Susan's Angel of Grief (Tattoosday Walks Into a Bar)

Earlier this month, I stopped by one of my favorite watering holes, Threes Brewing (@threesbrewing), in Brooklyn. While enjoying a Voluntary Exile Baltic Porter, I struck up a conversation with one of the bartenders, Susan, who shared this amazing tattoo on her upper arm:

Susan explained that, when she turned forty, her mother had just died and "it just felt right to get an enormous tattoo."

The piece depicts the Angel of Grief, a sculpture by William Wetmore Story, for his wife Emelyn's grave in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome. "My mother and I had seen it together," Susan told me. She thought it was an appropriate tribute and fit the bill as a big tattoo.

She credited the work to the amazingly talented Annie Lloyd from Get Fat Brooklyn (@getfatbk).

Thanks to Susan for sharing her lovely tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2018 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.

Tom's Guardian Angel (at the NYC Tattoo Convention)

Yesterday we posted work on Stacy, who I met at the NYC Tattoo Convention in June. She shared work from both Rose Hardy and Justin Weatherholtz from Kings Avenue Tattoo. She was accompanied by Tom, who also had this work by Justin:

Tom, when asked about the tattoo, just referred to her as his guardian angel.

Thanks to Tom for sharing this stunning tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©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.

The Tattooed Poets Project: David Krilivsky

Our next tattooed poet is David Krilivsky. David sent us a wide array of his tattoos:

David tells us:

"Almost all of my tattoos are religious in nature. I was raised in a family which is Catholic on both sides all the way down the line. It was part of my daily life: Catholic school, Sunday mass, etc. While I no longer practice my faith, it was the stories, and particularly the images, that have stayed with me and become part of my fabric, and, over the years, part of my body. Whether it's my sleeve devoted to the death of Christ or the portrait of St. Sebastian, my tattoos represent a belief I no longer subscribe to but secretly hope is true. They are monuments to the haunting images of my youth. Monuments to the haunting images still playing on a loop in my mind in my adulthood. I cannot separate my self from that which shaped me, and from my choices in tattoos it's evident I don't want to even if I could."

He credited all of his work displayed here to Josh Jones from Good Ink Tattoo in Waterbury, Vermont.

David tells us that the poem he sent us, My Inventory is a Wilderness, takes its title from a letter written by Larry Eigner and was first published at Weird Deer. He invites you yo listen to the audio recording here: 

My Inventory is a Wilderness

I have taken stock.

I am not a river.

Not even stones

in a river are my bones,

not smoothed by current

or skipped by teenagers

ditching school to smoke weed

in the woods out of an empty soda can.

I shake rusted fishhooks from my hair,

tie line around my wrists until they bleed.

My thoughts are a character in a Bergman film

riding a horse along a jagged path,

no, lying in my brother’s arms

on the bottom of an abandoned boat.

My eyes.

My tongue is a tree.

My words are fallen twigs

that snap under the weight of your boot.

My love is a plane somewhere on the side of a mountain.

My guilt is a sonata by Scriabin

listened to on headphones as the plane went down.

I smash my teeth with a rock to relieve the pain.

I write letters addressed to no one pleading for forgiveness,

then burn them in a pile of leaves.

My hands are ash.

My limbs smolder.

When I try to sleep, ghosts lean against my lids,

blow rings from phantom cigarettes.

I tell them to leave, but don't mean it.

~ ~ ~

David Krilivsky holds an MFA in Poetry from Queens University of Charlotte. His work can be found at Weird Deer, Poets & Artists, Found Poetry Review, Uut Poetry, and elsewhere. He lives in Burlington, Vermont.

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

This entry is ©2015 Tattoosday. The poem and tattoos 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.

Vincent Francone's Angel and Devil Tattoos (The Tattooed Poets Project)

Our next tattooed poet is Vincent Francone. Vincent has two amazing tattoos on his upper arms:

Vincent explains:

"I got the angel tattoo first. It was meant to be a caricature of my (then) girlfriend (now my wife). A year later, I decided to get a demonic version. I was looking to create a theme-- the angel on one shoulder, the devil on the other. That sums up my life-- always fighting to decide what to do with two distinct voices in each ear pulling me in opposite directions. The shop for both was Deluxe Tattoo in Chicago. The artist was Tim Biedron."

Incidentally, work by Tim Biedron has appeared previously on Tattoosday here.

Vincent sent us the following poem:

A True Account of Talking to the Sun in Chicago

The sun wouldn’t take my call

at first, so I insisted,

sent a friend request,

bombarded him with emails

until finally, out of frustration,

he relented.

“Francone, what is it?

What’s so goddamn important

you have bug me

while I’m working,

which, in case you didn’t realize,

is always?”

“Well…” I had nothing

to ask, I just wanted

to be in contact,

but the sun insisted:

“Let me guess,

you’re hoping to be

the next Mayakovsky

or O’Hara

the first two poets I spoke to

but—sorry to be

the bearer of bad news—

lots of minor poets

have invoked me in

their minor poems

and pretended to speak with me

so I no longer have much

to say to poets

minor or major.”

I was dejected,

as you can imagine,

but pressed regardless

like a stubborn dog:

“Couldn’t you

advise me anyway?”

“Sure,” he said:

“go and get your MFA.

It might be folly,

and a lot of cash

it’ll cost but it’s worthwhile

if you’re into writing balderdash.”

“I’ve tried,” I lied,

“but it was a drag,

more times than not

I wrote what my

professors wanted,

which was a lot of rot.”

“I’ve seen it,

your grad school verse,

and I’ve seen your others;

you could do a lot worse

than write what your

professors want.

But you could probably

do better, but

who cares?

Poems won’t change

either of us. 

And there’s so damned many!

Who can read them all?

I used to keep up

but I’m tired—

too much being written, I’m

overwhelmed. Francone,

why add to the deluge?”

“Because,” I said,

“where else

but in a poem

would I get to use

the word deluge?”

He rolled his eyes,

said: “That’s the trouble

right there: when

in everyday conversation

would you use deluge?

Never—so why put it

in a poem?

To make your poem seem

like a poem?

That’s the cheapest

poet’s trick.

It only further

alienates the audience,

which is a small lot

to start with.

Better stick to straight

talk, nothing so

polysyllabic 

and no tortured symbols!

Keep it direct,

keep it pure,

just say what you feel

and try to feel something

other than self-pity,

dull as all get out—

don’t bore the poor world

with your self-doubt.”

I had no retort— no more

to state, having indeed

done as the sun said

not to do too often,

written bad poems

riddled with ennui

that I had no right

to have pretended to feel;

I wrote them because

that’s what I thought

a poet did—that’s

what I was taught.

“Hogwash,” said the sun,

reading my thoughts.

“Of course I read your

thoughts—a good bit better

than your poems.

Anyway, if that’s what

they taught you,

then you’d best forget

all you learned

in graduate school.”

“How can I? The bill

comes each month.”

“Well,” said the sun,

having the last word

as he always will

“looks like you’re the fool.”

~ ~ ~

Vincent Francone is a writer living in Chicago whose work has appeared in Spectrum, Rhino, New City, The Oklahoma Review and other journals. He won 1st prize in the 2009 Illinois Emerging Writers Competition and is polishing a book for publication. Read his blog at www.zombiedante.blogspot.com and look at his collection of smug writer poses at www.faceandhands.blogspot.com

Thanks to Vincent for his contribution to the tattooed Poets Project on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2015 Tattoosday. The poem and tattoos 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: Paul Scot August

Our next tattooed poet is Paul Scot August, who shared two tattoos with us. On his right shoulder sits an angel:

and on his left shoulder is a demon:

Paul tells us:

"Both designs are taken from the same M.C. Escher print.

 

The print was given to me by someone I was once close to, and the angel was inspired by her, and many years later after that person's true nature and dark side came out, I got the demon from the same print. Interestingly, when I got the first one, tattooing was illegal in Milwaukee County, so I had it done at the artist's apartment on the sly. The demon was done years later in a shop."

Paul sent us this poem, which was originally published in South Dakota Review [Spring 2012]. He adds it, "is not related to the tattoos or the person that inspired them, but seems to fit well with them."

Elegy with Great Black Wings

There was this woman I once loved, and who may have

loved me in return, whose death came to me in a single

paragraph on the sidebar of page seventeen, section three

of the Sunday Tribune, while I was eating my breakfast

a decade after the last time we’d kissed each other

goodbye. By then she had moved out west for work and I

had married someone else and had two kids, and then she

was offered a better job and returned to live in the Midwest,

and I had begun my path leading toward my ensuing divorce.

We never reunited nor spoke.

     There didn’t seem to be a need.

But at one time I thought she would be the one with whom

I woke up next to on gray winter mornings, the falling snow

mixing with the remaining stars, a glittering of the northern

sky that would seem as unreal to us as my then expectations.

We even walked through a small town up north one summer

weekend and looked at homes for sale as if we might buy one.

Now the thought, as unrealistic as our thoughts were back then,

that had we ended up together, had we tried to love one another

even in the face of facts pointing toward obvious conclusions,

that perhaps she would not have been living alone in that city,

and those three men who followed her home that winter night

would not have done to her what they did to her, before crushing

her larynx and leaving with seventeen dollars from her wallet.

So I drove down to northern Illinois to attend her memorial

service, not knowing if I’d be remembered by anyone there,

or if the sight of her closed casket would set off a rush of regret,

or love, or fear, or indifference in the face of grief. And then

the sight of her stooped and broken parents, aged far beyond

my memories of them, and a stunned boyfriend who could not

bear to even enter the room, and bar friends with boozy breath

and red-rimmed eyes telling stories to brace against their own fear

set me running to the parking lot and my car, starting the engine

and driving away, sitting inside the exact opposite of silence,

seeing her face in my mind and trying to remember the sound

of her voice.

But all I could hear on the way back to my home

in Wisconsin was the sound of angels, their great black wings

moving at a frequency just below the surface of all other sound,

their silver voices rising in what she and I would have called

song, but what is to them merely their native tongue, mixed

together with the sound of somebody weeping.

~ ~ ~

Paul Scot August is originally from Chicago but has spent more than half of his life now in Wisconsin. He has an MA in Creative Writing from UW-Milwaukee and is a former poetry editor of The Cream City Review. He has been nominated three times for a Pushcart Prize. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Stoneboat, Heron Tree, Connotation-Press, Mead: the Magazine of Literature & Libations, Lindenwood Review, Louisville Review, South Dakota Review, Tygerburning, Midwestern Gothic, Los Angeles Review, Dunes Review, Naugatuck River Review, Passages North and elsewhere. His first book is completed and looking for a publisher.

Thanks to Paul for sharing his poem and tattoos with us here on The Tattooed Poets Project on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2014 Tattoosday. The poem and tattoos 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.

Johnny Shares His Angels and Demons

I met Johnny on the Coney Island boardwalk, and he allowed me to take a photo of his back to share with Tattoosday readers:

The top of the back reads "Brooklyn" and the bottom sums it up: Angels & Demons.

Johnny explained:

"It's just the passions of my life. I went through turmoil and came out of it. So, basically, I'm wearing on my skin, my griefs, my sins and my dislikes."

He couldn't be specific about who did what, but he said that the majority of the work was done by Coney Island Vinny and Michael Angelo, two staples of old-school Brooklyn tattooing.

Thanks to Johnny for sharing his back tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

Repost: Keikikalani

Today my daughter Shayna had her bat mitzvah. In honor of Shayna, and in light of the rabbi commenting on angels and cherubim during the service, my sister Alicia suggested I repost my second tattoo, in honor of my youngest daughter.


You may recognize this from the bottom of the page (or for long-time readers, it once served as the masthead).

This is my second tattoo, inked in July 2005, by Peter Cavorsi at Body Art Studios in Brooklyn. I brought him this art as reference, and he ran with it, customizing it to more closely reflect my younger daughter's blonde hair, and her affinity for Green Day, at the young age of six.
Thanks for reading Tattoosday!

Tim's Sleeve Illustrates A Vision of Life on Earth

I met Tim back in April in Penn Station and took several pictures of his left arm, which is fully-sleeved. What follows is a presentation of the work, from top to bottom:

There's a lot going on here, but Tim summed the theme of the sleeve as "Hell is the world we're living in, and we're all trying to escape Death." The top of the arm features the angel, Gabriel, watching over us.

The city that is burning is based on Boston, where Tim is from.

Tim estimates that this sleeve took twenty-seven hours, in three nine-hour sessions. Yes, you read that right, nine-hour sessions! That's commitment! He credits Dan Soule at Milltown Ink in Bondsville, Massachusetts with this incredible work.

Thanks to Tim for sharing his sleeve 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.

Lisa's Guardian Angel

I met Lisa recently on the subway platform at West 4th Street.

She had this cool tattoo on her right forearm:

The tattoo, which took four hours to complete, is Lisa's guardian angel.

Lisa told me that this is a representation of her guardian angel, a "spiritual guide," although she emphasized that she's not religious.

She had the basic idea for the tattoo and took it to Scott Campbell at Saved Tattoo in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. She pointed out that she absolutely loves the work he did with the shading in the tattoo:

Work from Saved has appeared previously on Tattoosday here. This, however, is the first work we've seen by Scott Campbell in our travels.

Thanks to Lisa for sharing her angelic tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

Chris Interprets Heaven and Hell

Last month I met Chris, from Malden, Massachusetts, and he shared this incredible sleeve, still in progress. He estimates that it represents 25 hours of tattooing.

The overall motif of the sleeve is heaven and hell, and Chris was kind enough to address several elements in the design, many of which are deeply personal.

Chris began this tattoo's journey to acknowledge his first year of sobriety from alcohol and drugs.

It is an omnipresent reminder that "hell is always an arm's length away". The angel resides in heaven and the gates of heaven, on the inner arm, represent the goal, or entry into heaven.

Rising up toward heaven are two figures reaching toward this goal. The pair aiming for heaven represent two of Chris' friends, both who overdosed and died, having perished in the hell of addiction.

Chris drew me attention to Cerberus, the three-headed dog that guards the gates of Hell.

To him, the three heads of the hell-hound represent alcohol, opiates, and cocaine, the three substances to which he had been addicted.

This sleeve is the work of the tattoo artist Rafael Serrano, formerly of The Painted Bird, in Medford, MA.

Thanks to Chris for sharing this deeply personal tattoo in progress with us. We're hoping to get updates in the future when more work is done.

We appreciate Chris' forthrightness and strength, and wish for his continued recovery.

Tom's Sleeve is Based on Faith

I don't know what it was about March, but this final post of the month is the third featuring ink from a member of our Armed Forces.

Tom is eventually going to have a full sleeve that accentuates his faith. The top of the arm is done, with the main focus on the guardian angel on his bicep:


His grandfather passed before he was born and he has always thought of him as the guardian angel that watched over him.

This piece was inked at Aces & Eights Tattoo in Augusta, Georgia.

He also has a couple of tattoos featuring angels on the inside of his bicep and on the outer section of his upper arm as well:


These were done at Third Dimension Tattoos in Marshalls Creek, Pennsylvania

Tom is a member of HHC 1st Battalion, 109th Infantry Regiment, 28th Infantry Division.

Thanks to Tom for sharing his tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

Sandra's Angel Reflects Her Vocation

I was folding clothes at the laundromat yesterday afternoon, bemoaning the fact that it appeared as if another weekend would pass without a new tattoo photo, when I caught a glimpse of some ink on the back of the neck of a fellow laundry-doer.

When I asked Sandra if she would share her tattoo with us here on Tattoosday, she kindly obliged:


Sandra said that she originally saw a variation of this design online, but added the "S" for her name. She likes that this design looks, from a distance, like a caduceus, an ancient symbol that is often associated with the medical profession:

Sandra is a nurse in an Intensive Care Unit in a hospital ward that specilizes in treating patients with bone marrow and other forms of cancer. The letter S symbolizes her name and reflects her commitment to her profession.

This was tattooed by an artist named Mike, who works out of his home in Brooklyn.

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

Tay's Angel Reminds Him of a Battle Won

There are many things to be thankful for on Thanksgiving. I know that may cliché , but at its core, there is the kernel of truth. All it takes to remember this is to cross paths with someone who has overcome the odds to prevail in life.

Yesterday I met Tay in the Borders on Penn Plaza, and he shared this tattoo:


Here's the complete piece:


Inked on his inner left forearm, this angelic image is a product of an idea of a spirit watching over him, He gathered a couple of photos for reference and presented them, along with a short written paragraph about the concept, to a tattoo artist at Fat Ram's Pumpkin Tattoo in Jamaica Plains, Massachusetts. It was the tattooer who gave Tay the writing assignment. I am impressed that the artist would incorporate that into his creative process, and it makes perfect sense.

Although Tay is not religious, per se, he wanted something spiritual to remind him of his guardian angel that helped him overcome the mortal challenge of cancer.

As it turns out, Tay is a survivor, who has been cancer-free for ten years after a victory over acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

Tay notes that, all it takes is a look down at his arm to remind him that he has come a long way from the lows of facing one's mortality at such an early age.

I want to thank Tay for sharing his tattoo with us here. And I wish a Happy Thanksgiving to all the Tattoosday readers!

"You Gotta Go There to Come Back": Sarah Shares Three Tattoos

Sarah's half-sleeve jumped out at me in Penn Station as I was quietly bemoaning cooler weather and the dwindling of my blog backlog.

I was pleased to find Sarah more than accommodating, as she shared several perspectives of the ink tattooed on her upper right arm.

Visiting from Newcastle, Australia, her tattoos revolved around this piece at the center of her bicep:


I asked if there was any significance to these two women, but Sarah noted that they were just two pretty girls.

This fluid script is on the outside of her arm:


It states "You gotta go there to come back..." or, in her words, you have to "understand how shitty it can be, before how good it can get".

On her inner arm is the following tattoo:


Sarah says that this design of an angel on a cigarette break is based on the work of a popular London graffiti artist named "Banksy".


All of her work was done by Pat, the owner of 2012 Tattoo Studio in Newcastle.

Thanks very much to Sarah for sharing her incredible tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

Georgiana Offers Up Two Very Personal Tattoos

I met Georgiana, owner of twenty-two tattoos, and she offered up these two pieces from her inner forearms:



Both tattoos were done by her husband, who is a tattoo artist (MySpace page here).

The first piece is a tattoo dedicated to them as a couple (Pete and Gia). The second is a memorial, for their son Blake, who passed away at five weeks old, a victim of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).

Thanks to Georgiana for sharing these two very personal tattoos with us here on Tattoosday.

Kevin's Angel Tattoo Inspires

I spotted Kevin at the corner of 33rd Street and 7th Avenue and asked him about his incredible tattoo covering the majority of his left arm:


His upper arm has a cross on it, so Kevin worked downward on the arm. The angel is based on the sculpture of "The Angel of the Waters" in Central Park's Bethesda Fountain.



He subsequently added the banner that reads "Veni Vidi Vici" on the back side of the forearm:


This famous Latin phrase, attributed to Julius Caesar, means "I came. I saw. I conquered." In his mind, this sums up Kevin's life, having moved from a town of 70,000 people to a megopolis of over 7 million, attaining a senior position with a fashion corporation.

Kevin is particularly happy with the detail in the wings and the angel herself.


Ray Jerez at Inborn NYC on the Lower East Side of Manhattan is the artist behind this tattoo.

Thanks much to Kevin for sharing his amazing tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

Brian's Amazing Angelic Ink

On Saturday, I was at the park, playing ball with my daughter, and I noticed a guy off in the distance with some dark ink on his upper arm. When we were ready to leave, I ambled on over to him.

What I initially spotted was just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. Brian was more than generous in rolling up his sleeves and sharing his astonishing work. He showed me both biceps and his back piece which, combined, he estimates represent nearly 150 hours of work.

First, the one arm:


Then the other:


Both pieces, what he calls Bad Angel and Good Angel, were cover-ups.

And then, the feather in his cap, so to speak, his back piece:


All three pieces were custom-designed by Denise de la Cerda whose website, ChicksDigTattoos.com, is a great showcase of her work. In fact, you can see the before and after of each tattoo on the cover-ups section of her site. The back piece can be viewed here. The "good" angel can be seen here. And the "bad" angel can be viewed, before and after, here. Truly amazing!

One of Denise's tattoos, albeit a much smaller one, appeared previously on Tattoosday here.

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

Keikikalani

You may recognize this from the bottom of the page (or for long-time readers, it once served as the masthead).

This is my second tattoo, inked in July 2005, by Peter Cavorsi at Body Art Studios in Brooklyn. I brought him this art as reference, and he ran with it, customizing it to more closely reflect my younger daughter's blonde hair, and her affinity for Green Day, at the young age of six.
It's my birthday today, and I'm fresh out of new material, so I thought I'd fall back on me. Thanks for reading Tattoosday!