Original Permanent Tattoo: June 2009

THE TIME HAS COME!!

Here are the official details on the shoe release this Thursday..

Jubail Celebrates the Midnight Mile

I met Jubail on the corner of 34th and 6th Avenue, and he shared this awesome tattoo:

"Midnight Mile" is a song by Bouncing Souls, and it reminds him of coming home to New York City.

Jubail, who has "nine or ten" tattoos, was a student at Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia.

He was about to earn his commission as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army when I spoke with him, and he knows he can rely on his tattoo to help him remind him of home here in New York.

He also has the Bouncing Souls logo on the inner part of the elbow, also known as the "ditch," which is one of the most painful places to get tattooed.

Jubail credits his ink to Saka at Tat-Nice Tattoos in Huntington, WV.

Thanks to Jubail for sharing his Bouncing Souls tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

And here's a little "Midnight Mile" bonus:

MAN IN THE MIRROR

Michael Jackson was a child prodigy and helped alot of people world wide, yet he was human and was not perfect as seen in this video. You be the judge.

Where The Wild Thing Tattoo Is

The day after I met one Jared, I met another, out in front of Madison Square Garden.

With a tattoo like this:

how could I not stop him?

As one would imagine, Jared loves the book, Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak.

The tattoo displays, on Jared's right forearm, one of the "Wild Things" that is in Max's imagination.

Jared, who was in town visiting from Boston, has ten tattoos. He had been thinking about getting a Where the Wild Things Are piece for several years and finally had it done by Chris Ford in January 2009. Ford had worked in L.A. but is now in New Jersey.

Jared said that he has had a lot of attention from people about the tattoo, in part due to the publicity from the movie adaptation coming out this Fall.

Thanks to Jared for stopping to talk and share his "wild" tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

Jared Shares His Vegan Tattoo

I met Jared while he was waiting for a train in Penn Station.

After the Manhattan Mall food court closed last summer, I discovered this wide expanse of Penn Station (especially the Amtrak area) was great for inkspotting when the weather made normal traipsing about unappealing.

Jared's ink runs down the length of his arm, from the top of his right bicep, down to the inner part of his forearm.

As a Vegan, Jared did his research, and sought out a tattoo artist that could give him a Vegan tattoo:

There's a school of thought that some tattoo inks are not "vegan," in the sense that they incorporate glycerine from animal fat, or they use bone char in the black inks. See this article here.

Some artists refute this as gimmicky, and here is a more skeptical view point from a Vegan. But many Vegans who are steadfast in their ideals find the idea of a purely vegan tattoo appealing. I featured another Vegan tattoo back in October 2007 here.

Jared, who is the musical director for the national touring company of the show "Spring Awakening", went to Cary at Body Electric Tattooing & Piercing in Hollywood for this custom design.

The top section of flowers includes at least one chrysanthemum. The bottom part spells out the word "Vegan" in twisting, viny, letters.

Jared's whole arm took three sessions and ultimately embodies the Vegan lifestyle, not just in words and design, but in the ink used to create the art.

Thanks to Jared for sharing his work with us here on Tattoosday!

I DON'T KNOW!

One of the top 5 greatest documentaries of all time.. Buy and watch it a few times.

Boys and Girls,

I know I have been slow on updating my works, including the ones from -XVI- the ongoing event.

I have too many things going on in my head and its been hard for me to concentrate but I still try. Its like, I am already am living in hell in reality. I don't know if the idea of my event has become real or that my mind has engulfed me and over took my senses...

Things around me seems to mess me up and shut me down. Sometimes I don't even know what I am thinking about or even going through. I have been having memory lost and seems like I am losing my grip on my life...

I really need to find my 66 Sinners and finish this event up. Honestly, now I know why they say, "Be careful what you wish for, you might just get it".....

Immortal Tattoos was interviewed by an Online Tattoo Magazine, Skin-Artists.com.

Check out the interview here : http://skin-artists.com/eng/stories/0012.php

THA BUSINESS

This is the latest piece on our client Dow Jones and here is the latest track he produced..

Tattoosday Boxcars: A Leonine Tattoo and Wearing One's Heart on One's Sleeve

I met Jeff and Jeanie in Penn Station as they were about to board an Amtrak train out of the city.

I've been trying to come up with clever terms for different inkspotting phenomenon, basically creating my own lexicon.

I'll call Jeff and Jeanie "boxcars". Meaning, I approached the two of them and gambled, asking them both to participate, and they came through. Like rolling two sixes on the dice (also known as boxcars). I would even venture to call them "blind boxcars", because I could only make out fragments of their ink, but they still shared.

Jeff went first, displaying this leonine figure on his left bicep:

It's a nod to his astrological sign, Leo, and was also selected for its nod to Jean Cocteau's La Belle et la Bête (Beauty and the Beast).

Jeanie shared her tattoo below:

This piece literally has her wearing her heart on her sleeve and is inspired by Mexican art. The tattoo was completed by a friend of Jeanine's named John Flack.

I would have obtained more detail, but the couple had to board their train.

Thank you to Jeanine and Jeff for sharing their tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

The new Mister Cartoon AF1 Stages Collection's official release will be here at

The Last Laugh Store on Thursday July 2nd.

Gina's Mayan Design

Earlier this month, I met Gina in Manhattan at the corner of 31st Street and 7th Avenue and I asked her about these tattoos:

The main element is a the piece she had inked in January 2007, on a trip to Mexico.

She went on a cruise to Mexico with her mother. While exploring some Mayan ruins, she made a rubbing of the design above, which bears some relationship to Xul, a canine god in the Mayan pantheon. She took the rubbing to a local tattoo artist and had it inked while in Mexico.

I questioned her about the cleanliness of a tattoo shop south of the border and she maintained that the place was immaculate, much cleaner than some of the shops she has seen in the U.S.

Just above the Mayan piece is a smaller tattoo, featuring an outline of Texas, where she was born. When her mother saw this "Made in Texas" tattoo, she asked Gina, "What makes you so sure you were made here?" Clearly a woman with a sense of humor. But, Gina noted, the remark "made [her] throw up a little".

This small tattoo was done by Homer Saenz at 713 Tattoo Parlour in Houston. Work from 713 has appeared previously on Tattoosday here.

Finally, as a matter of habit, I always ask people how many tattoos they have. Gina gave me an unusual answer, "Nine, going on seven."

When I gave her a puzzled look, she explained that she has nine tattoos, but she is planning on having two removed. As an actress, she feels that two of the more visible pieces may prevent her from attaining roles.

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

Travis came through yesterday and had his daughters name added to his collection..

I have mentioned before that I tend to shy away from approaching subway commuters about their tattoos.

However, like most of my self-imposed guidelines, I always make exceptions for work that is transcendent. That is, if the tattoos are supremely blogworthy, I will solicit, for the sake of the reader, people on the subway. One such case presented itself last week on the Brooklyn-bound N train.

I approached Mark Turrigiano as the N emerged from the subterranean underworld and climbed the Manhattan Bridge. He has phenomenal sleeves, intricate work that wraps and surrounds the limbs.

His right arm, with an Asian-inspired theme, is mostly attributed to Elio Espana at Fly Rite Tattoo Studio (whose work has been seen previously here). His left arm hosts an incredibly huge and colorful octopus, which was inked by Lou at Third Eye Tattoo (whose work has appeared on Tattoosday here).

Because of the scale of those sleeves, we opted to go with one of his newer pieces, a gypsy on the back of his left calf:

This piece, designed and inked by Craig Rodriguez at Hand of Glory Tattoo Studio in Brooklyn, is seen by Mark as "a good way to commemorate [his] work with female singer-songwriters".

I like this piece a lot because it contains a lot of traditional gypsy elements, but is atypical in its presentation. It seems much larger with greater detail than the traditional gypsy profile tattoos that are much more common. The vividness of the colors also helps the tattoo pop, and you can almost feel the texture of her scarf.

Mark says the piece was completed in about four hours over two sessions. He estimates that his body is about 30% covered in ink.

Feel free to check out Mark's website here.

Thanks to Mark for sharing this great gypsy tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

LOS GUYS!!

Here is a classic trailer of the old school Foos Cheech and Chong..
For those of you that don't know you need to check out the line-up from these original characters.

Leesa's Memorial Tattoos

There are certain signs I look for when I am scanning a crowd for tattoos. Colored hair and/or facial piercings are good, but not always reliable, indicators that someone may be inked. A guitar case, you would think, also favors the theory that its possessor has tattoos, but it's not always the reality.

So when I spotted a tall woman walking out of Penn Station carrying what appeared to be a guitar case, I took notice. And, she had a neck tattoo that resembled this pattern:

Despite being in a hurry, she let me shoot this photo of her forearm tattoos:

She explained that the one on the left arm features her mother's initials (HLH) under the phrase "máthair mo ghrá" and the dates 2-23-25 - 1-5-09". The tattoo is Gaelic and translates to "Mother, my love".

She explained that her mother died earlier this year and, before I could react, she explained that the right arm is a memorial to her husband (AMS), who died thirty-three days later.

Her right arm reads "Fear chéile mo ghrá" which means, "Husband, my love".

In an attempt to express condolences, I said, "Wow, it sounds like you've had a bad year. I'm very sorry".

But she was not down about it and said that actually, despite a rough year from a family perspective, it had been a good year for her personally.

She indicated that she was running late for rehearsal and I asked her if her band had a website. She started to spell the name "L-E-Z..." and I knew instantly what band she was in. The runic tattoo on her neck was familiar because it had stood for the great drummer John Bonham. Leesa is the drummer for the all-female Led Zeppelin tribute band, Lez Zeppelin.

It was only later, after researching a bit, that I learned that the band's guitarist and de facto leader Steph Paynes, had announced on January 5, 2009, that the other members of the band were leaving, and three replacements, including Leesa, were subsequently selected.

I am assuming that Leesa's reference to a good year, personally, had much to do with her joining Lez Zeppelin, and embarking on a tour.

These memorial tattoos were inked by Matt Adams at Sacred Tattoo in Manhattan.

Here's a clip from the band playing earlier this year in New York:

Thanks to Leesa for stopping and talking with me, despite being in a rush. I appreciate her sharing her memorial tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

Please check out the Lez Zeppelin website (here) to learn more about this cool band. See here where they are playing later this summer.

THE COUNTDOWN BEGINS!!

STAY POSTED FOR THE FULL DETAILS OF THE RELEASE AT

THE

LAST LAUGH

129 E 6TH ST

L.A. CA 90014

A couple of weeks ago, I had a very productive Wednesday, speaking to five different people about their tattoos.

Sarah is the last of those five that I an posting, and was my favorite of the group that day.

This tattoo was her sixth (she has thirteen or fourteen) and is an homage to her Slavic heritage.

The piece is based on the poster for a 1921 art exposition put on by the Czech Art Nouveau painter Alphonse Mucha at the Brooklyn Museum:

The piece, on her right shoulder was tattooed by Scott Budgen at Lady Luck Ink in Waterford, Michigan.

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

Here is a tattoo from a while back that I found in the archives. Our client was born and raised in East Los Angeles area and wanted to get some classic icons to pay homage..

My Third Tattoo: A Hand Steeped in Faith

Last June, I wandered into a 711 and met a tattoo artist named Pete, who works under the moniker Sweetpea. Like most artists, he himself has amazing work. However, I was camera-less that day, so I gave him a flier and we went our separate ways.

Later that week he e-mailed me and we scheduled to meet and talk about tattoos. We hit it off nicely and, in one of the perks of writing Tattoosday, I gained a new friend. Of the hundreds of people I have photographed for this blog, I'd say I developed some semblance of a friendship with just a handful of my subjects. Sweetpea tops the list.

When I posted his tattoos, almost exactly a year ago today, he was actually contacted by several people who he ended up tattooing. I didn't realize it at the time, but the impact of the post was far greater than I could imagined.

A month or so later he e-mailed me and asked me what I thought of a design on his MySpace page. I checked out the sketch and admired the concept: a disembodied hand, gesturing the "om" sign, emerging from a cluster of flowers.

I told him I liked it, but if I were to get that tattoo, I'd prefer it be modified to exchange the Om for a Star of David.

He came back to me with the updated design and we agreed to get this done. Summer was just coming to an end.

Pete stopped by in September with the design and met my wife, Melanie. The three of us talked about size and placement and agreed that it would look best on the upper part of the left side of my back. Sweetpea was basically freelancing and we decided the only place we could do it would be in my living room. The kids would certainly get an education out of this!

But when he called to see if we could book a slot in early October, a glance at my calendar revealed a conflict with a wedding and Yom Kippur the Jewish Day of Atonement. Not even factoring in the religious connotations, it's generally a bad idea to get a big tattoo on your back shortly before wearing a nice suit. Healing from a tattoo can be uncomfortable and the ointment used to facilitate the process can often ruin many an article of clothing.

So October slipped away, then November, and December. And then Sweetpea left the country for over a month and didn't get back until late January.

He called me in February. Not only was he ready, but he was now working out of Made in Brooklyn a little shop around the corner run by Michael Kaves, an artist steeped in the tradition of South Brooklyn music, graffiti art and tattoo culture (see an early Kaves tattoo here). I stopped into the store a couple of times and set a date.

When I showed up for the intial sitting, Pete was slightly tentative about the design. He wanted to go in a bit of a different artistic direction and wanted to retool the sketch one more time.

It was then that I suggested a chain, to make it look like it wasn't just a star that was being held, but a necklace with a star at the end of it, almost as if the hand had picked it out of the dust and held it up for inspection. Sweetpea loved the idea of adding the chain, as it created another dimension in the piece.

A week later, I was finally back in the shop being inked.

Again, I was reminded how time is distorted by reality TV tattoo shows. In a four to six hour session, the outline and flower was completed. For what was a relatively small piece, I was surprised at the time that the first phase took, until I saw the depth and layering of the colors that went into the floral pieces.

I returned two weeks later for the hand and several more hours under Sweetpea's needle....this time focusing on the hand, and the shading. When the session was complete, the hand was very dark, so much so that Melanie was nervous.

But Sweetpea assured us that the hand would lighten when healed, and lighten it did. It still amazes me how much work he put into the detail and shading and how he, along with the best tattoo artists, can envision the tattoo after it has healed. It's like an artist creating a painting, but with an extra layer that he knows will peel off and result in a crisper, brighter work below.

Due to scheduling and the shop getting busier, I wasn't able to sit again with Sweetpea until the second weekend in June.

I came in for some final touch-ups, a little extra tuning and coloring to slam the door on the tattoo.

I suggested some gold for the star to really make it shine, and he added some crisper outlining and some subtle shading to finish things up - white highlights in the fingernails and in the chain, and a little bit of added color in the hand.

And whereas I had been happy with the tattoo before, I was astonished at how much more amazing it looked with the "finishing touches".

So what does this tattoo mean? I know that is a question I extend to the countless volunteers who offer up their ink to Tattoosday readers.

I believe that meanings change over time, as the context of a particular tattoo evolves.

The addition of the chain was significant. Instead of merely proffering a symbol, the hand extended a concrete thing that symbolized something larger.

I alluded to our discussion of the chain, as if it had been picked up and held up for examination. This forms the cornerstone of the tattoo's current meaning to me.

So here it is: the hand of a Higher Power, call Him God, or Yahweh, or another deity. The Star of David represents my faith, my understanding of Judaism.

For many years, I had fallen away from the spirituality of the religion and had merely been a "cultural" Jew, meaning I identified myself as Jewish but didn't worship at the synagogue or observe many of the religious traditions.

But when my children reached the age when they started going to Hebrew School, the pendulum swung back and I became more regularly involved in the faith.

And although I do not consider myself "devout," my faith is stronger than it has ever been, it has been plucked from the dust and is being held up to the light.

This tattoo represents Faith, lost and found.

There are other elements that pervade the tattoo that make it more complete to me, as well. I consider it a Judeo-Christian tattoo, in a sense, with a hint of Buddhism.

The hand is still held in an "Om" gesture, despite the modification. So it has a base in a symbol of peacefulness and meditation. The chain has almost rosary-like appearance to it, which is appropriate in that it represents to me the faith of the artist, and my deeper understanding of Christianity that developed over 13 years attending a Christian elementary and high
school.

I thank Peter Caruso aka Sweetpea for creating this amazing tattoo for me. He has told me that appearing on Tattoosday a year ago was a significant moment in his career, as well. In the middle of our second session, he had shared with me that his passion for tattooing had dwindled, and he had been thinking of hanging up his tattoo machine.

However, he said, my interest in the art of tattoo through the blog, and getting him talking about the history of Old School Brooklyn tattooing, rekindled the flame. He started tattooing again and, at Made in Brooklyn, he has been tattooing full-time, doing his own thing, and creating some amazing works of art.

This won't be the last time you hear of Sweetpea or Kaves or Made in Brooklyn here on Tattoosday. Their influence in my neighborhood is being extended on a daily basis. I have witnessed the phenomenal work that they are producing for others and I am sure to be featuring it here in the future. I also hope to bring you a closer look at the shop as they continue to grow the business and transform from a little shop around the corner into a Brooklyn institution.

Jake's Redd Foxx Tattoo Helps Us Celebrate Father's Day!

Last week, I posted about a trio of friends that had recently moved from San Francisco to New York, all of them inked.

Jake was the first of the three to share his tattoo with us, and it is such a good piece, I saved it for a special occasion, Father's Day:

This is, of course, a portrait of the great comedian Redd Foxx. People of my generation (X) remember him as the bristling curmudgeon in the sitcom "Sandford and Son".

For those who are unfamiliar with the series, the show is about a widower, Fred Sanford (Foxx), raising his adult son Lamont (played by Desmond Wilson), and their junkyard business. It was a breakthrough show that was one of the first on network television to feature a minority cast.

The father-son dynamic is an ongoing theme, and Jake recalls watching the show with his dad and it being a bonding experience.

His father passed away about four years ago this month from cancer. The tattoo is not only a tribute to the great comedian, but a reminder of the times Jake spent watching "Sandford and Son" with his dad. Jake added, "I'm pretty sure if [my dad] was still around, he would get a kick out of seeing Redd Foxx on my calf."

This amazing portrait was tattooed on the back of Jake's right calf by Greg Rojas at Everlasting Tattoo in San Francisco.

As we celebrate Father's Day today, I thank Jake for sharing this awesome tattoo with us here, and invite everyone to revisit the host of tattoos previously posted on Tattoosday that pay tribute to dads. Click here to see the lot.

And, as a special treat, in the spirit of the day, I present the following clip:

Happy Father's Day from Tattoosday!

HAPPY FATHERS DAY!!

You never know how much your parents Love You until you have your own kids but this will give you an idea..

Ashley's Trio of Tattoos

I've always said that Tattoosday is 50% about the tattoos and 50% about finding them. But once in a while, tattoos just present themselves and I can't contain myself.

Ashley is a case in point. She was at the laundromat the same time as I was, and she had two small tattoos inked on her feet. Out on the street, I likely would have let her walk by without stopping her, but there, as we stood around waiting for clothes to wash and dry themselves, it struck me as negligent NOT to ask her about the tattoos.

Ashley has three tattoos in all. The first one I noticed was this peace sign on her right foot:

It's a popular symbol, of course, and not simply because of what it stands for, but for the aesthetics of the shape.

Similarly, she has a small heart on her left foot:

What's interesting to me about this simple tattoo is the duality of the colors. Ashley says that the colors represent the "two polar sides" of her personality - the "mellow" green and the more exciting pink.

Both tattoos were done in the same sitting by an artist named Taz.

Ashley has a third tattoo, her first, which she was kind enough to share with me:

This star was inked by Joe at Studio Enigma (whose work has appeared previously on Tattoosday here). This is purely decorative, at the base of her neck, and she had it done with a close friend, who had the same design inked on her shoulder blade.

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

Trip out on this old school Speed Racer tattoo. Most people wouldnt expect this tattoo from me.

Here is something that is different than what your used to seeing... Check out the Jewish Gangster doing his thing!

Check out this L.A. piece... Our client wanted to pay homage to the City of Angeles and the Chicano Lifestyle.

Sinner #3 - XVI -

Check out the trailer for the bare knuckle fighter
"Charles Bronson"
This film looks crazy and we already have one on pre order for the shop.

Here is the latest mural from the Cotton Caddi. There is more mural work being done so look out for that..

Check out a couple of portraits of our clients brother and sister who passed away.. This tattoo was done to show light and look angelic..

TRAILER OF THE WEEK

Check out this trailer of one of the films that stays on rotation here at the shop..

EAST SIDE STORY

Here is another classic soul oldie from the East Side Story, the which is one of the oldest oldies compilations for the streets..

A Dozen (or So) of Ed's Sixty-Eight (Approximately) Tattoos

Every neighborhood has at least one or two of them: old-timers who have retired from the workforce and can now shed their suits and proudly display what they have accumulated over a lifetime: their vast tapestry of ink.

Ed lives in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn (my neighborhood) and worked for a bank for forty years. Even today, when the stigma of tattoos is dissipating with the changing times, Corporate America still has employee handbooks which prohibit visible body art.

Ed started getting inked, like many men of his generation, when he was 18 and entered the Service. And, over the years, he collected tattoos. And he's not done, although the real estate is shrinking in quantity.

By his best estimate, Ed gave me a number of sixty-eight (68!). While chatting with outside of the laundromat a couple of weekends back, he let me take a snapshot of his right arm. In this photo, alone, I count at least twelve individual pieces:

Although the focus of the shot is the mermaid on the bicep, one is still drawn to the butterflies, the traditional panther, the New York Yankees logo, the fairy, and the sun.

Old school tattoos have a tendency to be less customized and more based on existing flash art. The result may be an affinity for the pieces, but a lack of great "back story" for many (but not all) tattoos on the older generation of inked Americans.

With so much ink, it is often hard to remember where everything was tattooed, although Ed credits a lot of the work to Brooklyn mainstays like Michael Angelo and artists affiliated with the great ~~the late~~ Huggy-Bear Ferris.

Thanks to Ed for sharing his arm with us here on Tattoosday!

Of course, we hope to feature more of Ed's work here in the future....

Here are a couple fliks from the Downtown L.A. Artwalk..

Original Permanent Tattoo

Laman

Jubail Celebrates the Midnight Mile

Where The Wild Thing Tattoo Is

Jared Shares His Vegan Tattoo

Tattoosday Boxcars: A Leonine Tattoo and Wearing One's Heart on One's Sleeve

Gina's Mayan Design

Mark's Gypsy Tattoo Pays Tribute to the Female Singer-Songwriter

LOS GUYS!!

Leesa's Memorial Tattoos

Sarah Shoulders Her Slavic Heritage

BORN AND RAISED

My Third Tattoo: A Hand Steeped in Faith

Jake's Redd Foxx Tattoo Helps Us Celebrate Father's Day!

HAPPY FATHERS DAY!!

Ashley's Trio of Tattoos

FAST LANE!

ROCK AND ROLL GANGSTER

L.A. ALL DAY!

KNUCKLE UP!!

COTTON CADDI

ALWAYS AND FOREVER

TRAILER OF THE WEEK

EAST SIDE STORY

A Dozen (or So) of Ed's Sixty-Eight (Approximately) Tattoos

DOWNTOWN ARTWALK

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