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....

Sal Shares His Illusion-ary Tattoo

On Tuesday I was in Brooklyn Heights, walking toward Cadman Plaza on Clark Street. As I passed a local video store, Mr. Video III, I spotted some ink on one of the employees and decided to head in and introduce myself.

Sal has seven tattoos, but he chose to share the one above, from his left bicep.

This is, of course, recognizable to anyone who is a rock fan, as the artwork gracing the cover of the 1991 Guns N' Roses album Use Your Illusion I. A G n' R tattoo appeared on Tattoosday previously here.

Sal had this inked because the album was released at a point in his life, when he was a senior in high school, when most people are most impressionable and affected by massive displays of musical force. The album, and by extension, the tattoo, was something he could cling to, a great avenue by which he could "express his rage".

With G n' R classics like "Right Next Door to Hell," "Don't Cry," "Back Off Bitch," and the Wings cover "Live and Let Die," the album is a tour de force of hard rock angst.

Sal also acknowledges that he, like many others who were fans of the band, developed a greater appreciation of classical art, as the image form the record (and its companion, Use Your Illusion II) are based on a detail in the Italian Renaissance painter Raphael's , The School of Athens:


Or, the detail used:


Sal says that this piece was inked around 1994 by an artist named Jason, who worked with the studio of the late great Huggy-Bear Ferris in Park Slope. Work from Huggy-Bear has appeared here previously on Tattoosday.

Thanks to Sal for sharing his tattoo here on Tattoosday. As I will be passing by Mr. Video III on a more regular basis in the future, I hope that Sal would share more of his tattoos with us in the future!

Nancy's Dragon at the Fifth Avenue Festival

Last Fall's 3rd Avenue Festival in Bay Ridge was a watershed moment for Tattoosday. I came out of the block like gangbusters, tallying up a half-dozen tattoos, enough to carry me through into the cooler days of October.

With the Fifth Avenue Festival on Sunday, June 1, and nine months of tattoo-spotting under my belt, not to mention a sunny day in the 80s, I anticipated even greater success.

Instead, I found myself being more selective. I ran into Tani from this post and stopped by Groove Tattoo and introduced myself to Marc Redbeard (who inked these pieces).

By the end of the day, I only took pictures of two tattoos, and I was okay with that. I focused on quality, not quantity.

The first person I spoke to, Nancy, let me photograph her left leg, above.

This tattoo is about ten years old and was inked by the great late Huggy-Bear Ferris in his shop in Park Slope.

Nancy said that this was not flash, but a custom piece. She went into Huggy-Bear's shop, told him what she wanted, and he drew it up.

This piece is one of five of Nancy's tattoos.

Thanks to Nancy for sharing her ink! , and thanks to the memory of Huggy-Bear Ferris, who meant so much to the New York tattoo community.

UPDATE August 28, 2009. I have been informed that Mr. Ferris is still with us, despite several people telling me he had passed. I apologize to Mr. Ferris and wish him a long, happy life!