Three for Tattoosday - A Trio of Teachers Share Their Ink

Last summer, I was biding my time near work, at the corner of Wall Street and Broad, when a group of tattooed people walked past. Like many of the visitors to that section of the city, they were travelers from elsewhere. I learned that these three friends were also educators, enjoying their summer with a trip to NYC.

All three of them were open and friendly, allowing me to take photos of their tattoos and to get the stories behind them.

The first person I spoke to was Amie, who shared this Wizard of Oz tattoo from her upper right arm:

It's a really cool Emerald City image, encompassed in a snow globe, with a flying witch, a yellow brick road and a rainbow. Dorothy's ruby slippers are poised in front of the snow globe.

Amie credited the work to "Little" Jen Small from 510 Expert Tattoo in Charlotte, North Carolina. "I'd been wanting something Wizard of Oz because it's my all-time favorite movie," Amie told me, "and I mentioned it to her [the artist] and she ran with the idea and did exactly what I was hoping for."

This piece, so colorful, was only two weeks old at the time, so it still had that fresh tattoo sheen.

Next up was Chad, who shared this tattoo "in the ditch" for me to see:

Chad explained, "My tattoo was done by Nate Hudak at Flying Tiger Tattoo in Norwood, Ohio." Norwood is an enclave of Cincinnati. He added, "It's an all-seeing eye ... I'm ... into traditional tattooing and I like the idea of a higher being seeing over, you know, everything."

And last up was Tom, a retired school teacher who shared this exploding apple:

He summed it up succinctly in telling me, "I had mine done by Tommy Partin at Aces High [in Mt. Orab, just east of Cincinnati, Ohio] and mine was just a way to represent being done with teaching."

Thanks to Amie, Chad and Tom, this trio of friends, who were all so generous in sharing their ink with us here on Tattoosday!

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Meredith Shares Two Inspirational Pieces for Tat-Twosday

Let's just say the third time's a charm.

It started with me getting off the subway in my neighborhood and noticing the woman walking several paces ahead of me. I saw that she had words inked around her wrists. As I generally shy away from tattoos that circle a limb (they don't translate well on a blog page, in my humble opinion), I made a mental note and we went our separate ways.

A few days later I was walking home, carrying dry cleaning (an activity that has delayed more than one Tattoosday post, for sure), when I ran into her again.

This time, we approached from opposite directions and I was able to introduce myself and maneuver my cleaning in order to give her Tattoosday info.

I was pleased to see, as well, two heretofore unnoticed pieces that she told me about and admired. Both were significantly original and very cool. We tentatively agreed to talk at a later date about featuring her work on the site.

A week later, our paths crossed again, and this time I was ready. So here are two of Meredith's tattoos, just in time for Tat-twosday!

We'll start with the wonderful piece dancing along the inside of her left forearm:


What we have here is the phrase "searching through the static" in an unusual font. With Photoshop, Meredith flipped the text to create a design with the phrase, base to base, almost zig-zagging across her arm.


Meredith is an artist (see her blog here) and she has lived in several places, trying to find her way through life. She did, here in New York City, and the phrase "searching through the static" resonates with her, as she has ventured through the chaos of life experiences to find her true path. She particularly loves this font because it resembles a cityscape, with some of the letters rising like skyscrapers over the street-like valleys between words.

The second tattoo she offered up is this stunning black and gray chest piece:


The center of the design is a broken snow globe, modeled after one that Meredith's grandmother gave her many years ago. Even though it is cracked, she has kept it as a treasure by which to remember her. She did change the snow globe design to contain a tree, not small people, like in the item on which this is based. The tree, she felt, was more appropriate for the tattoo.

The phrase that brackets the snow globe is "Keep going farther Beautiful Seeker." It is a mantra that she has adopted to keep her motivated and focused on a higher goal.

Both of these tattoos were inked by Alex Franklin at Brooklyn Ink. Work from Alex has appeared previously on Tattoosday here here and here. And clicking here will take you to all the posts from Brooklyn Ink that have appeared here on Tattoosday. As I've mentioned before, the proximity of the shop to my residence makes it the most frequently-featured purveyor on the site.

Thanks again to Meredith for sharing her wonderful tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!