Swim When It Hurts

I met Marcy on a subway platform in lower Manhattan back in September 2017. She had a lot of work on her arm and indulged me as I took quite a few photos.

This building is part of the Oceanic Hotel on Star Island in Isle of Shoals, New Hampshire, where she used to vacation when she was younger.

Below this image is the phrase "swim when it hurts," which reminds Marcy about overcoming things that are difficult:

These tattoos, part of a whole nautical sleeve, help her "center herself."

This Cape Cod-style lighthouse helps her find her way in life.

Marcy credited her work to Becca Genné-Bacon, who tattooed her when she was at Hand of Glory Tattoo (@handofglorytattoo)in Brooklyn. Becca has since moved on to Kings Avenue Tattoo (@kingsavetattoo) in Manhattan. I love Becca's work, and follow her on Instagram at @beccagennebacon.

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

This entry is ©2019 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.

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!

This entry is ©2017 Tattoosday. The poem and tattoo are reprinted with the poet's permission.

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.

Sean's Two Sides: Good and Evil

Here we are in February 2014, and we're finishing off with our last encounter from '13. Back in September, on Broad Street in Manhattan, I met Sean, who shared some of his tattoos with us:

Sean explained that these nautical stars and swallows represent good and evil:

"I did the stars on Adobe Illustrator – I took just basically an outline of regular ones and I did a little distressing to them and then decided to turn the colors around and not have full shadings on them, just like silhouettes of shadings. I thought it was a nice move and that’s when my artist said Okay I’ll do those."

His artist is Rich Fie at R&D Tattooing in Queens. He credited the devil and angel swallows to an artist named Lulu.

He also has this piece on his forearm:

Sean has been a musician for twenty-five years, playing drums, guitar, saxophone and harmonica. This tattoo represents his love of music.

Thanks to Sean for sharing his tattoos with us on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2014 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.

Get 10% off tattoo starter kits when you shop at www.AccessTattoo.com. Valid until March 2014.

The Tattooed Poets Project: Chenelle Milford

Our tattooed poet today is Chenelle Milford.

In a first here at the Tattooed Poets Project (and I believe Tattoosday, as well), our photo was taken on the tattooed individual's wedding day:


There's two tattoos visible in this photo: the nautical star and, if you look closely, some letters running vertically on the left side of Chenelle's back.

The nautical star is a popular "classic" tattoo design as it originates in the culture of sailors, who brought the art of tattooing to the attention of European and North American society. Chenelle notes more specifically that the star on her neck represents her home, Northern California and that"it means that I can always find my way home, like a sailor on the open sea".

Chenelle notes that

"My most meaningful tattoo (although not necessarily the most photogenic) is [on] the shoulder... that reads OLAE 08.


My best friend had, on her right shoulder, SUMTS 09. When we would stand together, you could read back and forth across the shoulders, and the letters would spell SOULMATES. She died on May 22nd, 2009, in a car wreck at 25 years old, so I am grateful to have that memory of her."

Both tattoos were done at Ink Wizard Tattoos, in Griffin, Georgia. She credits an artist named Mike Stout with the nautical star and Gary Hall with the OLAE tattoo.

Please be sure to head over to BillyBlog to check out Chenelle's poem "little Red Riding Hood" here.

Chenelle C. Milford, a native Californian and poet, is the manager, web-designer, consultant, all-around aficionado, and archivist of the Joe Milford Poetry Show. She is the founder and editor of the new literary journal, Scythe. Additionally, she is a film-maker, writer, humanist, and a wonderful wife and mother. Together, Joe and Chenelle Milford are compiling an extensive online sonic archive, a library of archived materials that can be accessed, which share writing and impressive interviews of many of today's established and up-and-coming poets. Some of her work is displayed on New Aesthetic. She now resides in rural Georgia with her husband and two daughters. She is working on college and writing poetry as time permits.

Thanks to Chenelle for her participation in the Tattooed Poets Project!

No Hope But Home

I met Matthew walking through Penn Station last week. He has several tattoos, and shared this one with me:


On his right arm, this traditional nautical star has been embellished with several design elements that personalize the tattoo.

The banner "No Hope but Home" refers to lyrics from a song by a New Jersey band called Scream Hello.

The nautical star is accompanied by a knitting needle and a fountain pen. These two objects refer to his parents. The knitting needle speaks to his mother who is a homemaker and also knits as a hobby. The fountain pen alludes to his father, who is a writer professionally, and also
writes for pleasure.

The nautical star, traditionally worn by sailors to serve as a talisman to find a way home, serves a figurative purpose here, pointing toward, while also emphasizing the hopefulness of home, but also the importance of Matthew's parents in his life.

This cool tattoo was inked by John Reardon at Saved Tattoo, in Brooklyn. Work from Saved has appeared previously on Tattoosday here.

Thanks to Matthew for sharing this amazing tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!