The Thing That Would Not Be

I have a handful of tattoos to share that are "lost." The photos are not lost, but the backstories are. This is one, spotted last August near Wall Street.

I know the host is Damien, and he hails from somewhere in Europe (France, if I had to guess).

This, I recall, is The Thing. From the 1982 John Carpenter film.

Thanks to Damien for sharing his tattoo with us on Tattoosday!

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.

Jesper's Tattoo is Totally Kickin'

Yesterday I met Jesper outside of Federal Hall at the corner of Wall and Broad Streets in Lower Manhattan. He was visiting from Denmark and was kind enough to share this tattoo on the side of his calf:

Yes, folks, that is a Kung Fu Panda tattoo.

He got this in a shop in Phuket, Thailand. He couldn't remember the name of the shop, but knew that one of the owners had made an appearance on Miami Ink many years ago.

Jesper explained that he had been training in Muay Thai and when he and his sister were travelling together in Phuket, she insisted that they get tattoos. He found the image on Google and it he decided to go with it..

He says the tattoo is especially popular with little kids, who are always pointing at it and saying, "Mom, look at the guy with the tattoo!"

Thanks to Jesper for sharing his awesome Kung Fu Panda tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

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.

The Tattooed Poets Project: Jonathan Lohr

Our next tattooed poet is Jonathan Lohr, who shared this piece on the side of his torso:

Jonathan explains:

"This is a tattoo of what I think is a Russian movie poster for Buster Keaton's The General. It was done by the awesome Ryan Van Dyke who at the time was working at Vertigo Tattoo in Oxford, OH. I found the image when I was searching the phrase 'Buster Keaton on a bicycle,' which came from Jack Spicer's After Lorca."

Jonathan shared this poem:

Some Kind of Monster

the body is just shape

useful for accommodating the repetition

and able to cause importance

but really nothing more than dyad

and separation

betrayal by display of mechanics

reduction to corporeal functions

supply of oxygen nutrients

removal of waste

regulatory functions

hydraulic functions

immunological functions

messenger functions

cemetery is home to pure body

engraved as resting

fear of dormition, the fear of sleep

the housing and reflection

and betrayal of mechanics

~ ~ ~

Jonathan Lohr is the author of The Certainty of Kent Johnson and Flipbook:  A Critical Study of the Adult-Contemporary Poetics of Kenneth Goldsmith.

Thanks to Jonathan for sharing his work with us here on Tattoosday's Tattooed Poets Project!

This entry is ©2014 Tattoosday. The poem and tattoo are reprinted with the poet's permission.

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.

Felicia Shares a Cool Peacock and an Homage to Her Favorite Horror Films

A few months back, I met a woman named Felicia in Penn Station. She has several tattoos, but she offered up this particular peacock from her forearm:

Felicia credited this to an artist named Thor at Three Monkeys Tattoo in downtown San Diego. I wasn't able to track down either the artist or the shop, so I may have misheard, but I guess that's beside the point.

In the end, we have an original peacock that differs from a lot of the more realistic attempts at peafowl we have seen in the past.

Felicia also sent me this piece a few weeks after meeting her:

Felicia explains:

"I told you I'd send over my favorite tattoo, which I had hidden under tights at the time. See attached for a photo of the tattoo after it was freshly done [top], and then a photo of what it looks like now [bottom]. This is the cover art for the film Suspiria, one of my all time favorite horror movies. I came up with the concept of creating a blackout piece behind my calf, and decided Suspiria was definitely a film worthy enough to cover such a large amount of space."

Thanks to Felicia for sharing her work with us here on Tattoosday!

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.

Jessica: A Sugar Skull and Scream and Scream Again

In yesterday's post, I talked about meeting Corey and Jessica in front of Penn Station, and we featured two of Corey's tattoos. Today it's Jessica's turn. 

She praised to no end the tattoo artist who did this sugar skull, her friend Chris Handford at Perkins Road Parlor in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

"They do a lot of traditional and he's originally a painter, so we just said, 'Do Whatever," and he drew up these awesome things ... he's actually a really new artist, but I would say already, skills-wise, far beyond a lot of people who have been doing it longer, especially in the South."

Jessica also shared this incredible piece on her right calf:

Jessica credited this tattoo to a different artist, Richard Hart, who currently works in Baton Rouge out of Art Addiction Tattoo Studio.

Jessica explained the story behind this interesting piece:

"[Richard Hart] is excellent at photo-realism. I found this ... it's from a movie called Scream and Scream Again (1970).

I just loved it and he drew it up on the spot ... I've never seen anyone just draw it, make a quick stencil, look at a computer, and then go off the picture itself. It looks exactly like the picture; I mean, it's insane. Insane. He's definitely awesome!"

It's always great to hear tattooed folk talk so exuberantly about how much they like their artists, and it was certainly nice to encounter some talent from a part of the country we don't see too often up here in New York.

Thanks to Jessica (and Corey) for sharing their tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2011 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.