Melissa Fite Johnson on the Tattooed Poets Project

Our next tattooed poet is Melissa Fite Johnson.

She sent us the following photo collage:

Melissa explains:

"I had plenty of reasons to regret the tattoo I got at nineteen before the term tramp stamp entered our collective vocabulary. It was poorly done, it didn’t have any special meaning, and I’d gone with my not-very-nice then-boyfriend to get it. Actually, the reason I got it was because I was tired of being considered such a good girl, reliable and trustworthy and not wild at all, and somehow I thought a tattoo would prove otherwise. Of course, once I grew into a confident person, once I decided reliability and trustworthiness were excellent characteristics to possess, I especially hated my tattoo. It was a constant reminder that I didn’t used to like myself.

As much as I regretted my tattoo for other reasons, my embarrassment became palpable when lower-back tattoos started being referred to as tramp stamps. I wish I could say I’d been a stronger woman and not let that sexist term get to me, but it totally did. It was just so prevalent. So many people used it, even many other women with lower-back tattoos. It was a running joke on How I Met Your Mother, one of my favorite shows. Any time I went to a doctor who lifted my shirt to put a stethoscope to my back, or to a massage therapist who asked me to lie face-down on the table, I flushed with shame. I bought only one-piece bathing suits. I squatted rather than bent over to pick up anything I dropped. My tattoo felt like a dirty secret. I dreaded anyone seeing it and proclaiming, 'You have a tramp stamp?' which, despite my efforts, still happened.

It took more than a decade, but I finally stopped letting the term tramp stamp haunt me. Words like 'tramp' and 'slut' shouldn’t be used to describe any woman, no matter how many partners she’s had, no matter how she’s dressed, no matter where her tattoos are. No matter what. A major problem in our society is that so many people consider terms like tramp stamp (and the more recent skank flank) to be harmless, inoffensive. That’s simply not true. These terms have the power to humiliate women, as I can attest, and they contribute to rape culture. To reduce women to sexual objects, to dismiss their worth as human beings because of a tattoo, is a first step down a dangerous slippery slope. 

My story has a happy ending. A few years ago, my husband and I visited friends in Columbus, Ohio. Our first night there, we got to talking about tattoos, and I mentioned how much I hated mine. One of our friends offered to contact a tattoo artist he knew, and suddenly our night’s plans changed. The artist, Joey Knuckles (@joeyknucklestattoo) at High Street Tattoo (@highstreettattoo), had a gorgeous portfolio and a reputation for exquisite cover-up work. I’d long ago decided what tattoo I should’ve gotten instead of a star-with-no-meaning, so (with an incredibly nervous belly), I asked for leaves of grass, in honor of my favorite book of poetry. I’m thrilled with the result. Now I have a beautiful tattoo with meaning, one I got surrounded by people I love and who love me."

Melissa also sent us the following poem, which first appeared in Whale Road Review (2016):

Donating My Eggs

In the fertility clinic waiting room
I’m the youngest by ten years,
except for a toddler
everyone smiles at wistfully.
He wears cowboy boots
and has a matching hat his mother
won’t let him put on indoors. He says
he’s not a real cowboy without it.

Before my ultrasound,
the boy’s mother says,
All it takes is one good egg.
My cousin, forty-one and beautiful,
so skinny I can’t imagine her
with a curved silhouette by Christmas,
doesn’t answer. Later,
on the car ride home, she says,
If he were my son,
he could wear that hat to funerals.

~ ~ ~

Melissa Fite Johnson received her Master’s in English literature from Pittsburg State University in Kansas. Individual poems have appeared in Rattle, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Broadsided Press, and elsewhere. Her first collection, While the Kettle’s On (Little Balkans Press, 2015), and her second, Ghost Sign (Spartan Press, 2016), which she co-authored, were both named Kansas Notable Books. She is also the author of A Crooked Door Cut into the Sky, winner of the 2017 Vella Chapbook Award (Paper Nautilus Press, 2018). Melissa and her husband live with their dog and chickens in Kansas, where she teaches English.

Thanks to Melissa for contributing to the Tattooed Poets Project on Tattoosday!

To see our entire list of poets over the last ten years, please visit www.tattooedpets.com.

This entry is ©2018 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.net 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.

A Sugar Skull for Beth

Yesterday we shared our late cousin Beth's tattoo (here).

After her funeral, my wife Melanie was talking with her tattoo artist Thomas "Thomi Hawk" Hickey, and she knew she wanted a new tattoo paying tribute to her cousin.

Although she would have loved to have something from Thomi, it was logistically challenging, as we do not have a car and Thomi works out of New Jersey. The idea for a tribute evolved to include several ideas and, eventually, Melanie knew what she wanted. The question was, who would be the best artist for the job?

In the end, the answer was simple, and we headed back to Three Kings Tattoo in the East Village to meet with Alex McWatt, the artist who did Melanie's previous tattoo,

She consulted with him first to come up with a basic concept and talk about the elements she wanted incorporated into the piece, and then a few weeks later, she was back in the shop, with that old familiar sound of a tattoo machine buzzing in her ear.

Alex McWatt in Action

And when she first saw it, she was pleased:

This is the tattoo, as it was first completed:

And a healed version, from a different angle:

Melanie wanted a Sugar Skull to honor Beth. Beth's favorite holiday was Halloween, and the sugar skull is associated with the Mexican celebration of Día de los Muertos, which coincides with Halloween,and All Saints' Day in early November, when people gather together to remember, honor and celebrate friends and family members who have died.

Because we are Jewish, Alex replaced the cross often found in sugar skulls with a Star of David. The paw print in the middle of the star is an homage to Beth and her wrist tattoo, shared yesterday, which Alex used as a reference to add to the design.

Melanie also asked for the spider, perched on top of the rose, also as a nod to Beth and her love of Halloween. One of Beth's sisters told us that, when they went to Beth's house after the funeral, there were a lot of spiders around the house, and that they had never noticed spiders there before.

Melanie loves her new tattoo and wears it proudly as a fitting tribute to Beth.

Thanks to Alex at Three Kings, who we cannot praise enough, for his fine work.

We miss you Beth, but Melanie's sugar skull makes us smile and think of you. We know you'd love it too.

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.

Paulette Beete's Butterfly (The Tattooed Poets Project)

Our next Tattooed Poet of the Week is Paulette Beete, who sent us this photo:

Paulette tells us:

"The image is of my 3rd tattoo, which was inked in June 2011. My sister also has a few tattoos and we decided to get the same tattoo to celebrate the fact that, after a lot of work, we'd become best friends. We both liked the idea of a butterfly because it represents a specific type of change. When caterpillars become butterflies, they become who they were meant to be all along, which was a great metaphor for our journeys of growing into ourselves. We worked with Bill at Ambrotos Tattoo in downtown Silver Spring, Maryland. We liked this butterfly because it didn't look too girly like so many butterfly tattoos do. My sister didn't like the stars so Bill made a couple of sketches that replaced the stars with ribbons. Ultimately I kept the stars because they felt quirky like me. My sister's much more elegant than I so the version with the ribbons fit her perfectly."

Paulette sent us the following poem, "The Makers of Memorials," which was previously published in Beltway Poetry Quarterly. She noted, "I believe that the best tattoos are memorials of a sort; stories that we carry on the outside as well as the inside."

The Makers of Memorials

They sing. They sing blue songs
their mothers wore.
They sing grief, bone-thick & left-handed.
They sing songs cross oceans, cross sidewalks.
They sing skies sealed shut.
They sing men born wearing walking shoes.
They sing women born palms up.
They sing from mouths without lipstick,
charts without notes, pianos without tunes.
They sing back-door songs & apron-
tied-low songs. They sing.
Unmaking the made into something less
teeth-breaking. They sing
dead crops, dead gods, men
put down, men put out,
dreams put off. Off key, off beat, they sing.
Steady. Loud. Relentless. They sing
instead of, in spite of, next door to. They sing
in clinics, in bedrooms, on corners. They sing.
Women in blue & purple, in thorn tiaras braided
from agains & nevermores & never minds.
Songs of children lost, of savings lost,
pawn tickets lost.
They sing. They sing. They sing
blue songs of our mothers,
holier-songs of our blue mothers.
They sing the slow leak that will drown
the world. They call God home
for the re-making.

~ ~ ~

Paulette Beete's poems have appeared in or are forthcoming in magazines including Crab Orchard Review, Escape into Life, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Gargoyle, and The Found Poetry Review. Her chapbooks include Blues for a Pretty Girl (Finishing Line Press) and Voice Lessons (Plan B Press). Her work also appears in several anthologies, including Full Moon on K Street: Poems About Washington, DC. She blogs (occasionally) at thehomebeete.com.

Thanks to Paulette for sharing her tattoo and poem with us here on Tattoosday's Tattooed Poets Project!

This entry is ©2015 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.

The Tattooed Poets Project: Kirsten Imani Kasai

As we enter into the final weekend of yet another successful month of tattooed poets, take a look at the back of Kirsten Imani Kasai:

Kirsten tells us:

"My work is three separate pieces. The first, on the back of my neck, is a Byzantine monogram of 'Mary,' for the Virgin Mary. I had this done in 1993 at Erno Tattoo in San Francisco.

The raven tree and stars were done by in 2011 and 2013. My friend Keith Greene, at Federation Ink in San Diego, did both based on some clip art paste-ups I brought him. The bird tattoo has a double meaning. I’m rather Poe-obsessed, and so here are the Raven and the Tell-Tale Heart. At least that’s what I tell strangers…for me, this piece recognizes a really dreadful, difficult year of loss, transition and heartbreak. (I wrote about it here. Additionally, I wrote the poem 'a murder of crows' about this imagery of the raven and the gift of a human heart, which was incorporated into the prose/poetry piece 'mice' published in the summer 2014 issue of the Existere Journal of Arts & Literature.)

The third tattoo is my 'mother line' and features blue and pink stars for my son and daughter. The dead or shadow stars represent pregnancies I've lost."

Kirsten sent us the following poem:

process aestivation

she had forgotten all of it

too long

had she lain sleeping

snow white

knew the apple tainted

bit deeply

seeking poison like nectar

sleeping beauty

summoned the spindle’s

narcotic draught

milk teeth madly grinning

blood beading on her finger

she swallowed

the magicked bread

despite the warnings

—never eat from fey hands—

let the fisherman

steal her selkie skin

to keep her from the deep

and salted sea

buried undreaming

apple rotting in her throat

blood clotting in her veins

watching

night’s noiseless apocalypse

descend

              awakened

                             she is ravenous

~ ~ ~

Kirsten Imani Kasai is the author of three novels: Ice Song, Tattoo and Private Pleasures; a short fiction/poetry collection Rhapsody in Snakeskin and a poetry chapbook The Atmospheric Mysteries of a Steaming Corpse. Kirsten is the co-founder and editor of Body Parts Magazine, a journal of provocative horror, spec fiction and erotica. She earned her MFA from Antioch University and lives in California with her family. Visit her online at www.IceSong.com and on Facebook here.

Some bonus footage includes this Google chat interview & reading with Pretty Owl Poetry:

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

This entry is ©2015 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.

Repost: Lizz's Tattoo Anchors Her to Her Brother

Something about this post from 2009 jumped out at me, so I thought I'd re-run it today.

~ ~ ~

One of the things that I love most about writing Tattoosday is the way New York City plays a significant role in the narrative. It may not be a blog about New York, but it would be a much different one without this city I call my home.

This is one of those posts that is tied to the fabric of New York.

This evening, I was taking advantage of a free ticket to see a revival of Guys and Dolls at the Nederlander Theater, which is still in preview and opens March 1st.

I was standing in line outside, about twenty minutes before curtains. The theater, on the south side of West 41st Street, faces the back of the New Amsterdam Theater to the north.

There were assorted people milling about across the street, folks I assumed were crew from Mary Poppins, outside having their last cigarettes before their show started.

I spotted a woman who had exited the theater and saw, from across the street, that she had a tattoo on her right forearm. I was doing nothing but standing in line anyway, so I crossed over 41st Street to say hello.

Lizz, who works as a dresser, was more than happy to share her tattoo:


What's remarkable about this traditional-style anchor tattoo is that she had it done at the same time, on the same spot, and with the same design as her younger brother.

For Lizz, this was her most recent, her nineteenth tattoo. For her brother, five years her junior, it was his first.

The piece is based on the state flag of Rhode Island, where Lizz grew up:


Tattoos in general have significant meaning for their bearers. When the same design in shared, and the act of being tattooed is similarly experienced, the emotional charge instilled in the work is compounded.

Another example of siblings sharing a tattoo can be seen here.

Lizz told me that she doesn't rely on one artist, but that her ink has come from different shops all over the country.

This tattoo was created at Cherry Bomb Tattoo (now known as East River Tattoo) in Brooklyn by the artist Duke Riley. Work from Cherry Bomb has appeared here previously.

Thanks so much to Lizz for sharing her ink with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2009,2015 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.

Daniela's Spiral of Stars

I met Daniela a couple weeks back in Bay Ridge, stopping her after spotting a text tattoo on her forearm. However, she preferred to share this tattoo:

She got this spiral pattern of 15 stars on her fifteenth birthday when she was living in Argentina. I always try to remain objective, but as a parent of two teenage daughters, I asked what her parents thought when she came home with this tattoo on her neck. Daniela told me that they actually took her to get the tattoo and expanded on why she chose such a visible spot for her tattoo:

"I do kinda regret the tattoo at times, but ... at that age, I was going through a lot at school, and I just wanted to stand out from everybody else. In Argentina, basically all the people are the same, so I didn't want at all to be like them."

She was born in Argentina and lived there for almost seven years, and she acknowledged that this tattoo was one way for her to express her own individuality.

Thanks to Daniela for sharing these stars with us here on Tattoosday!

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.

Jason's Two Stars Lead the Way

Last week, I spotted Jason walking through Penn Station and took the opportunity to ask him about some of his tattoos. He says he has about twenty-four in all, so I took a picture of his forearms, from the photo here you can see six of them, including a Celtic knot and the phrase "Let it be...".

However, Jason drew my attention to the two stars, which were his first two tattoos. I'll let Jason explain, in his own words:

"The crumbling star was originally meant for my broken aspirations, something I dreamt up when I was a kid. And then, the outline of the green star ... the green, for me, it means rejuvenation, you know, new ideas, new paths, just different things to inspire me."

The two stars were not done at the same time, but the crumbling star was inked at Addiction NYC in the East Village. The green star followed a couple weeks later and was completed in Brooklyn, at Inkman Tattoo Studio.

Jason told me he likes to get new tattoos when he travels, what I like to call a "tattoorist," if you will. New ink is always a great way to commemorate places one has visited.

Thanks to Jason for sharing these two stars with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2012 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. 

Kristina: Aon Grá

Over the summer, we were having a yard sale, when Kristina stopped by to peruse the goods. She shared this, one of her four tattoos:

Located on the inside of her right arm, the phrase "aon grá" is Irish for "one love". This decorative tattoo with a powerful message was tattooed by Rob at Brooklyn Ink in Bay Ridge. Work from the shop which, due to its close proximity to "home base" for Tattoosday, has appeared often over the years on the site, and can be seen here.


Thanks to Kristina for sharing her tattoo 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.

Musician Monday: Ryan from The Disconnects

Here on our second installment of Musician Mondays, we have a rockin', self-explanatory tattoo from Ryan, lead singer and guitarist from an unsigned band called The Disconnects:

From her mohawk to her Doc Martens, this punk rock girl and her "Too Fast to Live, To Young to Die" banner totally capture that raw, rock aesthetic.

I met Ryan last month, across the street from where I work, on Seventh Avenue and 31st Street, in Manhattan.

The tattoo was inked at Fat Kat Tattoos in Keyport, New Jersey. Work from Fat Kat previously appearing on the site can be seen here.

Thanks to Ryan for sharing his cool tattoo 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.

Home is Where the Star Is

Yesterday in Penn Station, I met Jonathan, whose one tattoo caught my eye when I passed him in the Amtrak waiting area.

Except, sometimes, a fragment of a tattoo doesn't necessarily reveal the whole piece. As in Jonathan's case, I saw the back of his arm, and this segment, which resembled (to me, at the time), a crude figure with the beginning of a speech bubble emanating from its mouth:

I felt rather silly, however, when Jonathan agreed to participate and showed me the full tattoo:

The figure I imagined, of course, is really Long Island, and the balloon was the southern tip of the state of New York.

Jonathan explained that he is from Rochester, marked on the tattoo with a star, and that he lived in the same house growing up there for eighteen years. It's a New York state of mind, indeed.

The tattoo was done at Big Joe & Sons Tattooing in White Plains, New York.

Thanks to Jonathan for sharing his stately tattoo 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.

Out With the Old.....

As we wind down 2010, and look ahead to 2011, I wanted to take care of one of my several loose ends from the past year.

Back in July, I met a guy named John on the D train. He had tattooed arms and we chatted a bit. He said he'd send me photos and he did a few weeks later.

I never posted the photos because the resolution was low, and when I tried to increase the size, they blurred. I was going to include these in the Christmas housecleaning post, but the work is just too good.

So hear you have them, small photos, but recognizably amazing:

I mean, what is there to say? This work is quite excellent. The koi, the tiger, the sailing ship, sugar skull, nautical stars - it's all quite a body of work!

The artist is Nacho, who appeared once before on the blog here. You can check out Nacho's work here. in New York, he tattoos out of Studio Enigma on Avenue U.

Thanks to John for sharing these amazing tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

And thanks to all of our fans and contributors for making 2010 a successful year of inkspotting!

Mel's Star Shines from Down Under

Earlier this month, I ran into Mel coming out of Penn Station.

She has amazing work, and it was soon clear why. Mel was visiting from Melbourne, Australia, where she works as a tattoo artist at Get Smart Body Art.

I was drawn particularly to one of her newer tattoos, this dot-style Tibetan-inspired design:

I told her it reminded me of the style of Thomas Hooper, an artist at New York Adorned whose website (here) showcases some astonishing work, including tattoos made from the dot-style technique.

Mel noted that it was an original design that was inked using a rotary tattoo machine, with the purpose of achieving this effect. Thomas Hooper's style, she acknowledged, inspired her to attempt this ambitious tattoo.

In all fairness, she collaborated with Mick Kelly, at Get Smart Body Art, who did the actual tattooing.

Thanks to Mel for sharing this lovely tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

Mandy's Leopard Stars

I spotted Mandy on Seventh Avenue in Manhattan last month and I had to stop her to ask about this, one of her three tattoos:


She came up with the design and made sure to include the leopard print that she likes so much.

She credits the artist Eric Newby at Ink Xpressions on Ringgold Road in East Ridge (Chattanooga), Tennessee.

You may notice another tattoo peeking into the picture, so let me show you the larger perspective and a glimpse of the piece to the left of the stars:


Mandy informed me later, via e-mail, that the floral piece

"was actually a stencil I found, and I really liked the design a lot. I had two black and white tattoos, so I wanted bright colors and we decided no outlines would look cool. It was a long process to get the colors I wanted to absorb, but it was well worth it in the end. The artist was Shane Hartline at Evermore Galleries in Chattanooga".

Thanks to Mandy for sharing these tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

The Tattooed Poets Project: Jackie Sheeler

Today's tattooed poet is no stranger to us here on Tattoosday. Jackie Sheeler appeared last year on the Tattooed Poets Project and came back to share some more. Be sure to look at last year's contribution here, to get a little perspective about Jackie and her ink.

This new piece is on her outer right thigh:


Jackie says she doesn't "have a long story about this tattoo the way [she] did about [her] others!". Nonetheless, it's lovely work and no less worthy of sharing, story or not.

Jackie credits this piece to “Triple X Jess,” who works out of The Kingdom Tattoo & Body Piercing in Manhattan.

Be sure to head over to BillyBlog to check out a new poem from Jackie here.

Jackie Sheeler is a poet, musician, and performance artist in New York City. You can also read her blog, Get Angry With Me, here, or visit her band, Talk Engine, on MySpace Music here. Her other site www.poetz.com is being redesigned and the new site is launching later this week.

Thanks again to Jackie for sharing her tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

Tattoorism: Tammy from Texas

Last summer, my wife Melanie met Tammy on the staff message board of their company's website, where she and other employees across the country can exchange ideas and feedback. As a leader for Weight Watchers, Melanie often comes across members and co-workers who have used tattoos for inspiration and to mark milestones.

When talking to Tammy, a leader in Texas, she learned that she was inked, as well. She sent her the link to Tattoosday, and Tammy sent us photos of a few of her eleven tattoos.

We'll let Tammy describe them for us:

"I got my very first [tattoo] when I was 21 in Virginia while getting a tattoo for my younger brother but I didn't get another for several years at which time I had my uncle in Arkansas place a rose under the butterfly I had done first. It is old and faded but holds so much meaning to me as my uncle passed away in his 40s about 5 years ago so I have him with me at all times...I then waited a couple more years and had a dolphin put on my left ankle as a reminder of a trip we had made to Florida. About a year later an apprentice in Shreveport added an ankle wave under the dolphin.

I then took a long break from tattoos and the rest have all been done in the last 5 years here in Wichita Falls, Texas, with the exception of the tribal butterfly [seen below]. I had it done in Lawton, Oklahoma, when my son was getting his rib piece finished up [a subject of a later post].

On my right thigh I have the New York Yankees logo:

On my left shoulder blade my husband and I got kanji symbols for Eternity for our 19th wedding anniversary. I have a tribal butterfly (the only tattoo I have ever picked off a wall) put on the top of my left foot and I love it:


When I hit 50 pounds gone, my oldest son paid for the star that everyone sees in pictures I post:

And a Pisspot with my husbands name [pictured left]. My husband just retired with 26 years in the service and was AMMO-I always wanted this but was never brave enough nor skinny enough for that so called "tramp stamp"... it actually looks awesome although this picture is a little blurry.



And of course when I hit Lifetime [when a Weight Watchers member reaches their goal and maintains it for six weeks], my rib piece came alive:

The photo above is the tattoo right after it was completed. Here is how it healed:



Most of Tammy's work was done at A Different Drummer Tattoo Studio in Wichita Falls.

Thanks to Tammy for sharing some of her photos with us here on Tattoosday!

Darren's Trio of Tattoos

I was contemplating the best way to approach a rather imposing figure who was completely covered in ink, when Darren passed me at the entrance to K-Mart in Penn Station.

When I caught up to him in the store, I introduced myself and, being a piercer in a New York City tattoo shop, he was more than happy to indulge my curiosity.

Darren has three tattoos, all on his arms and crafted by Young Cho at Monster Tattoo in the Elmurst section of Queens.

The first piece, on his lower right arm, is a pin-up depiction of Lady Luck perched on a crescent moon:


The second tattoo is a half-skull that pays homage to Boys Night Out, a band in which one of Darren's friends plays:


This is the outer forearm on his left side.

Finally, we have this piece, which is more than just a few numbers and letters:

Located on his inner right forearm, this tattoo is translated as 40 degrees, 40 minutes, north latitude and 73 degrees, 9 minutes west longitude. These coordinates refer to a specific location in the world, in this case, a spot in the Great South Bay off the coast of Long Island. It was here that Darren's father loved to go fishing and the coordinates in question mark the spot where his father's ashes were scattered after he passed away.

I must emphatically state that this is one of the coolest memorial pieces I have seen. It is extremely thoughtful and creative, speaking to a point on the earth where Darren knows his father will remain, in spirit, for the rest of time.

I thank Darren for taking the time to stop and chat with me about his three tattoos here on Tattoosday!