Tattoosday (A Tattoo Blog): Flyrite Tattoo

Showing posts with label Flyrite Tattoo. Show all posts

Monday, September 11, 2017

A Brooklyn Rat on the C Train (Tattoosday Plays the Alphabet Game)

Things were going great! Within twenty minutes, I had handled the A and the B. Next up, the C train. I was just a couple of stops from 59th Street/Columbus Circle, where I planned to hop on a southbound C.

9:16 A.M. Just missed a C. A guy in the subway car I almost made had ink too!

9:21 A.M. On a C train.

9:24 A.M. Spotted someone with a tattoo made of musical notes forming a heart. She has earbuds in, so I will hold out for something better.

9:34 A.M. Is it okay to switch cars? Still deciding if that's within the rules of the game.

9:37 A.M. The musical clef tattoo just got off. Regret not talking to her.

9:40 A.M. Switched cars, moved into one with no A/C. Bad idea.

9:42 A.M. Switched again. First rejection. Woman with snake tattoo on forearm politely declines. Still takes flier. Exits at Chambers.

9:46 A.M. After 25 minutes on the C, I switch at Fulton Street to a C running northbound, in the opposite direction.

I see a woman with "passing through" tattooed on her forearm, but she is wedged between two people...

Another woman with a half sleeve, but it looks like it was drawn and inked by an eight-year old. She also has a heart on her middle finger.

The rule of procrastination: if you don't move, or if you hesitate, consider the opportunity lost - not meant to be. "Passing through" exited at 14th Street.

Switched cars at 23rd Street.

I see a guy with not-so-good tattoos. So much for not being picky. I've done this for ten years without an altercation. Spider sense tingles. I pass.

I caught two tattoos in the first twenty minutes and got cocky. Approaching one hour since my last success.

Finally, at 10:08, I meet Michelle from Brooklyn when she gets on the C train at 59th Street/Columbus Circle. She shares this tattoo on her forearm:

Michelle credits her solid Brooklyn tattoo to Fernando Lions (@lions_nyc) at Flyrite Tattoo (@flyrite_tattoo) in the same borough.

Thanks to Michelle for sharing her tattoo with us on Tattoosday!

All prior installments of Tattoosday Plays the Alphabet Game are here.

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.

Sunday, April 30, 2017

Lynne DeSilva-Johnson's Body of Work on the Tattooed Poets Project

Our final tattooed poet in April is Lynne DeSilva-Johnson.

I've been talking to Lynne about contributing for over four years, and I finally met her last summer at the annual NYC Poetry Festival on Governor's Island.

Here are some of Lynne's tattoos:

Lynne explains:

"The hand tattoos are from 2007. On my left hand is an eye, radiating out -- the all seeing eye combined with the classic symbolism of eye-in-hand, familiar via the Hamsa in particular, and ancient to both Jews and Arabs in the middle east. The all seeing eye, unfortunately connecting us too frequently to illuminati or other ridiculousness, is actually an ancient esoteric visual symbolizing divine light and our connection to it as divine beings. It is consistent in all ancient religions/sacred imagery, predating organized religion but carrying into all faiths. On the right hand is a human heart, similarly radiant. In energy work and healing, it is believed that the left hand receives energy/is negatively charged, 'allows things to happen,' and that the right hand is positively charged/emits energy, 'makes things happen.' My hands symbolize (and stand as a constant reminder to me, and a point of public dialogue) that while we receive light and information via our minds eye/senses, that it must be translated in the body and find a home in the heart, that decisions and actions should come in through the eye but channel out, to the world, through the heart. In keeping with this, I used the following image, (ceremonial rattlesnake disk, found in Moundsville, Alabama) on the cover of my first chapbook, Ground. (2012)"

Lynne also gave us a view of her body of work:

Lynne elaborates:

"All the tattoos you see are from the same artist! Alex Sherker. He is amazing. You can find him at Wizard Mountain Tattoo, and often as a visiting artist at shops all over the US, and NZ. Oh wait, not the split star on the wrists... They're from around 2004 - and were done at Flyrite, 3 blocks from my childhood home and 1 block from my family's old house in Brooklyn. My old partner (now deceased) had the same split stars. They were slightly altered in scale for our different wrists but you couldn't tell when we put them together. The thinking was that you are never a half -- you are always a whole by yourself (complete your own star), but when you join in partnership with another person, you create a new whole. The totally anti-ownership/tagging version of a relationship tattoo. We always said that our future partners, or children, or friends could in fact also get the same piece (still a possibility!) to indicate the new wholes created with our knowing and sharing with each other.

On my back, in the plaque area, in white (hard to see, this tattoo is pretty old at this point) is a quote from Sartre, in French, but which translates to 'have no illusions and do only what you can' -- a bit of a mantra of sorts for many years about balance and duality in life and work , which I always took to mean, boiled down, 'give yourself a break while kicking your own ass.' I got this as I was in a bit of a divorce with the illusions I'd had about academia and the relationship of disciplinary scholarship to ontology and enlightenment, as well as to a necessary distancing from the former partner, who battled opiate and alcohol addictions. It was a bittersweet reclaiming the core of my intentions/desires, as well as a leaving behind a lot of what I thought my life would hold. The female figures are not angels, a common confusion, but rather are from two paintings of Alphonse Mucha -- the left is from his panel representing 'the arts,' this figure being 'Dance' (from 1898) and the right representing 'spring,' from another panel painting of the seasons. I was always very entranced by art nouveau, its marriage of biological/botanical forms and the new technologies of the modern moment -- steel and glass and concrete. As with most back tattoos, and the ceiling of the UN, this is perennially unfinished -- there was a whole plan for botanical and architectural elements surrounding what you see now...!

Somewhere, on the neck, near the nautical star, on a ribbon it also reads 'to thine own self be true,' gotten the day I left a job I felt I had shrunk down and diminished myself to stay at -- a reminder to never do that again (and, by and large, I've kept to that promise!)
On my biceps are tattoos for my daughter, Beckett -- Love Always, on my right, Beckett Rose, on my left. From 2010. My daughter was born in February 2010, conceived manually in a room by myself, the daughter of me and a gay couple, Matthew and Dan, long time friends of a good friend of mine. She was adopted by them fully (the only legal option) in May of 2010. On the day of her adoption I sat for 8 or more hours in Carnegie Hall listening to the Dalai Lama talk about the Bodhisattva path, non attachment, duality, and enlightenment, what I seek here in every way. I do not believe that this legal document controls or defines our relationship, and I continue to be very much her 'Mama Lynne,' a constant part in her life. These tattoos are a reminder for me that I carry her with me every day, and that love is never about ownership or title, love is never about volume of time but quality of that time, of intention and attention and consciousness and being a model for her of the possibilities of family, parenthood, self-hood.

Shoulders, most recent, are my design in collaboration with Alex - lotus based epaulets, traditionally a military symbol, here transformed with lotus -- symbol of peace, enlightenment, and our path through the mud into bloom -- I call them my spirit warrior epaulets, because indeed I am fighting a battle everyday here, not only of my own but in my community, humbly hoping to improve this place."

Lynne also shared the following poem:

NOVENA

two swing in unison, one opposing;

the sun's warmth a surprise

amongst fallen leaves, so that

every arm is graced by

unnecessary jacket, armor

for what we thought was coming.

their dog will not pose

for the camera, her every hair on its end,

her nose an antenna for the infinite scents

alit on the wind, on whispers

from the sky's million and one mouths.

look up: that blue is bigger

than anything you can imagine.

why can you feel this wind

on your face, why hear the insistent

caw of unseen birds? the grace

of these mathematics, demurring

behind the face of the mundane --

this is divinity.

I'll write this poem whenever I can,

over and over again

until I die

and what I see before me

will never grow old, will

never cease to be

miracle.

~ ~ ~

Lynne DeSilva-Johnson is a willful subject feminist killjoy queer official-narrative battler making her way through image, text, and code in the world, currently stationed in Brooklyn, NY. She runs the self-hacking arts organization/press The Operating System, and is an Assistant Visiting Professor at Pratt Institute.

You can find her on the web in these various locales:

http://lynne-desilva-johnson.strikingly.com
http://theoperatingsystem.org
twitter.com/@onlywhatican
twitter.com/@the_OS_
instagram: @thetroublewithbartleby, @the_operating_system

You can also enjoy this recent interview with her: http://culturedesigners.com/the-operating-system-detournement-radical-documentation-with-lynne-desilva-johnson/

Thanks to Lynne for sharing her poem and tattoos with us here on the Tattooed Poets Project!

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.

Monday, September 7, 2015

Coney Denizen and Her Dick: Our First NSFW Tattoo

In the eight years of Tattoosday's existence, we have never featured an NSFW tattoo, so it's really about time, don't you think? Especially since it's Labor Day, when no one is supposed to be at work, anyway.

I met Mary at the Mermaid Parade in June and immediately asked if I could take a picture of this phallic tattoo on the back of her arm:

Mary is an artist that uses the moniker Coney Denizen (click through for Flickr photostream).

She initially told me that this was based on her husband's drawing and that "old ladies in banks love it."

Later, she elaborated:

"I stole this piece from my husband's drawing board. I was a buyer of Indonesian and other folk art for many years. Became fascinated by the use of dicks as a prosperity symbol. I collected dick pull toys-actual dicks with wheels. When I saw this piece I thought it funny and went for it. Squid did all my work at the time, it was a fun night in the shop.Over the years I found it was a funny kind of litmus test. Older women love it, never have I had a reaction of offense. Men never notice it is a dick, until someone points it out. I did a lot of dick art for a bit. Men also never saw the dicks (blatant as they were)-unless pointed out. It has been a great one to enjoy."

Mary's reference to Squid is Sydney "Squid" Silver, or Syd the Squid, from the New York-based punk band the Lunachicks. More from Mary on Squid:

Squid did my first tattoos. I think the first was at Venus. The dick was done at Fly Rite, in Brooklyn. I remember getting faint for this one-took 6 hours-straight. Squid’s band was amazing-all girls-wicked. I knew her thru my baby sitter at the time, she lived in our pal Eddies house. I love Squid. She had the best back tattoo I had ever seen. Squid-Underwater. It is something to behold. There was no finer gal to play this way with. She was fierce and sweet. The kindest soul. Used to let me take my daughter backstage at shows. My kid thought she was the best. I believe she stopped working when she had her son, but it would not surprise me to find her somewhere ... Those were the halcyon days…."

Thanks to Mary for sharing her awesome tattoo with us here on Tattoosday, and helping us break the Dick Barrier!

Tuesday, February 3, 2015

Rochelle's Tattoos Are Powerful Reminders

Last summer, while riding my bike along the Belt Parkway Promenade, I met Rochelle, who was kind enough to talk with me and share several of her tattoos.

The first one we discussed was this one on her calf:

Rochelle explained that this is an illustration from Peter Rabbit, but not the one that is familiar to most of us. She explained that in the German version, the story spoke to her more, as Rochelle once had problems with drug abuse. She explained that the rabbit in this other version of the story took to stealing vegetables from the farmer, “but he grows fat and he is then cooked in stew by the farmer’s wife." Rochelle added, "So he’s, like, consumed by his desire, and I was consumed by my desire to do drugs ... I got the tattoo when I was becoming sober.”

This tattoo and several others Rochelle has were done by Mike Lucena from Brooklyn's Flyrite Tattoo, who she calls "a great artist and a good-hearted guy.”

She also shared this piece by Mike Lucena:

Located on her thigh, Rochelle explained, "It’s a pysanky egg, it’s a Ukrainian egg-decorating practice ... an old folk practice that my mother and I did when I was a child and I got it in memory of my mother when she passed.”

She also shared this tattoo on her upper arm:

Rochelle explained that this is Monkshood. She elaborated:

"It's a delphinium flower ... it’s like a bluebell ... almost, but they call it monkshood because, if you look at the flower it looks like a monk wearing a hood. It symbolizes usually death and ill-will, but a lot of people also use it because it symbolizes warding off evil and warding off death … I got it from Becki [Wilson] the day after my mother died, so now it has a huge amount of meaning to me ... Becki was at Greene Avenue Tattoo when this was done, but she has moved shops."

And finally, Rochelle shared a fourth tattoo, on another calf:

She explained that this was also done by Mike Lucena, and is her interpretation of The Tower Tarot Card:

"I study tarot…this is my drawing and then Mike did a complete copy and ... he had done the rabbit first, and then I was like, I want you to do it like the rabbit with my drawing … so watercolor, sort of, so he faded out the inks, the symbolism of the tower tarot card is like chaos, destruction and rebirth."

Thanks to Rochelle for sharing all of her awesome tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

Tattoosday (A Tattoo Blog)