Tattoosday (A Tattoo Blog): shapes

Showing posts with label shapes. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 10, 2017

Jesse Burch's Back o' Birds

This week we're featuring tattoos on alumni from Occidental College, in honor of homecoming and family weekend, and we'll start with this amazing set of tattoos on the back of Jesse Burch, Class of 1992:

Jesse told me that the center shape was done about six years ago, but the birds were tattooed earlier this year. All of the work is by Jeremy Swan (@mister_swan) at Broken Art Tattoo (@broken_art_tattoo) in Silver Lake, Los Angeles.

When I asked Jesse about the origins of the work, he replied:

"Well, the center thing is an old design by my friend Bill Dawson. Its meaning is secret.

The birds each represent parts of me. The Western mockingbird on my right shoulder is perched on a palo verde branch. Both are native to the west, like me, and the mockingbird represents my interest in imitation and my chameleonic nature. The left shoulder has the skylark on English oak. That’s my anglophilia in a nutshell.

I bought both bird images on eBay. They’re from vintage bird prints — another thing I like: old shit.

I like them a ton, despite being somewhat atypical, I guess. But then, I reckon I am too.

I will say that it was weird to go from being a person with a tattoo to being a 'tattooed person' overnight. Took some getting used to. And, of course, now I want more....

Also, I meant for the whole thing together to look kind of like a coat of arms. But I think the middle piece needs updating."

I've known Jesse since 1988, when he matriculated as a first year student at Occidental. I was one of his resident advisers. Jesse is a working actor in Los Angeles (see his credits here) and he also hosts a web show on YouTube called "You're Better Than Me." The episode below is his interview with Jeremy, his tattoo artist:

Thanks to Jesse for sharing his awesome tattoos with us here on Tattoosday's Occidental Week!

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Thursday, July 27, 2017

Brianna's Sleeve of Shapes

I met Brianna earlier this month across from Federal Hall in the Financial District. I generally don't like to take pictures of sleeves, because it's hard to do them full justice, but sometimes they are so interesting, I can't resist.

I love the design of this tattoo. Brianna explained that she has always been fascinated by shapes and geometry, and the hexagram in the top photo features a segment of spine, which is a nod to the fact that she has dealt with spinal issues since she was a child.

She credited this work to Lacey Burnett at Twisted Anchor Tattoo (@twistedanchortattoo) in Ocean Springs, Mississippi.

Thanks to Brianna for sharing her cool sleeve with us here on Tattoosday!

Friday, May 27, 2016

Two Circles, Symbolizing Anything

I met Daniel last summer on Governor's Island at the 2015 NYC Poetry Festival.

He shared these tattoos:

So what do these mean?

What do you want them to mean.

My recording of Daniel's interview was lost to technological issues, so I will do my best to recall what we discussed.

Their meaning is fluid.

You can interpret these as complimentary new moon/full moon tattoos, but that really wasn't the intent. They were tattooed for the sake of being tattooed, and their meaning has as much to do with the discussion of meaning.

Daniel, thank you for sharing these with us here on Tattoosday!

Monday, February 16, 2015

Caroline's Tattoo, Traded for a Stuffed Magpie

Last summer I met Caroline on Broad Street, one morning before I was headed into work.

She had this really cool and interesting tattoo on her arm:

Caroline explained that this tattoo was done by an artist who goes by the name Tron who lives in Portland.

Caroline explained her relationship with Tron and how this tattoo came to be:

"She's been a friend of mine for years ... we actually met on a music message board when I was in high school, like a Riot grrrl music message board ... I had seen her designs, I loved them, [and] I saw she did a page of flash for a convention that was all about the band Bikini Kill , which was one of the bands we grew up loving ... I had a taxidermy bird that I bought at a taxidermy shop years ago, I was trying to get rid of it, I could not get anyone to buy it - she [Tron] wanted to trade it for a tattoo, so it worked out perfectly, I traded her this ... I think it was a magpie, for this tattoo, and I saw the picture and I loved it and I actually emailed her about getting it a couple days later .. "Resist Psychic Death" is a Bikini Kill song and the rest of it was designed by her. I knew I wanted something, she kinda does something with those M.C. Escher-style impossible objects, and I was like 'Sure, just throw up [a] skeleton's hand, that sounds like it makes sense.' "

Thanks to Caroline for sharing this cool tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

UPDATE: On March 13, 2015, I wandered into Three Kings Tattoo's new location in the East Village and discovered Tron there. Her website is www.Losingshape.com and she can be found on Instagram here.

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