Siobhan's Phantom Tattoo

Although it is April and we are posting the tattoos of thirty poets over the thirty days, it's hard to ignore the good people who make Tattoosday possible, my fellow inked New Yorkers, and visitors from afar.

It's even more difficult to ignore the unseasonably warm weather and the resulting flurry of tattoos that reveal themselves after a cold and inhospitable winter.

So it is with pleasure that I can share some tattooed folk who are not necessarily poets, to go with our inked writers.

Take for instance, Siobhan (pronounced shuh-vawn for those unfamiliar with this Irish name), who walked by me in my neighborhood in Brooklyn, flashing this recognizable tattoo:


Perched above her left ankle, this design is based on the artwork for the widely-popular Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, The Phantom of the Opera.


You would imagine that someone who would go so far as to tattoo their leg with a show's artwork would be a huge fan. You'd be correct.

Siobhan informed me that (as of April 2010), she had seen Phantom over twenty-five times, including productions in Minneapolis, San Francisco, London and, of course, on Broadway.

This is her first tattoo and was inked by Joe Mags at Brooklyn Ink, in Bay Ridge. Work from Joe and the crew at Brooklyn Ink has appeared quite often on Tattoosday, and can be seen collected by clicking here.

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

Any Port in a Storm: Chris Wears His Clipper Ship with Pride

I spotted this beauty of a tattoo in Bay Ridge on the calf of Chris:


He explained that it is a cover-up and took Alex Franklin at Brooklyn Ink about four hours to complete. Work from Alex and the other artists from Brooklyn Ink have appeared previously on Tattoosday here.


Chris is originally from Boston and he said the clipper ship tattoo just "seemed like the New England thing to get". He later elaborated, in an e-mail:

"I wanted to get something true to where I've grown up and my heritage. A clipper ship is a very New England type tattoo and I was born and raised in Boston before setting off to NYC. Ships also mean a lot to me as 3 of my relatives left England for NYC on the Titanic and 1 of them perished at sea with the ship. In addition, my grandfather was aboard the Navy's USS Allagash in the Korean War. Any Port in A Storm is an important saying for me, because I am a cop in Brooklyn. Essentially it means, when you're in trouble, any way out is a good way out, whether or not you like the decision.

Thanks to Chris for sharing this wonderful tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

Re-post: Paul's 9/11 Memorial

This post ran last year and it seems appropriate to re-run it again today:



Earlier this month, I mentioned meeting Paul here, on the bike path that runs along the southern tip of Brooklyn.

I saved the other tattoo photo I took of Paul's work for today, the seventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

What I didn't mention in the previous post is that Paul is a federal agent who grew up in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

From his vantage point there, he watched the World Trade Center being built in the late 1960's. He was working in 6 World Trade seven years ago for the U.S. Customs Department when the towers came down, and he spent four months at Ground Zero and the Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island, searching for remains.

The tattoo is a poignant piece, with the sun shining between the towers. Below is Paul's badge from the Department of Homeland Security, which has evolved into U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Particulatly unusual is the depiction of 9/11 in Roman numerals:

IX XI.

I don't believe I had ever seen it represented that way before.

Like the tattoo in the earlier post, this piece was inked by Joe at Brooklyn Ink.

Thanks to Paul for sharing this WTC memorial piece with us here on Tattoosday.

Click here for work from Brooklyn Ink appearing previously on this blog.

Valarie's Sugar Skull

Tattoosday is no stranger to sugar skulls. They are popular tattoos and always welcome additions to the site. It certainly seems, like snowflakes, no two sugar skull tattoos are exactly alike. Clicking here will allow you to see all the sugar skulls in the Tattoosday family.

Well, it certainly has been a while since I posted one here and, running into Valarie on the subway platform at West 4th Street, afforded me the opportunity to capture another for Tattoosday readers to admire:


Valarie is working on a half-sleeve and has both feet inked. She is particularly sentimental about this sugar skull because it was the first tattoo she received.

Like many folks, she loves the color and symbolism of Mexican Catholic art and the way they translate so well into tattoos. This traditional piece is on her inner left forearm and she has a sacred heart on the outer side.

Alex Franklin at Brooklyn Ink is the artist of this lovely tattoo.

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

Meredith Shares Two Inspirational Pieces for Tat-Twosday

Let's just say the third time's a charm.

It started with me getting off the subway in my neighborhood and noticing the woman walking several paces ahead of me. I saw that she had words inked around her wrists. As I generally shy away from tattoos that circle a limb (they don't translate well on a blog page, in my humble opinion), I made a mental note and we went our separate ways.

A few days later I was walking home, carrying dry cleaning (an activity that has delayed more than one Tattoosday post, for sure), when I ran into her again.

This time, we approached from opposite directions and I was able to introduce myself and maneuver my cleaning in order to give her Tattoosday info.

I was pleased to see, as well, two heretofore unnoticed pieces that she told me about and admired. Both were significantly original and very cool. We tentatively agreed to talk at a later date about featuring her work on the site.

A week later, our paths crossed again, and this time I was ready. So here are two of Meredith's tattoos, just in time for Tat-twosday!

We'll start with the wonderful piece dancing along the inside of her left forearm:


What we have here is the phrase "searching through the static" in an unusual font. With Photoshop, Meredith flipped the text to create a design with the phrase, base to base, almost zig-zagging across her arm.


Meredith is an artist (see her blog here) and she has lived in several places, trying to find her way through life. She did, here in New York City, and the phrase "searching through the static" resonates with her, as she has ventured through the chaos of life experiences to find her true path. She particularly loves this font because it resembles a cityscape, with some of the letters rising like skyscrapers over the street-like valleys between words.

The second tattoo she offered up is this stunning black and gray chest piece:


The center of the design is a broken snow globe, modeled after one that Meredith's grandmother gave her many years ago. Even though it is cracked, she has kept it as a treasure by which to remember her. She did change the snow globe design to contain a tree, not small people, like in the item on which this is based. The tree, she felt, was more appropriate for the tattoo.

The phrase that brackets the snow globe is "Keep going farther Beautiful Seeker." It is a mantra that she has adopted to keep her motivated and focused on a higher goal.

Both of these tattoos were inked by Alex Franklin at Brooklyn Ink. Work from Alex has appeared previously on Tattoosday here here and here. And clicking here will take you to all the posts from Brooklyn Ink that have appeared here on Tattoosday. As I've mentioned before, the proximity of the shop to my residence makes it the most frequently-featured purveyor on the site.

Thanks again to Meredith for sharing her wonderful tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

Xavier's Pocket Watch Flies Through Time

I knew my birthday was going to be a good one when I not only spotted ink first thing in the morning, but I talked tattoo and got a story before 7:00 A.M. on the R train at 95th Street.

Xavier has a dozen or so tattoos which he wears with pride. All are inked by Joe Maggs at Brooklyn Ink. Just by virtue of my close proximity to the shop, Brooklyn Ink's work has appeared on the blog more than any other shop. Click here to see all the posts.

The tattoo that Xavier offered up is on his left hand:


This clock is frozen in time at 3:35, the moment when Xavier was born.

It's worth noting that Joe Maggs' use of negative space on this piece lends to the illusion that the pocket watch is floating over Xavier's skin. It's a nice effect.

Xavier designs streetwear and some of his work can be seen on his MySpace page here.

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

A Viking Design Commemorates Brian's Ancestry

Back on June 29, while pacing the 59th Street platform in Brooklyn, waiting for an R train, I spotted this interesting design on the right calf of Brian:


According to Brian, the piece is based on an ancient Viking symbol representing land. He had this tattooed to commemorate his Swedish ancestry.

The piece was done by Rob (who appeared on Tattoosday here) at Brooklyn Ink.

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

Rob's Rite of Passage

I braved a trip to Staples on Sunday, contrary to my notion of self-preservation. September in Staples is one of the outer circles of Hell, at least in my neighborhood, where it seems everyone with children goes for their school supplies. Everyone.

But I digress. On a mission for a printer cartridge, I spotted Rob, who is covered moderately by tattoos. I approached him with a flier, which he was already familiar with, as I had handed him a few weeks back when he was sitting in the front of Brooklyn Ink, a nearby tattoo shop.

If you read Tuesday's post, you can see how many different folks have contributed their ink to these hallowed pages. I estimate that only 1 out of 7 people I approach actually participate, so estimate that in the past year, I've spoken to (conservatively) six to eight hundred people about
Tattoosday. Sometimes I forget a name and or a face.

So, it's amazing to me that I've only, by my best estimates, only asked people about their ink a second time on maybe five occasions.

Once Rob reminded me who he was, I remembered him from the shop, and he told me I could stop by any time and take pictures of his tattoos.

It was then that I qualified one of the things that makes Tattoosday special. I won't go to shops to take pictures. That's just too easy. Like shooting fish in a barrel. The sport is in the random stumbling upon a fellow citizen of the inked nation.


So, to make a long story short, he offered up the piece above (posted so long ago, I will show it again).

This was tattooed by Alex at Brooklyn Ink, and the placement on the hand is as significant as the piece itself.

For many tattoo artists, the inking of the hands is a rite of passage. Once you tattoo your hands, it is very tough, nearly impossible, to hide the fact that you are a tattooed individual. The tattoo in theory meant that there was no turning back and that he was fully devoted to his craft.

He chose the sparrow flying through the horseshoe as both are emblems of good luck. I particularly admire the perspective created by the back wing of the bird behind the horseshoe and the front wing in the foreground. This device adds a nice depth to the piece.

Thanks to Rob at Brooklyn Ink for sharing his momentous tattoo here with us on Tattoosday!