Tattoosday Doldrums

Autumn has come to New York and the tattoos have all but disappeared. Despair not, oh readers of this blog, there is hope.

To the woman I met outside of Rite Aid with the rose tattoo on her ankle that she said din't mean anything, I'm curious to hear about the tattoo on your arm, hidden last Sunday, which you want to get removed. You said there's a good story behind it. Please e-mail me.

To the woman at Duane Reade in Penn Station who sold me the Advil Cold & Sinus, I hope you're reading this and will participate in Tattoosday so I can get the story (and photo) of the ink on your wrist.

Alas, we fired a woman today at work who I had hoped to ask about the tattoo on her leg. My friend at Starbucks with the pine trees on her arm, commemorating her homesickness for Michigan, has transferred to a different location, unknown to me.

There are two co-workers who are prepared to offer me their tattoos for the blog. Patience, dear readers, and tomorrow is Halloween and it's supposed to be warmer.

I also have a New York Marathon post planned for next Sunday. 30,000+ runners will be zipping by me at the corner of 92nd Street and 4th Avenue in Brooklyn. How many tattoos will I capture?

I will leave you today with a pre-Halloween shot, a candid I snapped on the streets of Manhattan back in August, when I was a timid Tattoosday blogger.

I don't know the story. I don't know anything, except that it's a pretty cool black tattoo.

A New Awakening

At the beginning of the week, Summer was still clinging to the Northeast, which meant that there were still tattoos to be spotted out in the sunshine.

Monday afternoon, I noticed a woman in the plaza outside of Borders with a cool ring of flames and a lion tattooed around her ankle.

When I approached her about it, she was kind of down on the piece, saying the guy who did it out in Huntington, NY overcharged her and messed it up. It still looked pretty cool to me.

She also showed me her first tattoo, a star in a circle, on her lower back.

However, the third tattoo, which I hadn't seen until she pushed her hair back from her neck, was her favorite. That was the one she liked the best:


She gave her name as "Marla," which she acknowledged wasn't her real name. She slipped later and said what her real name was, but I will honor her desire to be anonymously misidentified.

Marla had her piece inked by Cheryl at Ink Alternative in Ronkonkoma, NY. She spoke nothing but praise about the shop. Marla was thrilled to not only let me photograph her tattoo, but was excited when I showed it back to her on my camera as she hadn't seen it in a while.

Marla said she had the tattoo done after getting through a hard time and that it represented "a new awakening". The symbolism of the sun and the tears represented the moving on from the difficulty she had just gone through.

Thanks to Marla for sharing this cool design with the Tattoosday community! Thanks also to Stacey Sharp, another artist at Ink Alternative, for identifying for me the artist who inked Marla's neck.

Update 7/27/2009: Stacey is now at Inkpulsive Custom Tattoos.

Mike's Quintet of Tattoos

Last week, in front of Madison Square Garden, I met a guy named Mike who had several tattoos.

I have found the most success with people in this area because, generally, people are loitering in the fresh air while waiting to head into Penn Station and catch a train.

That's what Mike was doing and I must give him kudos not only for being open to talking with me, but for proudly showing me all of his tattoos (5 in all) and for being forthcoming about his life, more than others may have been.

This is the tattoo that first drew my attention:

This piece was designed and inked by an artist in Miami at a shop called Art Attack, which is now known as Merlin's Tattoo.

Mike's ex-fiancee's pet name was "Jellybean," because, he said, "she was sweet". The name was merged with the express train logo by the artist.

Mike was a first for Tattoosday, as when I asked him what shop his tattoos came from, he hesitated briefly, but then stated matter-of-factly, "State Penitentiary".

So, four of his tattoos were credited to an incarcerated artist named "Kenny V." I must say, in my opinion, considering that these were not done in a shop, per se, the work is superb.

Below the "Jellybean Express" tattoo on his right arm, there was this dragon (because he likes dragons):

What was particularly cool about this dragon was that its rudimentary spine-like body wrapped around Mike's arm from the biceps down toward the wrist. It's hard to really capture the effect, but I did the best that I could.



On his left arm he had two tattoos. A wolf:


and below the wolf was a row of paw prints, wrapping around his arm. Each paw print, Mike said, was a tribute to a friend in the penitentiary.


Lastly, on his right calf, Mike had this intricate ace of spades with a skull inside of it:


Thanks to Mike for sharing his tattoos and helping display them here for Tattoosday.