The Birth of Venus Reimagined (Kathleen Nalley, Tattooed Poet of the Month)

Over the years, I have met many a tattooed poet via social media, word-of-mouth, or in person. Kathleen Nalley is the first poet I've met via a tattoo artist.

I met South Carolina artist J.J. Ohlinger (@jjohlinger) at the New York Empire State Tattoo Expo (@nyempirestatetattooexpo) last month in Manhattan.

It was while hanging out at his booth, talking to one of his clients (whose work will appear in a future post), and chatting about Tattoosday, that the subject of tattooed poets came up.

I believe it was J.J.'s wife, who was working the show with him, said that they knew a poet that he had tattooed, and the photo was in his portfolio. The rest, as they say, was history.

I reached out to Kathleen, and she happily agreed to share her cool tattoo:

Photo Courtesy of J.J. Ohlinger

Kathleen explained how this tattoo came to be:

"I got this particular tattoo last June when JJ Ohlinger ran a contest to tattoo three people in celebration of his third year as a tattoo artist. Luckily, I was one of the winners!

As a lover of words, I’d always imagined Boticelli’s Venus coming out of an open book instead of a clamshell. Boticelli’s Venus was known the ‘birth of beauty,’ the feminine ideal. My tat riffs on the idea that women were created to be someone’s beautiful object." 

Kathleen also shared this short poem from her manuscript-in-progress, Gutterflower:

What Man’s Hands Wrought

Long  before  there  was fracking there  was  you unearthing 

the very earth digging trenches in soil spilling your chemical

goo  turning  mud to muck leaving nutrients to dry fuck you 

nature    heals  herself  in  time  even  the  most  eroded can 

make   anew   grow   pickups  from  seed  littered  the  wind 

always  knows  what  to  do  carry  things  away carry things 

where   they   will  bloom  wildflowers  color  the  landscape 

permeate the  air oh her honeysuckle hue she’s wild always

wild  always  remade  no  matter  the matter or intrusion or

drilling or fracture believe her she will

 ~ ~ ~

Kathleen Nalley’s prose poetry manuscript-in-progress, Gutterflower, follows the life of a Southern woman caught in an unending trap of poverty and violence. Kathleen is the author of the chapbooks Nesting Doll and American Sycamore. Her work is forthcoming or recently has appeared in Fall Lines, New Flash Fiction Review, Slipstream, Rivet, and storySouth, among others. Not surprisingly, she has a poem forthcoming in a violence against women-themed anthology from Sable Books.

Thanks to Kathleen for sharing her tattoo and poem with us here on Tattoosday, and to J.J.Ohlinger for introducing us!

This entry is ©2016 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.

Married Together, Buried Together

I met Geri last month on Wall Street. This tattoo jumped out of me, so I had to ask her about it:

Geri explained this represents her and her husband:

"We've been together for five years ... when we first met, we used to joke that we were gonna get buried together and when I decided I wanted to get married, I don't really believe in divorce, if I was gonna do this, I was gonna do it once, so ... below it is our names [on heart-shaped headstones] ... At the time I had short hair and he has really long hair, so [the one with short hair] is me."

Geri was visiting from Pittsburgh and she credited this work to Mike from In Your Skin Tattooing in Oakdale, Pennsylvania.

Thanks to Geri for sharing her tattoo with us on Tattoosday!

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.

Musician Monday: Louis, Patrick Swayze, and Wolverine

I met Louis down on Broad Street while he was walking some dogs.

I spoke to him briefly about his tattoos, gave him my card, and said we should talk further when he didn't have the dogs with him.

A few weeks later, I spotted him again, dogless. We sat down and talked about his tattoos.

First, this fabulousness:

This is a portrait of the late Patrick Swayze, with the banner 'PAIN DON'T HURT," which alludes to the film Road House.

Louis explained:

"It's a movie I saw a few years ago ... it's so bad, it's good ... I definitely love the movie ... I just really wanted to get the Swayze tattoo ...'Pain don't hurt,' it's laughable when he says that line in the movie ... I also found his biography at a Goodwill for a dollar and I bought it ... I read some of it, he had an interesting life ... the dedication in the front was to his father, who he said 'taught me that a man can be tough and gentle at the same time.' He was a dancer, horseback rider, he did all these fight movies, I thought that was really cool."

Louis credited this to Vinny Romanelli (@vinnyromanelli) at Red Rocket Tattoo (@redrockettattoo).

He also shared this Wolverine rib piece:

Louis elaborated:

"I grew up with the X-Men cartoons in the Nineties, it was like one of those things that my dad use to work overnights, like Friday night, he would work all Friday night, he would come home Saturday morning, he'd bring bagels or something for breakfast ... and we would watch that cartoon, that was like Saturday, we'd live for that. I just remember that as a kid, and also, I read comic books still, and it's one of my favorite characters, as well ... it has a lot of significance to me."

He got this tattoo more than ten years ago from Kurt Fagerland at Empire State Studios (@empirestatestudio) out on Long Island. Fagerland has since moved on and resides in Georgia.

I did mention in the title of this post that it is "Musician Monday." Louis also happens to be the drummer for a Brooklyn band called Ellen and the Degenerates, you can check them out here.

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

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.

Brewsday Tuesday: Kona Brewing Edition

Welcome to the third installment of Brewsday Tuesday on Tattoosday!

Today we are looking at a company near and dear to my heart, Kona Brewing Company (@konabrewingco).

Meet Keala Aiwohi, Senior Division Sales Manager for Kona Brewing in Hawai’i:

For those of you first seeing this feature, we like to introduce the brewery employee, talk about their tattoos, and then quench our thirst for more information about the brewery and its products.

Keala recently had this work done on his chest:

Keala explained a little about this work:

"I just kinda like the way everything flows on my chest ... I have my kids' names ... family is something that's a really big priority for me ... I have my kids' names ... over my heart, if you look at the piece, it's got ... like a tribal tiki that's making a funny face ... I wanted the tiki right over my heart, with tribal kinda swirling around, along with my daughter's name on my chest..."

Take another look at Keala and see if anything else jumps out:

There, on the inside of Keala's left arm, is a huge bottle cap from one of Kona's most popular brands, Big Wave Golden Ale:

How's that for dedication?

"Previously I worked for Anheuser-Busch, then I got offered the job with Kona Brewing Company ... I just love the way Big Wave tastes. I love it. I wanted to do something different ... I love beer and tattoos ... I didn't know exactly what I was going to do ...one day I was drinking with some friends and there was bottle caps all over the top of the counter ... and I was thinking to myself ...that would be a pretty cool tattoo ... at the moment it just felt like something that would be cool ... I love Big Wave so let's slap a Big Wave bottlecap on my arm ... I love it, I show it to people all the time."

All of Keala's work pictured was tattooed by Bronson "Bronz" Pasco (@bronzink), who works out of South Side Ink Tattoo. Pasco started tattooing in 1998 and splits his time between South Side Ink and West Coast Tattoo Parlor (@inkwestcoast) in Las Vegas.

So, how good is a beer that compels one to get the bottlecap tattooed on the body?

Let me tell you, Big Wave is a delicious ale, and one of my favorite beers from Kona.

Keala added "just the way that Big Wave tastes, I love it. I'll be drinking Big Wave for the rest of my life. Kona as a brand has an image ... it's cool, it's hip, it's for everybody ... Big Wave is inspired by the big wave riders out in Makaha ... it's the perfect beach beer ... I love the fact that it's light, it's sessionable ... it's a get-together beer, it's any-occasion type of beer."

Duly noted, my family in Brooklyn throws a Hawaiian Christmas party in December and we always have bottles of Kona's Longboard Lager, Castaway IPA, and Big Wave on hand. Big Wave has a great citrus flavor that really transports me back and tastes like advertised: "Liquid Aloha."

Speaking of advertising, Keala told me that Kona did some ads for the mainland, and I wanted to share one of them here:

Like with previous installments of Brewsday Tuesday, our participating brewery is generously offering up some giveaway items for people randomly selected among those who like, share, and retweet on social media.

A big mahalo to Keala for sharing his tattoos with us, and to Kona Brewing Company for their participation in Brewsday Tuesday! Be sure to leave comments about your favorite Kona brand for a chance to win prizes!

Three for Thursday - Kirsten Shares Her Tattoos

I spotted Kirsten last month in lower Manhattan after I saw the tattoo on the back of her calf. I had to ask about it but, it turns out, she had other tattoos, as well. Fortunately for me, she was in a generous sharing mood, and took the time to tell me about all of them.

First up, her feet:

Kirsten, who hails from Australia, explained the origins of these tattoos

"I grew up in Canada, so I kind of just wanted to start getting some mystic animals going on ... it's just like nicknames for my parents; I always called my dad Papa Bear and my mom Momma Wolf, so I got them for my parents.

She credited the work to a Sydney-based artist who works under the moniker Sprinkles (@Sprinkles_).

Sprinkles took her to his friend Scott M. Harrison to get this tattoo, on her thigh:

Here's a clearer shot from right after the tattoo was completed, liberally taken, with attribution from Harrison's Instagram (follow him @scott_m_harrison).

Photo via Instagram - @scott_m_harrison

Harrison noted " Really enjoyed doing the background pattern, would love to incorporate them into more pieces."

Kirsten explained:

"I've got like a theme of threes going on with all my other tattoos, so a three-eyed cat, it's kind of sll-seeing eye ... I got it kind of in honor of my friend that I'm visiting [in New York], she was always a crazy cat lady ... so one eye's for her, one eye's for the cat I grew up with [Betty Lou], and [one for] the cat I have now [Runty]."

And, finally, we have the tattoo I spotted in the first place:

She credited this to an artist named Louise that she met at the Australian Tattoo Expo in Sydney. This was one of the designs she had on display and Kirsten liked it.

Thanks to Kirsten for taking the time to share all of these tattoos with me. We here at Tattoosday our very grateful!

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.

Angela and Angry Little Robot

I met Angela last month near Bowling Green in lower Manhattan.

She has this tattoo on her arm, and, well, I just had to ask about it:

Angela explained that this is based on the web comic Angry Little Robot. She wanted to send me a link to the page, but the site is gone. However, she did find her favorite strip:

Angela told me:

"I got the tattoo on the one year anniversary of dating my now-husband after getting borderline too drunk to tattoo.  My other tattoos are for the most part memorials, so I wanted something that I liked that didn't have a sad memory." 

Thanks to Angela for sharing her cool tattoo with us on Tattoosday!

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.

Stormy's "Octoface"

Yesterday I recalled meeting Matt on the West 4th Street subway platform. I got on the train with him and Stormy and they shared their tattoos.

This is what Stormy offered up from her collection:

This is a case of someone being a fan of an artist's work, and travelling to another state just to be tattooed by them.

Stormy explained that she admired the work of Matt Kerley (@mattitude) at Glenn's Tattoo Service (@glennstattooservice) in Wilmington, North Carolina, so she journeyed south just to get something done by him. This hauntingly cool design was her souvenir from the trip.

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

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.

Matt's Hands

I met Matt last month on the West 4th Street subway platform and stopped to talk to him (and his friend Stormy) about their tattoos. We'll look at what Stormy shared tomorrow, but today, it's all about Matt's hands:

No deep meaning here, other than the hand tattoos coming from Matt's appreciation of Japanese imagery, so the mask and geisha head seemed like good choices.

I can't speak to the details of all the knuckle work, although the dates 1956 and 1950 represent the years Matt's parents were born.

The hand tattoos were inked by Mike Nomy (@mikenomy) from South Shore Tattoo (@southshoretattooco) in Amityville, New York.

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

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.

Heather's Memorial to Her Grandmothers

I met Heather last month at the Empire State Tattoo Expo (@NYEmpireExpo) in Manhattan, and she shared a few of the tattoos that she has on her legs, starting with this tribute to both of her grandmothers:

Heather credited Janie Shannon (@janierabbit) at the Rabbit's Den in Milltown, New Jersey, with this work.

Her other thigh is blessed with this beautiful floral display:

This was done by Mike Di Dia at White Lotus Tattoos (@whitelotustattoos) in Tom's River, New Jersey. She started with the flowers and has been adding on - the dragonfly has been the latest addition.

Thanks to Heather for sharing her tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

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.

Monika and Buddha (at the Empire State Tattoo Expo)

Last month at the Empire State Tattoo Expo (@nyempirestatetattooexpo), I met Monika, who was sitting in a booth watching her tattoo artist working on a client. She was kind enough to pause and let me photographic this stunning piece on her thigh:

This is the work of Marek Pawlik, AKA Marzan (@marzan_tattoo). He works in New York City out of Inkology Tattoo Art Gallery (@inkologyartgallery). Click through the hyperlinks to see more of his amazing work,

Monika explained that this thigh piece, which represents about twelve hours of work. Buddha is important to her because he was human, from a rich family, but decided to meditate and travel. A practitioner of yoga, and a Vegan, all of these values are connected with Buddha, and his moment of transformation and enlightenment.

It really is a stunning piece of work.

Thanks to Monika for sharing her lovely tattoo by Marzan here on Tattoosday!

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.