Tattoosday (A Tattoo Blog): East River Tattoo

Showing posts with label East River Tattoo. Show all posts

Monday, September 10, 2018

Black And Grey on The D Train (Tattoosday Plays the Alphabet Game)

Continuing on our subway journey (the whole trip is summarized here) ...

Next up is the D train.

At 9:36 A.M., I got off the C train at West 4th Street to transfer to a D train.

At 9:43 A.M., I got on a northbound D train.

After just two minutes, I met Mike, who shared a trio of tattoos that are really quite good, all from East River Tattoo (@EastRiverTattoo):

Actually some of the work at East River, like the scorpion above, was done by a visiting artist. The scorpion was done by Spider Sinclair (@spidersinclaire), who works out of Two Hands Tattoo (@twohandstattoo) in Auckland, New Zealand.

Then there's this neat skull and fern design, by Mike Adams (@mikeadamstattoo), currently out of Frederick, Maryland.

Last was this piece, proclaiming "Life's Short" and burning the candle at both ends:

This was done by Duke Riley (@dukerileystudio), one of East River Tattoo's resident artists.

Thanks to Mike for sharing his awesome tattoos with us on the subways!

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.

Thursday, November 16, 2017

Rebekah Crossing the Bridge

I met Rebekah back in June at Bowling Green in lower Manhattan. I spotted this interesting tattoo on her arm and she was kind enough to share it with us:

Rebekah credits the super-talented Sue Jeiven (@sweetsuetattoo) from East River Tattoo (@eastrivertattoo) with the work here. Rebekah designed and sketched it and Sue "improved and put her artistic spin" on the drawing.

She told me that the piece depicts her and her partner on a bridge, which one crosses to "find your truer self." They are symbolically crossing the bridge together and he is sporting antlers because the deer is his spirit animal.

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

Wednesday, April 19, 2017

Christina Quintana on the Tattooed Poets Project

Our next tattooed poet is Christina Quintana:

This is a cool photo, in which you can see two of Christina's tattoos. Let's let Christina explain while we take a closer look:

"My first tattoo was all about being in the present.

I'm a terribly nostalgic person, so I'm constantly trying to be here now. I'm also obsessed with mail (see: The Perpetual Postcard Project). I wanted to make my tattoo a mail stamp that appeared to have been sent, like you see on postcards past and present. The date reflects the date I got the tattoo and where I was: New York, NY. When I first got the tattoo, my therapist joked (since I'm a gender non-confirming person), you're officially 'mail'!

I chose the buffalo grazing on the notepad because the bison is my spirit animal. It may sound silly, but my whole life I have revered these creatures. As a small, high energy person, there is something about the bison's formidable size and peacefulness that has always awed me. When thinking about the tattoo, I loved the juxtaposition of this animal I adore alongside my passion/career-- a reminder to keep steady along this wild life journey.

Sue (@sweetsuetattoo) from East River Tattoo (@eastrivertattoo), a fantastic shop out in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, is the artist of both of my tattoos. I'm dreaming on a third and will likely go back to her. I can't recommend her enough if you're looking for an original black and white. She was so jazzed about getting the draft right for my bison--it was wonderful. We named him Mortimer right there in the shop!"

I can't agree with Christina more. I actually met Sue Jeiven in Penn Station back in 2011 and featured one of her tattoos here and some of her work in 2013 here.

Christina also shared the following poem:

Other Off

Wouldn’t you love to unzip

your other off,

like a whisp of smoke,

when no one was looking?

You wonder,

Which parts can you peel off,

Like a mask,

And which parts are permanent.

What is

Passing?

What is

Choice?

I’d like to be done with

the ideas you

have about me

and what you

say is my “lifestyle”

but is really my life.

I’d like to believe

you weren’t looking

pale when

my partner

and I kissed

across the table

from you

and your fiancé.

I’d like to know

that we are equals,

and really believe it.

~ ~ ~

Christina Quintana is a New York-based writer with Cuban and Louisiana roots. She is the author of the poetry chapbook, The Heart Wants (Finishing Line Press 2016). Her poetry and prose has appeared in Front Porch Journal, Saw Palm, Foglifter, and Nimrod International Journal, among others. For more, visit cquintana.com.

Thanks to Christina for contributing to the Tattooed Poets Project on 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.

Thursday, March 24, 2016

Kylie's Lobster Welcomes in Spring

We here at Tattoosday have been clinging to a dwindling backlog of 2015 tattoos, so it was a true delight when the thermometer cracked 60 degrees yesterday in New York City.

Aside from the obvious comfort factor, for the inkspotter, there is the added bonus of seeing everyone's tattoos return to visibility after several months of hiding under winter jackets.

Our first spring offering was spotted on Kylie, on the Whitehall Street subway platform. Behold this fantastic tattoo:

This spectacular lobster was inked by Rob Banks out of East River Tattoo in Brooklyn. East River never disappoints with the work their talented artists produce and this lobster is really beautifully done.

Kylie seemed to have a nautical theme going around her upper left arm and I am gratefully she shared this with us. She grew up near the beach, so this tattoo helps embrace that upbringing.

Thank you, Kylie, for sharing your lobster tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

Saturday, January 3, 2015

Repost: Lizz's Tattoo Anchors Her to Her Brother

Something about this post from 2009 jumped out at me, so I thought I'd re-run it today.

~ ~ ~

One of the things that I love most about writing Tattoosday is the way New York City plays a significant role in the narrative. It may not be a blog about New York, but it would be a much different one without this city I call my home.

This is one of those posts that is tied to the fabric of New York.

This evening, I was taking advantage of a free ticket to see a revival of Guys and Dolls at the Nederlander Theater, which is still in preview and opens March 1st.

I was standing in line outside, about twenty minutes before curtains. The theater, on the south side of West 41st Street, faces the back of the New Amsterdam Theater to the north.

There were assorted people milling about across the street, folks I assumed were crew from Mary Poppins, outside having their last cigarettes before their show started.

I spotted a woman who had exited the theater and saw, from across the street, that she had a tattoo on her right forearm. I was doing nothing but standing in line anyway, so I crossed over 41st Street to say hello.

Lizz, who works as a dresser, was more than happy to share her tattoo:

What's remarkable about this traditional-style anchor tattoo is that she had it done at the same time, on the same spot, and with the same design as her younger brother.

For Lizz, this was her most recent, her nineteenth tattoo. For her brother, five years her junior, it was his first.

The piece is based on the state flag of Rhode Island, where Lizz grew up:

Tattoos in general have significant meaning for their bearers. When the same design in shared, and the act of being tattooed is similarly experienced, the emotional charge instilled in the work is compounded.

Another example of siblings sharing a tattoo can be seen here.

Lizz told me that she doesn't rely on one artist, but that her ink has come from different shops all over the country.

This tattoo was created at Cherry Bomb Tattoo (now known as East River Tattoo) in Brooklyn by the artist Duke Riley. Work from Cherry Bomb has appeared here previously.

Thanks so much to Lizz for sharing her ink with us here on Tattoosday!

Friday, May 10, 2013

The Intersection of Fine Art and Tattoo

A couple of days ago, The New York Times posted a special report under the heading of "the art of collecting." The article (here) was called "Tattooing Makes Transition From Cult to Fine Art."

After my obligatory eye-rolls (Cult? Really?), I perused the article and was pleasantly surprised.

I normally throw such things up in link lists, but I was intrigued by the fact that model Kate Moss was tattooed by the late artist Lucien Feud:

from Tattoosday UK via the Daily Mail

The discussion touched on the value of body art as a legitimate art form ("Fine" art, if you will) and Ms. Moss even joked about the value of these Freud tattoos if they were grafted off of her skin. A shocking idea, but certainly worth wondering about, hypothetically.

It's a great read and I was also pleased to see Duke Riley's name pop up, along with a photo of one of his tattoos:

from The New York Times, courtesy of Duke Riley

I am honored to say that we have featured work from Duke previously here and here.

Work on Daisy by Duke Riley

I always like to share stories in the media that features some of the talented artists whose work I've had the pleasure to come across in my travels.

If you like what you see, Duke's shop is East River Tattoo and, if he's busy, check out Sue Jeiven's work, as well.

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Daisy Shares Some Lovely Work from East River Tattoo

This past fall, I ran into Daisy as she was exiting a subway station on the Upper West Side. She was displaying some interesting tattoos and she was kind enough to take a few minutes to chat with me about them.

Daisy explained that she had only just recently started getting a lot of tattoos "all in the last year and a half." She elaborated "[I] just very quickly became this extremely tattooed person ... it just felt so right to meet these amazing people ... I love Sue and Duke, they're just so cool."

She was referring to two of the artists responsible for the majority of her new work, Duke Riley and Sue Jeiven, from East River Tattoo in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

This amazing piece from Duke graces her upper left arm:

Daisy explained that this is based on a tarot card of the moon. She explained, "this card just speaks to me a whole lot - I brought in ten different versions of it and this is the one [Duke] came up with."

A small tattoo from Duke appeared previously on Tattoosday here.

Daisy also shared some work from Sue Jeiven, including these pieces on her forearms:

Daisy explained that the piece on the left (her right), which she called the "Tiger Lady," is emblematic of Sue's work. Sue has been battling cancer. I'm not up to speed on her current condition, but she appears to still be going strong. "She has the emblem fight the good fight underneath this and a lot of her closest friends have this tattoo," Daisy told me. She added, "She has it on her cards now and she has a stamp of it, but she just came up with it one day and it sort of became, this is like illness, the girl is... we don't know whether she is getting swallowed or she's coming out or she's peeking out or making peace with the tiger, you don't really know."

And the tattoo on the other arm? Daisy said, "It's just kind of a companion piece ... I just sorta liked the girls looking at each other, with the tiger and the fox."

Daisy also shared this tattoo from her upper right arm:

Daisy explained:

"Ship lady is one that Sue drew. She was just drawing some flash up and sometimes she'll start drawing something and be like, oh this is my friend, and this is my other friend, and so she said this one was me."

What was particularly nice for me, in meeting Daisy, was that I had met Sue Jeiven previously, by chance, at Penn Station, a year earlier. In fact, Sue shared a tattoo she has, a phenomenal piece by the artist Deno, here.

It was truly a pleasure meeting Daisy, and I'm happy we were able to highlight some of the fine work from Sue and Duke at East River Tattoo! Thanks Daisy!

~ ~ ~

This entry is ©2013 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.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Sue Shares a Werewolf by Deno

A couple months back, I ran into a woman during the afternoon rush hour in Penn Station who had this amazing tattoo on her right thigh:

Turns out her name was Sue Jeiven, and she is a tattoo artist at East River Tattoo in Brooklyn. More of Sue's work can be seen in East River's Flickr stream here.

This was her most recent tattoo (at the time) and was done by Deno, a visiting artist from Spain, who's Circus Tattoo in Madrid is a top-notch shop. The quality of this piece is phenomenal.

Work from Deno appeared earlier this year on the site here.

Thanks to Sue for sharing her amazing werewolf with us here 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.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Lizz's Tattoo Anchors Her to Her Brother

One of the things that I love most about writing Tattoosday is the way New York City plays a significant role in the narrative. It may not be a blog about New York, but it would be a much different one without this city I call my home.

This is one of those posts that is tied to the fabric of New York.

This evening, I was taking advantage of a free ticket to see a revival of Guys and Dolls at the Nederlander Theater, which is still in preview and opens March 1st.

I was standing in line outside, about twenty minutes before curtains. The theater, on the south side of West 41st Street, faces the back of the New Amsterdam Theater to the north.

There were assorted people milling about across the street, folks I assumed were crew from Mary Poppins, outside having their last cigarettes before their show started.

I spotted a woman who had exited the theater and saw, from across the street, that she had a tattoo on her right forearm. I was doing nothing but standing in line anyway, so I crossed over 41st Street to say hello.

Lizz, who works as a dresser, was more than happy to share her tattoo:

Tattoos in general have significant meaning for their bearers. When the same design in shared, and the act of being tattooed is similarly experienced, the emotional charge instilled in the work is compounded.

Another example of siblings sharing a tattoo can be seen here.

Lizz told me that she doesn't rely on one artist, but that her ink has come from different shops all over the country.

This tattoo was created at Cherry Bomb Tattoo (now known as East River Tattoo)in Brooklyn by the artist Duke Riley. Work from Cherry Bomb has appeared here previously.

Thanks so much to Lizz for sharing her ink with us here on Tattoosday!

Tattoosday (A Tattoo Blog)