Olga Shares Two Incredible Tattoos

A couple weeks ago on the subway, I spotted a pretty floral tattoo on a woman's arm. When she turned around to get off the train to transfer, I saw she had another tattoo on her other arm, which prompted me to get off the train as well, so I could find out more about this amazing tattoo:

The owner of this amazing tattoo is Olga, who was very friendly and happy to share her work. She explained that this is a memorial piece for her father, Wolf, that embraces her family's Russian heritage. She credited the work to Mikhail at White Rabbit Tattoo Studio on Manhattan's Lower East Side. Olga added:

"I gave Mikhail a very rough sketch of what I wanted, a wolf under birch trees, and he came up with this beautiful piece. I was honestly speechless when it was done, it's exactly what I wanted and so much more. It's very special."

She told me that birch trees reminded her of her old home in Russia.

Oh, and remember the cool floral piece that I initially spotted on Olga's arm?

That piece was done by the phenomenal Amanda Wachob, an amazingly talented artist who is worth researching, just to appreciate her skills as a unique tattooist. The work on Olga's arm looked painted on and I didn't take a photo because it wrapped all the way onto her back. Olga did me a courtesy by sending a photo of her back after it was initially finished:

Olga told me:

"This started as a few cherry blossoms on my arm which I wanted to extend over my shoulder onto my back with a few magnolias. Working with Amanda was amazing and I'm grateful we were able to work on this amazing piece together."

It's always an honor to highlight Amanda Wachob's work.

Thank to Olga for sharing her wonderful tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

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Caitlin's Faulknerian Tattoo and Language

This past summer, while attending the 2nd Annual New York City Poetry Festival on Governor's Island, I saw a lot of great ink. I have a soft spot for word tattoos, and was drawn to this one, on the back of Caitlin:

This reads, in Latin, "Et ego in Arcadia."

"It's actually grammatically incorrect, but it's as it appears in a Faulkner novel [The Sound and the Fury] ... something Quentin's father says to him," Caitlin told me. "And," she added, "he says it with that wording, but it's really supposed to be Et in Arcadio ego."

Loosely interpreted, she understands it to mean "I am even in paradise."

When I asked her why she had that phrase tattooed on her, Caitlin elaborated:

"It's difficult to say ... I just think, reading Faulkner, when I was a teenager was sort of the first time that I realized what language could do. I thought ... it had certain constraints ... that is part of why I chose the saying from the Faulkner novel, I also liked the idea that ... language is fluid, there aren't really rules to it. We're changing language every day ... It's sort of comforting, walking around New York City and you see, like, all of these signs and they have grammatical errors in them ... it's sort of comforting to think of language as this living, breathing thing."

She had this done at White Rabbit Tattoo Studio in the East Village.

Thanks to Caitlin for sharing this literary tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2012 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.

A Chance Encounter with an Amazing Artist (with Brando and Lady Day)

I was getting off of the subway at Bryant Park last June when I spotted Marlon Brando:

This amazing portrait graces the arm of Davinia Do Santo, a tattoo artist from Spain who was visiting New York City and doing a guest spot at White Rabbit Tattoo in the East Village.

She credits this portrait of Marlon Brando to Xavi García Boix, another artist from Valencia, Spain. This iconic image is of a young Brando in the film The Wild One.

When I stopped Davinia, she wasn't alone. Another young woman was accompanying her, and Davinia permitted me to photograph this tattoo, which she had done:

That's the legendary Billie Holiday.

You can check out more of Davinia's amazing work on her website here or on her Facebook page here.

Muchas gracias to Davinia Do Santo for sharing her work with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2012 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.