Josh's Slice of Ecstacy

This past Sunday was the 5th Avenue Street Fair in Bay Ridge and there were tattoos a-plenty strolling down the boulevard among the fried food stands, kid attractions and bands playing out of storefronts. The first person I chose to interview was Josh, who had this interesting piece on his upper left arm:

Josh explained that he got this because he really appreciated the art and wanted it as a tattoo. It is based on a painting called "Ecstacy" by Alex Grey, and it was tattooed by Mike Brummett at Top Shelf Tattooing in Bayside, Queens. Here's the work upon which it was based:

You can explore the world of Alex Grey here.

Thanks to Josh for sharing his cool tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

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A Duel on Christian's Arms

Christian is one of the rare Tattoosday subjects with whom I got greedy.

My normal modus operandi is to ask people for an offering of one of their multiple tattoos. I let them choose and I am happy to capture one piece and move on.

But in the course of photographing Christian's choice, I saw his other two tattoos, and requested to include them in the post, as well.

Christian is a filmmaker and the two tattoos he offered as a set were drawings from the storyboard of his film, "The Duel":


Positioned as such, Calico Joe Jackson (on the right) and Remington Turk Dakota (on the left) occupy different arms. In their natural state, the two creations of Christian's imagination, they have their backs to one another, pistols drawn, in classic duel-readiness positions. Below is a still from "The Duel," produced by Elwood Gentry Productions.


As his creations, he proudly wears them on his sleeves to commemorate his first major creative undertaking. See the trailer from the film here.

Above Calico Joe Jackson, on his right bicep, there is a familiar sight, an image from one of the first commercial films made, Georges Méliès' 1902 classic A Trip to the Moon (Le Voyage dans la Lune):




It's a famous shot, with a bullet lodged in the eye socket of an anthropomorphically-surprised moon.

This film as inspired generations of film-makers and Christian loves the fact that such an early cinematic effort was steeped in science fiction and special effects.


Finally, I had to take a photo of the third tattoo:


That is the logo of Hunter S. Thompson, who invented the concept of Gonzo Journalism. As a huge fan of the book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (see my BillyBlog post here), as well as Dr. Thompson's other writings, I greatly appreciated Christian's nod to the late great Hunter S.


All of these pieces were tattooed by the amazing Bert Krak at Top Shelf Tattooing.

A hearty thanks to Christian for sharing his work with us here on Tattoosday!