Tattoosday (A Tattoo Blog): Lions

Showing posts with label Lions. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 14, 2017

Vanessa's Lion

About a month after seeing Ben's lion, I spotted another lion at the City Hall subway station:

This lion is on the side of the leg of Vanessa, in a spot where you don't normally see a tattoo.

She told me that this was tattooed by Oba (@omoori) at Push Tattoo Studio (@pushtattoos) in Wilmington, Delaware.

Vanessa explained that this was part of a set of matching tattoos she got with her best friend. As she tells it, the lion matched her friend's personality, and this leonine friend designed the art.

I asked Vanessa what her friend got. She explained that her nickname was Goldfish, so that's what her friend got to compliment her lion.

Thanks to Vanessa for sharing her 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.

Monday, November 13, 2017

Ben's Lion from Bang Saen

At the end of September, I met Ben on Wall Street. He was visiting form England and was kind enough to take a moment out of sightseeing and share this cool tattoo:

Ben told me he got this cool lion tattoo in Bang Saen, Thailand.

Thanks to Ben for sharing his awesome lion tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

Saturday, April 16, 2016

Emily Vieweg on the Tattooed Poets Project

Today's tattooed poet is Emily Vieweg, who is very generously sharing all of her tattoos:

Emily elaborates:

"My first tattoo was my lower back, designed by an online acquaintance. A broken heart, sewn together with the initials of my two angel babies. Unexpected pregnancies that ended in miscarriage in my 20s ... My left shoulder blade is a dedication to my son. My right shoulder blade is an angel on my shoulder. The center kanji symbols says Dragon-Woman-Mother-Love."

The back tattoos were inked at Fine Line Tattoo in Topeka, Kansas.

Emily notes "my right wrist reminds me that no matter what job I have and no matter where I am in life, that I am a writer." This was done at 46 & 2 Tattoo in Fargo, North Dakota.

She adds, "my pink breast cancer awareness ribbon [is] for my mother who is now 8 years breast cancer-free."

Emily notes "Sunflowers are my sister's favorite flower. She is on my ankle because she is my stability. Tulips are my favorite flower." The tulips were done at 46 & 2, and the sunflower was inked at Addictions Tattoo in Fargo.

Emily sent us the following poem, which was originally published in Void Magazine in 2006, and then republished on www.writingraw.com in 2015.

Not Another Empty Table

A trip home brings me closer
to friends, in theory. I grab
dinner at a bar, gasping a
short breath and sip my ice water,

place my napkin gently on my lap.
I don’t want another year of
tables with service for one.
My quesadillas, no onions, appear

with a salad on the side – I love bar food –
A bottle of Korbel washes it down
as the seconds tick tock and tease.
I want a table full of party sandwiches

a ketchup-stained summer tablecloth
with those clip-art fish and beach toys
painted on top. I want
a full dance card

an address book overflowing
so every time I open my bag
I am loved.

~ ~ ~

Emily Vieweg is a poet and playwright originally from St. Louis, Missouri. Her work has been published in Foliate Oak, The Voices Project, Northern Eclecta, Red Weather Literary Magazine, Soundings Review and more. Her chapbook, "Look Where She Points" is forthcoming from Plan B Press. She lives in Fargo, North Dakota where she is a mother of two, pet parent, data processor, educator and human rights advocate.

Thanks to Emily for sharing her tattoos and poem with us here 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.

Friday, July 31, 2015

Griff's Gryphon

Last week on Wall Street, I met Griff, whose collection of tattoos covers his body. When I asked him how many he had, he wasn't sure, but estimated it is somewhere between twenty and thirty. How to choose? We decided on this one, from the back of his left calf, which was his very first tattoo:

Griff dates this back to April 2007, just over eight years ago. Coincidentally, today is Tattoosday's eighth anniversary, so celebrating with a tattoo inked the same year that the site was born seems appropriate.

Griff credits this to an artist named Don Sellers at 702 Tattoo in Richmond, Virginia.

He explained his full name is Griffin so he decided on a tattoo of a gryphon, the legendary creature with the head, talons and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion. You'll notice that's not quite what he got. "I didn't like the eagle face, so I gave it a lion face," he told me. So, ultimately, it's a customized gryphon for Griffin. "Nobody else will ever [have one like] it," he added.

Thanks to Griff for sharing his first tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

Monday, July 27, 2015

Robert's Lion Roars to Life

On Saturday, my travels found me in a Trader Joe's in Chelsea, and I spotted this spectacular tattoo:

This is on the arm of Robert who credited Rafael Marte from Studio 28 in Manhattan for this great lion tattoo.

"My dad got a lion, a lion cub with my birth date on it," Robert old me, "so it's more of a maturation kind of a piece."

It's a really impressive tattoo and perfect for all the Leos out there celebrating their birthdays this time of year!

Thanks to Robert for sharing this awesome tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

Friday, May 8, 2015

Tattooed Poet of the Week - Jendi Reiter and Her Lion (The Tattooed Poets Project)

The number of submissions for April 2015's Tattooed Poets Project was unprecedented. As a result, I was unable to post everyone's work. Last year, we had an extended celebration of tattooed poets in May and June with a "Tattooed Poet of the Week." We're resurrecting this practice this year, for as long as we have submissions to share.

Our first 2015 Tattooed Poet of the Week is Jendi Reiter:

Jendi explains:

"The lion represents Aslan, the Christ-figure in C.S. Lewis's Narnia books, as well as the courage of my masculine spiritual side. The original artwork is by Nycci Traynor at InkWell Studio in Bristol, CT. It is based on the first logo of WinningWriters.com, the online resource for creative writers that my husband and I have operated since 2001.

I chose Nycci to apply my first tattoo because she did a beautiful job on my mom-of-choice Roberta's tattoo, a colorful tree frog on her bicep. The frog is Roberta's totem animal as the lion is mine.

I've always admired tattoos as an art form. For me, it also meant taking back ownership of my body, and manifesting my personal journey out of shame and secrecy, into truth and power.

As the appointment approached, I did have some misgivings about the permanent commitment that a tattoo represented, since I've reinvented myself and changed my beliefs a few times. That was the inspiration for [the following] poem, 'Trigger Warning for Sailors.' It's included in my recently published collection, Bullies in Love (Little Red Tree Publishing, 2015)":

Trigger Warning for Sailors

Beckoned, drunk, by a mermaid's
permanent stain, I shrank
from the needle's blue.
I might have to change
my face someday,
turn my voyage inside-out,
a thief reversing his coat in the crowd.

A rare risk, I know.
More likely I'll slip
under the unmarked green ocean
stitched in a linen sack.
No bunkmate to joke
that I wore my bones on my sleeve.

They all look the same, at sea,
skulls winking on sail-hoisting shoulders,
blue roses creeping up bowed legs,
an easy girl on every arm
copied from flash.

What else remains — Names?
Anchors? The portside artist,
her needle restless as a watch's
second hand, pushed the Mom heart:
Every man had a mother.
But a trash bin was my cradle,
and I'm not alone
among those who take to the sea.

I've shared my hammock with men
of greater faith, who carved the blue memory
of hometown loves on their backs.
Through storms, we've swung in a dark
so complete I couldn't read
the log of their shipwrecks.

Our wake draws a line
of minutes to the dock.
I'll drink the night with friends,
wake up talked into angels
penned for life on my chest.
Remember, body,
the water undoes us at last.

~ ~ ~

Jendi Reiter is the author of the poetry collections Bullies in Love (Little Red Tree Publishing, 2015), Barbie at 50 (Cervena Barva Press, 2010), Swallow (Amsterdam Press, 2009), and A Talent for Sadness (Turning Point Books, 2003). Awards include a 2010 Massachusetts Cultural Council Artists' Grant for Poetry, the 2013 Little Red Tree International Poetry Prize, the 2012 Betsy Colquitt Award for Poetry from Descant magazine, the 2011 James Knudsen Editor's Prize in Fiction from Bayou Magazine, the 2011 OSA Enizagam Award for Fiction, the 2010 Anderbo Poetry Prize, and second prize in the 2010 Iowa Review Awards for Fiction. She is the editor of WinningWriters.com, an online resource site for creative writers. Visit her blog at www.jendireiter.com and follow her on Twitter @JendiReiter.

Thanks to Jendi for being our Tattooed Poet of the Week, here on Tattoosday, as part of the Tattooed Poets Project!

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.

Thursday, May 7, 2015

Gary Got His Lion

I met Gary earlier this year when he joined our friendly neighborhood trivia team at Lock Yard in South Brooklyn.

As is often the case with me, the topic of conversation turned to tattoos and Gary revealed he had one on his upper arm. I asked him to share and he did not disappoint:

Gary explained that his father had once owned a large statue of a lion's head. It was one of those items that, growing up, he had always associated with his father. About ten years ago, all of the family items got divided up and all Gary asked for was the lion. His sister, however, took the lion, and has not relinquished it to Gary.

These circumstances were in the forefront of his thoughts when he sat with a friend through some lengthy tattoo sessions at New York Adorned. As a thank you from the friend for standing by through countless hours of tattooing, the friend said she would get Gary a tattoo. He finally got his lion.

This amazing tattoo was done by the incomparable Virginia Elwood, who now works out of Saved Tattoo in Brooklyn.

Thanks to Gary for sharing his wonderful lion with us here on Tattoosday!

Monday, May 4, 2015

Scott and His Friends with Their Spirit Animals

I met Scott while he was having a sandwich in Bowling Green Park last week in lower Manhattan. He had this cool tattoo on his forearm:

Scott explained that the three heads on his forearm represent him and two of his friends. They each got the same tattoo, but with their animal totem in the middle, with the other friends above and below them. He was kind enough to send me a shot of all three together:

Scott elaborated for me:

"This tattoo represents the bond that myself and 2 others share. The three of us actually met online playing video games like Counter-Strike about 12 years ago. It was complete luck that we even met. We spent those 12 years just talking and playing games over the internet from miles away.

Dima (on the left) and Ethan (right) live in NY. I have been in Wisconsin for my whole life up until 2 months ago when I moved here for a job upon Dima's referral.

We spent a good few months discussing how we could signify this bond..and we ended up on spirit animals essentially. I chose the lion because it represents pride and I, too a fault at times, have a great sense of pride. Dima has the bear because his last name is Medved which is Russian for bear. Ethan has the wolf because of how strong they can be individually.

So I took a plane to Albany and Dima came up from Brooklyn and we met Ethan and we all got our tattoos together. It was mine and Dima's first (of many) tattoos."

Scott credited the work to Dan Belcher at the Dead President's Lounge in Albany, New York.

On the other side of his forearm, Dan also had this pretty incredible tattoo:

Or, for a different view:

"This one," Scott told me, "is an interpretation of an album cover." It's based on the work of a band called Protest the Hero. He credited the tattoo to Mark Mansavage at Old Salt Tattooers in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. "I gave him the album cover," Scott said, "and he did a loose interpretation of it." Here's the original artwork:

Thanks to Scott for sharing his cool tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

Sunday, January 18, 2015

Ryan's Lion, and Time on His Mind

Last week I ran into Ryan, a prior contributor to Tattoosday, who appeared on the site originally here.

It was an unseasonably warm day, for January in Brooklyn, and he showed me one of his newest tattoos:

Ryan told me that he wanted a skull, but with a time theme - so you have the gears of a clock running where the brain is held.

He credited the work to Alvin Chong (see his Instagram here) who is an artist from Kuala Lumpur. He got this on a recent stint by Chong at Last Rites in New York City.

He also showed me a new piece he got from Chad Koeplinger on a recent stop at Smith Street Tattoo Parlour in Brooklyn:

Ryan got this because he is a Leo, and wanted a lion to represent his Zodiac sign.

Thanks to Ryan for sharing his cool tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Arielle's Lion of a Tattoo (at the Urban Tattoo Convention)

I posted last month about attending the 4th Annual New York City Tattoo Convention here.

I've been periodically posting some of the amazing tattoos I saw there, and wanted to share this one as well:

This incredible lion tattoo is on the left arm of Arielle, who credited the work to the artist Dee Whitcomb at Wyld Chyld Tattoo in Merrick, New York.

Arielle told me her name means "Lion of God," so she went with this design which Dee drew up and tattooed on her. It's really a beautiful tattoo that certainly captures the grace of this majestic animal.

Thanks to Arielle for sharing her lion with us here on Tattoosday!

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

The Tattooed Poets Project: Shann Ray

Today's tattooed poet is Shann Ray, who sent us this photo of his tattoo:

He explains:

I got this tattoo the year I married my wife Jennifer, a bright fire of a girl who has only increased in incandescence. We've been together 27 years now and have 3 daughters. The lion symbolizes the mysterious sacred text notion that the lion is the inverse of the lamb. In the Christian tradition, Christ who was called the Lion of Judah appeared as a lamb that was slain. This is a reminder to me to sacrifice the self-embedded ways that sometimes arise in me and live with a generous and kind heart toward Jennifer for the rest of my life. The lion and the thorns remind me to help create the milieu of our marriage to be one in which Jennifer is deeply loved, respected, and given hope for each new day. What a life it has been with her! I still love this tattoo. It is like a secret kindness between us that reminds us all we share.

When I asked if he recalled the artist who did this, he explained,

"The guy did become famous for tattooing the stars. It was in Garden Grove down in the greater Los Angeles area. Can’t recall his name or the name of the shop. All tribal oriented tattooing."

By way of a poem, Shann sent us this:

NIGHT OVER THE SAPPHIRE RANGE, WESTERN MONTANA

Tomorrow you lead
the people in worship
but tonight let me hear you
in the quiet strength of our bedroom
where I watch silver birds fly
from your mouth and remember
how you break me all the way down.

How good it is to be
a vessel for the song
of this everyday world.

Cup my hand to your hipbone
and give me darkness through the window.

~ ~ ~

Shann Ray is a poet and prose writer whose work has appeared in some of the nation’s leading literary venues including Poetry, McSweeney’s, StoryQuarterly, the Northwest Review, Best New Poets, Montana Quarterly and Poetry International. A National Endowment for the Arts Fellow, he is the winner of the Breadloaf Writers’ Conference Bakeless Prize, the High Plains Book Award, the American Book Award, the Subterrain Poetry Prize, and the Crab Creek Review Fiction Award. He is the author of American Masculine (Graywolf), and Forgiveness and Power in the Age of Atrocity (Rowman & Littlefield/Lexington). His book of poems called Balefire will appear with Lost Horse Press in the near future. He lives with his wife and three daughters in Spokane, Washington where he teaches leadership and forgiveness studies at Gonzaga University. His website is www.shannray.com.

Thanks to Shann Ray for sharing his tattoo and poem with us here on The Tattooed Poets Project!

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.

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Orphans: The Hungry Lion

So what do I do with a tattoo photo that has been abandoned and forgotten?

Why post it here, of course.

Back on May 10, I met a guy in Penn Station and took a picture of his tattoo, which he referred to as his "Hungry Lion":

And then, before I could talk to him further, his girlfriend emerged from the bathroom and he told me they had to catch a train.

He had a Tattoosday flier, but never e-mailed me.

So if anyone wants to adopt this tattoo, leave a comment. Or, if you know who the artist is, please let me know.

Thanks to you, Dude, wherever you are, for sharing your cool tattoo 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.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

The Tattooed Poets Project: Michael Henry Lee

Today's tattoo was submitted by Michael Henry Lee:

Photo courtesy of Michael Henry Lee

There's a lot going on here, so let's let Michael explain:

"The work pictured began about 36 years ago in Kansas City, Mo. I only remember the artist's name as John. The piece started with the stylized exotic bird's head that John took credit for as his own. A few years later I found the same piece on the back of a Mountain album cover. Imagine. Fast forward a couple of decades to a fantastic shop [Soul Expressions Tattoo Studio] in Temecula Ca. and an artist named Dan Adair. The sun and Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah were added there. The sun was David's design and the Lion comes from the Ethiopian flag borrowed from a Bob Marley album. The conceptual idea was mine and is meant to be symbolic of the Christian trinity: Father (as the sun), the Son (as the Conquering Lion) and our old buddy the bird (as the holy spirit). The seven is symbolic of the biblical number of completion and is repeated three times. The piece was just retouched and colored last year in Saint Augustine, Florida, by Tattoo Mike from Tattoo Garden."

Michael also offered up several short poems, including some haiku:

"tattoo impressions"

van goes home

stepping out in a starry night

(first appeared in graffiti kolkata Aug 2010)

tattoo garden

the blush returns

to mother's rose

What Love’s Got to do with It

It was rumored of late

that Love;

is suffering from a stolen identity

Eros has hacked into Agape

like the evil twin exchanged at birth;

Ying for Yang

The Pauper for the Prince

Cain for Abel

The imposter has taken control

using seduction and guile

to manipulate the hearts and minds

of whoever might be deceived

Love’s calling all investors

Setting the record straight

Distancing itself from a nefarious sibling

Love does not

sell cars, clothes, food, or personal hygiene products

Love knows

the grass isn’t greener in the next field,

and besides brown is highly underrated anyway

Love always makes deposits

but not withdrawals

Love is patient as water

smoothing stone

Love knows the worst

but hopes for the best

Love bites its tongue and swallows its pride

Love looks at the heart

not: boobs, biceps, or bank accounts

Love is the first one into a burning building

an the last one off a sinking ship

Love builds

Marriages

Families

and Nations

Love is an invisible necessity

like time, gravity, and oxygen

Love is beyond time and space

Eternal

Unconditional

gift

a promise

one poured out for all

that they

might

know

that

God

"What Love's Got to do with It" first appeared in Heart Pour The Love Book from Poet Plant Press, 2011

Michael Henry Lee is a husband, father and grandfather. He and his wife of 30 years reside in St. Augustine, Florida; the nation’s oldest city, along with two cats, and numerous bonsai trees.

Michael is a member of Ancient City Poets and the Haiku Society of America. The last Sunday of every month generally finds him at the Heart Pour Matinee; an open mic poetry reading that features seasoned artists as well as new talents.

Mr. Lee serves as contributing co-editor for Poet Plant Press, and is a frequent contributor to Haiku News, and Haiku Ramblings. His work has appeared in Berry Blue Haiku, and Graffiti Kolkata He was voted among the favorites in the 2009 Alibi Weekly annual haiku contest, and was awarded third place prize in the Yukei Teikei Annual Tokutomi Haiku Contest for 2010.

Mr. Lee is quoted as saying “my objective is to express the good news and mystery of life in every breath, through the simplicity of haiku”.

Thanks to Michael Henry Lee for sharing his tattoo and his work with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2011 Tattoosday. The poems are reprinted here with the permission of the author.

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.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Mike's Tribute to His Thai Heritage

There are generally two kinds of Tattoosday subjects (and by subjects I mean people):

Those that let me take a picture or two and I never hear from them again, and those that send me nice messages and a correspondence more or less develops.

Last weekend I met a guy named Mike at the laundromat (which is turning out to be quite a lucky locale for inkspotting) and he falls in the latter category.

Not only was Mike friendly and interested in the site when I met him, but he has followed up our initial conversation with e-mails that have helped me create a much more thorough and well-rounded post than many readers may be used to.

Mike's tattoo is a tribute to his heritage. His father is from Thailand, so he considers himself "50% Thai". Check this out:

This piece does wrap around the left bicep, and on either side of the elephantine temple, there are "singha" lions:

The idea for this tattoo started with a concept and evolved into the finished work in flesh above.

Mike started with the basic images, found online in the form of the elephant and lion masks, and the photo of a Thai temple:

He notes that he wanted to use the Tribal elephant mask "because the Elephant is a national symbol of Thailand, they [were] used ... in wars and ... represent strength. I chose the Tribal 'wood' look mainly because it looks great and I thought it represented the 'old/history' of Thailand." He added that he finds Thai temples "amazingly beautiful" and that the two Singha lions on either side of the temple in the design "represent protection, and they usually are at the entrance ways of many Thai buildings".

He then tinkered with these images in Photoshop and came up with this rudimentary design:

He took this artwork to Regino Gonzalez at Invisible NYC. Mike explains, "I showed him my idea and he actually kinda chuckled a bit. I told him I realized [that] this was a real shitty representation of what I want and that I hoped that he could do ANYTHING with it."

Mike continues, "...And then literally three days later, he called me into the shop and when I walked in, he had this HUGE AMAZING piece of art...I just turned to him and said, 'Let's do it' [and] I ... sat down right then and there for four hours and had the outline done ... I ... went back about three weeks later and had the black color and shading done, and then about three more weeks later I had the final color done."

What Mike explains is typical of great tattoo work. So many novices to tattooing are surprised that a nice piece takes a while, unlike it does on the reality tattoo shows, when an eight-hour piece often is edited down to a few minutes of air time. It's also the recommended way to get a great tattoo: bring in the framework of an idea and let the artist go to town.

And, if you have a good artist (which you should have, if you've done you're homework), you should put your absolute faith and trust in them. Case in point, Mike recalls "I asked Regino how he was going to color it and I was pretty nervous ... he looked at me and pointed to his head and said 'Trust me, I have a plan'. And that was it ... I walked away with what I think is an amazing piece of work ... I have since recommended Regino to anyone who asks my opinion, and I will continue to [do so] ....".

Incidentally, work from Regino has appeared previously on this site here.

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

Tattoosday (A Tattoo Blog)