Two from Samanatha, Including a Tattoo for Bubbie

I met Samanatha last month in Penn Station and asked her about her many tattoos. She's 26, and has been getting inked since she was 18, and appears to be going at a steady clip, because she has a lot of great work.

She was kind enough to share two of her tattoos, both from her right arm. The first piece is this hamsa:

Samantha explained that she got this tattoo in memory of her grandmother, or "bubbie," as they're known among many Jewish grandchildren. Samanthha's bubbie passed away a few months ago. I asked her what she thought of her tattoos and she replied, "Well, being a Jewish bubbie, I don't think she was too excited about them, but I always asked her if, as long as she still loved me, then it was okay; and she always said, "ach, yeah."

This hamsa, a symbol often associated with luck and warding off the "evil eye," was inked by Josh Schlageter at Hand of Doom Tattoo in Buffalo.

Samantha also offered up this dragon tattoo:

She got this from Steve Boltz at Smith Street Tattoo Parlour in Brooklyn, explaining:

"It's called a  spaulding dragon - it's old sailor flash ... I just wanted to go to one of the guys that could do one really, really well. Everybody in the tattoo community up in Buffalo that I know said, 'you gotta go to Steve Boltz', so I traveled down here to got see him."

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

This entry is ©2011 Tattoosday.

If you are reading this on another web site 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.

Dispatch from the 2011 New York City Tattoo Convention (A Recap)

 

Yesterday I spent a half dozen hours at the Roseland Ballroom, where the New York City Tattoo Convention was holding court. This was my third trip to the show, and each year, I have a different experience, as Tattoosday has evolved as a site (read about 2009 here and 2010 here).

In years past, I have only highlighted one or two pieces, as I go into sensory overload. What, outside of a convention's setting, would normally pique my interest, seems commonplace and ordinary. This year, however, I took many more photos, and actually interviewed four people, so this will be Convention Recap Week.

I do want to say the best part of the show was hanging and chatting with Marisa and Brian from Needles and Sins, as well as with Nathan from Knuckle Tattoos. It's not a portrait of future world domination, yet, but here's the three of us, masterminds of three of the best tattoo sites around, and hands and above, the best three inkbloggers at the show:

Nathan, Marisa and Me (photo by Brian Grosz)

That moment of self-adulation aside, I spent the first few hours talking to vendors about advertising, chatting with colleagues, and saying hello to people I've met in years past, like Greg who was the high point of last year's show for me.

I also like to introduce myself to artists whose work has appeared on the Site before, so I said hi to Adam Rosenthal of Th'Ink Tank in Denver, and Vinny Romanelli at Red Rocket in NYC.

I also took a slew of photos of people I didn't interview, so I will just throw them up here. Unfortunately I can't credit any of the amazing artists responsible. However, if you see your work here, shoot me an email and I can give you your proper due. Many of these shots were taken during the first round of the contest, which centered around black and gray work:

This one was one of my favorites, especially considering the woman's reflection in the blade of the knife:

And this Star Wars leg was totally cool:

Finally, through social media, my friend Ben in Hawai'i requested a shot of "80s West Coast punk rock logos." I thought I had failed in my quest until, as I was leaving, I captured this tiny Black Flag tattoo on a guy named Crash, who works for Tattoo Artist Magazine:

Mini-Black Flag Bars Tattoo by Oliver Peck

and this incredible Misfits piece to boot:

Tattoo by Frank Lee at Tattoo Blues in Ft. Lauderdale

Yes, we know, Misfits are an East Coast band. But it was too nice a tattoo to not photograph. Can you blame me?

Check out the Tattoo Artist Magazine blog here.

Check back throughout the week to see what four tattoos I found most blogworthy for us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2011 Tattoosday.

If you are reading this on another web site 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.

A Quartet of Tattoos from Greg

I met Greg outside of Madison Square Garden last fall, and he happily shared several of his tattoos, inspired by magic and mythology. On his upper left arm is this wizard:

On his upper right arm, he shared this dragon:

Below that, on his forearm, is this fiery skull:

And, in a tribute to his Irish heritage, is this coat of arms, with the Irish colors:

Greg credited Eddie and Ray, at Lucky Hearts Tattoo in Jersey City, New Jersey, as the artists responsible for his work.

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

Two-for-Tattoosday, Brazilian-Style

Sometimes, due to a) a language barrier and b) the passage of time, we're not always able to give you the most in-depth story about our subjects' tattoos.

Such is the case with Celso and Reginaldo, who I met back in September outside of Madison Square Garden.

Both gentlemen were visiting from São Paolo, Brazil and one of Celso's tattoos caught my eye:

That was on his right arm. He also had this one on his left arm:

Celso's friend Reginaldo pulled his shirt off so I could get the full view of his koi tattoo:

Celso credited Artur at True Love Tattoo in São Paolo for inking his dragon and his mermaid.

Artur also was the artists who did Reginaldo's koi.

Thanks to Celso and Reginaldo for sharing their tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

Anthony's Dragon (and more!)

I spotted Anthony on the N train in Brooklyn and was happy to see him also switching for the local R train at 59th Street.

As luck would have it, both of us were headed home to Bay Ridge.

Anthony has a bunch of tattoos, and I snapped this photo of the dragon on his upper right arm:

It was inked by Joe at Brooklyn Ink.

He estimated that the work so far has been completed in about three two-hour sessions.

Work from Joe and other artists at Brooklyn Ink has previously appeared quite frequently on Tattoosday (all posts tagged as such here).

Anthony later emailed me photos of these shots as well:

The praying hands holding the rosary, I recall him telling me, were tattooed at Distinction Ink in Brooklyn. The tattoo reads "Forgive me Father, for I have sinned".

He did not tell me where he had this tribal sun done, but it's definitely an attention-grabbing piece and certainly worth a mention.

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

Tammy's Earth Fairy

Tammy says that, within an hour of meeting her, Steve Gagliano of Tormented Souls in Kings Park, New York, knew exactly what to do with the tattoo she wanted covered up. He began freehanding a design over the existing tattoo, and the end result made her very happy:

The artist utilized the tribal butterfly that already existed and expanded it into an earth fairy, with a dragon protector.

Thanks to Tammy for sharing this, one of her seven tattoos, here on Tattoosday!

Be sure to click on the Tormented Souls link to explore their site. It's one of the more creative tattoo shop websites.

The Tattooed Poets Project: Brendan Constantine

One of the more satisfying aspects of this year's Tattooed Poets Project has been completing posts for poets who first contacted me in 2009 during our inaugural year of the endeavor.

In Brendan Constantine's first e-mail to me, back in February 2009, he mentioned being "extensively tattooed," a fact that, over the last thirteen months, escaped me. Brendan and I have stayed in touch, and he was finally able to send me a photo last night of one of his tattoos. I was surprised to see this amazing back piece:

Photos by Shawn Burkley

Brendan explains how this work came into existence:

"In 1994 I went to an retrospective of legendary Japanese artist, Kawanabe Kyōsai, at the National Gallery in London. Known as the ‘Demon of Painting,’ Kyōsai was among the very first artists in his country to bring western techniques to bear upon traditional themes, a move which earned him much criticism. I was transfixed by his work and came home with a huge book of his prints. Artist, Kirby White, then with Yoni Tattoo in the San Fernando Valley, shared my enthusiasm for this unique painter and said, “I would kill to work in this style!”

Unfortunately, halfway through the process, Kirby began to experience chronic back pain which ultimately kept her from finishing the piece. Nevertheless, I asked that she sign it, something few if any people allow artist’s to do. I know the work is supposed to be its own signature, but I wanted the piece to bear Kirby’s mark the same as if it had been rendered on rice paper.

Photos by Shawn Burkley

About two years later I met artist Sung Song at Pure Tattoo in Los Angeles (he has since moved on, now at Unbreakable Tattoo in Studio City) and discovered he was also devoted to the work of Kyōsai . I showed him where Kirby left off and he enthusiastically finished the job, adding his own improvisations while respecting Kirby’s work. The piece now bears both their idiographic signatures as part of the design. I’m a happy gallery!"

Photos by Shawn Burkley

Thanks to Brendan for sharing this amazing work!

Please be sure to head over to BillyBlog to read one of his poems here.

Brendan Constantine is a poet based in Los Angeles. His work has appeared in numerous journals, notably Ploughshares, Ninth Letter,The Cortland Review & RUNES. His book, Letters To Guns, was released in 2009 from Red Hen Press. He is currently poet in residence at The Windward School and Loyola Marymount University Extension.

Tattoorism: Dean's Samurai

Last Saturday, I posted some tattoos sent to us from Tammy in Texas. Her son Dean is also tattooed and, in a much bigger way. We'll let him explain:

My very first tattoo was done on my 18th birthday in 2005...[it is] a black dragon with kanji above it. About a year letter I had a koi fish done on my calf...both of these tattoos were just drawings I had found. In 2006 I started working on my rib piece and in 2007 I got together with John from A Different Drummer here in Wichita Falls (he is now at the Lawton, OK location), and the two of us collaborated on bringing the rib piece together. Once the drawing was to our satisfaction, it took a little over 2 months of 3-4 hour sittings weekly until the tattoo was complete. 16-plus hours and worth every minute!

In 2009 I decided it was time for an arm piece and went back to A Different Drummer and Tuan who was in Art Class with me in high school listened to what I wanted... and the arm piece came to life...this one was done in one day and took a little over 7 1/2 hours:

Both pieces are marvelously done.

Thanks to Dean for sharing his work with us here on Tattoosday! And a hearty thank you, as well, to Tammy, for being a cool mom, sharing her pride in her son's amazing body art!

John's Koi: Then and Now

It was only a matter of time.

I wondered when, just buy the nature of my talking to so many tattooed people, I would approach someone about Tattoosday, having already featured them on the blog.

The answer: seven months.

Here's an excerpt from October 2007:



Does that look familiar? I wrote in October 2007:

The first piece is a classic koi tattoo, done on the front of the calf. There is a dragon on the back of the leg but it is not finished yet, as color still needs to be added.

The host, John, is from the Bay Ridge area and had his koi inked at Body Art Studios on 3rd Avenue. We know the artist, Peter Cavorsi, who also runs the shop, because he is responsible for one of mine and three of my wife's pieces. I strongly recommend his shop if you live in southwest Brooklyn. His shop is clean and he does very nice work, as you can see from John's koi.

Koi are a traditional part of Japanese tattoo, and are very common subjects n body art because they represent good fortune. Despite their being regular subjects, they seldom are ever one in the same. Like snowflakes, they tend to differ from body to body, and unlike tribal pieces, I don't think I could ever get bored of koi tattoos.

John estimated that this large leg piece, including the dragon on the back of the leg, not pictured and not yet colored, took 13 hours so far. A lot of people don't realize how much time goes into elaborate pieces like these. On shows like Miami Ink, a ten-hour project can be compressed to five minutes of screen time.

Well, last Sunday, I saw the finished work, not realizing that John had been here previously. I handed him a flier at the grocery store, and he reminded me who he was. He was busy with groceries, but he promised me he'd send photos of the finished work. He estimates that Peter had spent an additional nine hours on the piece since October, making it about 22 hours in total.

That's one thing about the whole "_____ Ink" television experience, the work is edited down so much that many people don't realize how much effort goes into the large quality pieces.

And of course, John came through with these updated shots:





Thanks to John for sharing his finished leg piece with us! Stay tuned!! He also sent me photos of his other tattoos, which will be featured in a later post.

Joe's Astrological Ink

I ran into Joe outside of Nino's Pizza in Bay Ridge, at 92nd and 3rd Avenue.

His two forearm tattoos represent his belief in astrology.

Both are relatively recent inkings. The dragon is about a year old. On his left arm, the piece was inked at Hypnotic Designs in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. He believes by Angel. Hypnotic Designs work has appeared on Tattoosday twice before, here and here (Angel credited there too). Joe was born in 1976, the Year of the Dragon in the Chinese Zodiac.

The bull was inked at a shop in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Joe is a Taurus, astrologically, and the two pieces complement each other nicely.

Joe is currently having a chest piece done at Kings County Tattoo Company. He couldn't show me the piece entirely, and it isn't colored yet, but he was absolutely raving about the quality of their work. Kings County tattoos have appeared previously on Tattoosday here.

Thanks to Joe for chatting and sharing his astrological tattoos!

Dragons, Dragons, Everywhere!

On a recent trip to Rite-Aid with my older daughter, I warned her: "I don't know what it is about this place, but I always spot tattoos here." In fact, at least three prior posts on Tattoosday have featured ink photographed under the drugstore's fluorescent lights.

On Thursday the 25th, as I headed to the pharmacy, I ran into Alise Orlando-Aly, who was proudly displaying at least half a dozen black dragons on arms, neck, and legs.

She has a dozen dragons in all, including two on her lower back for her children that she couldn't show me in the store. Those, representing her kids, are her favorites. However, for the purpose of modesty, I snapped shots of the two on the outside of her calves.

Her work was all done by Echo at Masterpiece Tattoo in Staten Island, where she lives. She was inspired by the Mortal Kombat book series and, her tattoos started as pictures, then each was customized by the artist in collaboration with her.

Check out the right side:

And the left:
Both pieces took five hours, combined, to ink. She added that the left side is actually a cover-up of a hammerhead shark.

When I asked her her name, she said I could use her surname as well. "I'm proud of my tattoos," she smiled, "I have nothing to be ashamed of".

I agree whole-heartedly and thank Alise for sharing her dragons with Tattoosday!

Tattoos I Know: Paul Part 2, or, The Traditional Japanese Sleeve

NOTE: This post was updated on March 31, 2008 with three additional photographs.

Here's a Tattoosday first: a repeat subject in this blog's history.

Paul appeared here first, showing off his first tattoo, a dragon. In this post, Paul returns, showing off a full sleeve on his left arm.

The sleeve consists of traditional elements: there is a dragon, a lotus, a mask, a lily, and a koi.

If you went back in a time machine 8 or 9 years to visit Paul's arm, you would have seen a grim reaper holding a skull on the bicep:


and some roses in a pattern on the forearm. These earlier tattoos have been covered by elements in the sleeve. Even when told where the original ink lies, it's extremely difficult to see the previous work.

So I will break this down into two sections: the upper arm and the lower arm.

The upper arm began with the dragon cover-up:

The dark rock below the dragon covered the old piece. This design, which included the aum or om symbol at the top of the arm, was inked by Carlos at Rising Dragon Tattoos in Chelsea back in 2001. The aum symbol is the Siddhaṃ script version and is a mystical and sacred symbol in Indian religions. Note that this om is different than the one that appeare din the first Tattoosday post here.

Paul was not 100% thrilled with the dragon, so when he decided to finish the sleeve, the following year, he went elsewhere.

The lower part of the arm, which is the more prominent part of the sleeve, was inked by Mike Bellamy at Red Rocket Tattoo in Manhattan, although at the time his shop was known as Triple X Tattoo.

The specific elements in the sleeve are all traditional irezumi, or Japanese tattooing, elements.

The largest piece is the koi. It appears to be a golden koi.

There's a whole discussion here on what koi tattoos symbolize.

In addition, one can read here about the symbolic nature of the lotus flower in tattoos.

Paul also referred to the other flower as a spider lily.

However, there are so many different varieties of specific families of flowers, that I often have a hard time finding good pictures to represent the tattoos.

The additional element in the sleeve which is only a small part, but is still interesting is what Paul referred to as the "kite mask":

Masks are traditional parts of Japanese tattoo design, but this specific one is hard to pinpoint for me. Here are some Chinese mask kites. Yet, the fact that I cannot easily find one on the web, just fascinates me more.

Paul estimates that the whole sleeve (including the dragon from 2001) took about 20 hours of work, and he did it in 6-7 sittings, mostly in 2002.

Paul sent me the following photos from the New York City Tattoo Convention, where Mike Bellamy did some of the work on Paul's sleeve:

That's Paul and Mike on the far left of the photo:

Thanks to Paul for helping me update this post with additional shots!