A Selection of Jorge's Tattoos

I met Jorge last week at the top of the escalators leading from Penn Station to 7th Avenue.

He has quite a few, and I took photos of the front and back of his left forearm.

The inner part of his arm has this koi design:


A friend of his did this for him, which he got for luck before going overseas with the U.S. Army to Iraq in 2008. He proudly served with the Third Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, 187th Infantry Regiment, also known as The Rakkasans.

Jorge loves what he calls his "good luck koi fish" and says "We deployed for 15 months....every time I was tired for walking for 2 or 3 days nonstop, I would look at my tattoo and smile and keep walking...".

After returning, he got this tattoo in Nashville:


This piece was just a very cool design.

Bridging these two very different tattoos are two cherry blossoms:


Jorge wanted to make sure they didn't get omitted from the post, as these flowers represent his mother and sister.

That would have been it for this post from Jorge, except the day after meeting him, he sent me this shot of a tattoo on the upper left side of his back:

He hadn't mentioned this when I met him, so I was pleased to include it in the post.

Jorge got this piece at Coyote's Tattoo in Lima, Peru.

He says this is a tribute to his mother and his Peruvian heritage. It is based on a pure gold artifact found next to a mummy in Peru which he saw on display in the American Museum of Natural History.

Thanks again to Jorge for sharing so many of his tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

Joe's Blue Koi (and a Honu, too!)

Joe has this amazing koi on his upper left arm, part of a 3/4 sleeve:


Initially, our discussion was brief. He is a fan of traditional tattoos and loves the Japanese style. He had this inked in 2001 by Civ at Lotus Tattoo in Sayville, New York. Work from Civ appeared previously here on Tattoosday.

I certainly thought it was unusual to see a blue koi. It's certainly not the most traditional color for a koi tattoo. When I asked Joe about it, he replied, "...there is no significance and I believe it was suggested by Civ...I thought it would certainly be unique, since I had yet to see a blue koi. It was strictly an aesthetic decision."

It was only later, when I was looking at the photo at home, that I noticed a fine detail I hadn't picked up before:


Having grown up in Hawai'i, that certainly looked like a honu design, or traditional Hawaiian sea turtle. I had remembered that Joe had a Polynesian-style tribal arm band on his right forearm, so I shot him an e-mail.

He replied:

The story behind the Polynesian sea turtle is ... I was on my honeymoon in Hawaii, 2001. I had wanted to get tattooed while there and found a shop in Waikiki, Skin Deep. Walked in, shot the shit with one of the guys for half an hour, had an idea of what I wanted to do, a Polynesian band around my forearm being that we were in Hawaii. It seemed fitting as far as a "souvenir" tattoo. Since the band I decided on did not work in a perfect circle around my arm, I decided on the turtle to make it work. We did the tattoo in about an hour and I still love it...

Thanks to Joe for sharing his koi tattoo. I am looking forward to featuring more of his work in the future.

Grace's Black and Gray Koi

I met Grace earlier this week outside of Penn Station. She has three stars tattooed on the inside of her right wrist and had a cherry blossom (above) inked on the back of her neck.

About a year ago, she expanded it, adding the koi fish below it:


She attributed the work to an artist named Kevin, and he did in it in a small shop in Koreatown in Manhattan.

Grace says that the tattoo is purely decorative, with no underlying meaning, and that she has no plans to add color. She likes the black and gray appearance of the piece.

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

Tattoorism: Sean's Leg Piece Represents His Transformation from Child to Adult

This installment of Tattoorism comes from Sean, a reader who offered up his leg piece for our viewing pleasure. The detail above is my favorite aspect of the tattoo, which wraps around Sean's entire left leg.

In Sean's words:

"...Even though this was done in about 4 or 5 sessions, I could not describe this in any other way except as one big tattoo. Each piece works together with each other.

I consider this my growth-themed tattoo. I started the tattoo, at the age of 18, right before I graduated from high school and finished it right before entering my first year of college, a period of immense growth in my opinion. As long as I can remember, I have been drawn to Asian artwork, so at an extremely basic level this tattoo is just extremely aesthetically pleasing to me, but there is also deeper meaning.

From the Japanese folklore I have heard, koi fish are said to grow into dragons.

That was the basic premise of my tattoo, maturing from childhood to adulthood. I decided to have the koi swimming upwards to portray the different struggles experienced in this growth. The dragon has always been such a powerful image to me and a great symbol of courage and strength, two qualities I constantly strive to achieve and portray myself.

There are also two other major images in this tattoo, the pagoda and the lotus flower.

The lotus is another symbol of "growth." I always loved the idea that a lotus begins its life in murky, dark, ugly waters, but eventually grows to become a beautiful flower despite its surroundings. It's a reminder that no matter how hard things get in life, I can make it through those times and blossom as a better person.

Finally, the personal symbolism I hold for the pagoda is a house of knowledge and discipline. I hoped to achieve, and believe I have, a great amount of knowledge and discipline through my years in college and during the growth from childhood to adulthood in general.

The tattoo was done by Mike Schweigert @ Electric Tattoo in Bradley Beach, NJ.

Thanks to Sean for sharing this amazing leg piece with us here on Tattoosday!

Sean recognized that our "posts kind of drop off, completely understandably, during the colder months." Not only did he help us with content on an ink-less day, regular readers will recognize that I generally don't run sleeves, or wrap-around tattoos, on the blog, as their characteristics make them very difficult to adequately display in their full glory. It's tough to capture them fully when on the street. So a double thanks to Sean for not only sending us an elaborate leg piece, but providing a well-written synopsis of the personal meaning behind the elements in the design!