to Bjorn, who I met earlier this month, out on the Coney Island boardwalk.

The tattoo is inked by Alex McWatt at Three Kings Tattoo in Brooklyn. It was part of one of their Friday the 13th tattoo extravaganzas.

Thanks to Bjorn for sharing this timely tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

And just because it is such a timeless video, here is Michael Jackson's Thriller:

 

This entry is ©2012 Tattoosday. The video is (C) 1982 MJJ Productions Inc.

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.

Blaise & A Unique Sugar Skull

I met Blaise on a sunny spring day near the corner of 8th Avenue and 33rd Street.

He has a lot of ink, the majority of which was tattooed by Alex McWatt of Three Kings Tattoo in Brooklyn.

Blaise pointed out the sugar skull in the center of his arm:

This is a sugar skull with a twist - note the rainbow  spilling forth from the jaw and, in case you can't tell from the photo, that's a shark riding the rainbow wave.

Blaise singled this out because the tattoo was conceived in partnership with his little sister. It refers to a project they had done together.

Thanks to Blaise for sharing this cool tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2012 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.

The Tattooed Poets Project: Meredith S's Interpretation of a Russian Prison Tattoo

As the end of National Poetry Month approaches, I find myself in an enviable position: too many poets' tattoos, too few days. So, I've decided to "double up" and make today a "Two for Tattoosday". I have also realized that this Tattooed Poets Series will have to continue, in one form or another, above and beyond National Poetry Month. Stay tuned for more details.

In the mean time, Meredith S., a poet from Brooklyn, sent in the following photo:


I know, I know, you can't see the whole piece in that shot, but it's pretty cool, and you can get some detail on the sparrow. Here's a more traditional shot:


Meredith explains:

"I happen to love tattoos as a intimately personal expression of ourselves...

[This] ... is an interpretation of a Russian prison tattoo that families and lovers got when they were separated by prisons and Stalin's concentration camps. The tattoo is a traditional pair of swallows holding a three-piece banner with the Russian acronyms: tomsk (a city in Russia); vino (wine); omyt (whirlpool). The acronyms stand for: you alone have my heart; come back and stay forever; it is hard to leave me.

Alex McWatt at Three Kings Tattoo did an amazing job at putting all the elements together. I decided to get this tattoo after losing most of my family members, but mainly after my mother, who is a drug addict, disappeared from my life 5 years ago."

Meredith also submitted a poem about her mother that she composed after seeing a prison mugshot of her a couple of years ago. That poem is posted here on BillyBlog.

Alex McWatt has had work appearing before on Tattoosday, here.