The Tattooed Poets Project: Gina Myers and Her Colorful Gypsy

Today's Tattooed Poet is Gina Myers, who offered up this beautiful traditional gypsy piece:


Gina provided me the following commentary to accompany the tattoo:

"Sharing tattoos in this public forum is a little strange for me. I used to keep my tattoos covered when visiting family or working, and have only recently felt comfortable in the office at my current job letting them show. I tell my friends when I am going to get something new done, and I show them pictures afterward. However, I rarely, if ever, talk about the reason behind the tattoos.

I get tattoos for very personal reasons and the tattoos are for me, not for others. Strangers in public will often ask me about my tattoos or even go as far as touching my arm, moving my hair, or pulling up my shirt sleeve to see my work. What shocks me is that they often do not see anything wrong with their behavior. How often do people walk up behind strangers and rub their arms or ask them intensely personal questions? Someone once actually lifted my friend's skirt to see the tattoo on her thigh that stuck out some below her hemline. It would seem to go
without saying that what is beneath her skirt is not public. A tattoo is not public.

Sometimes when people ask me what a particular tattoo means, I ask them what they think it means. Usually people are able to put together a string of adjectives to which I respond, "That sounds pretty good to me."

I got this tattoo in September 2007 by Chad Koeplinger at Tattoo Paradise in Washington, DC. Chad is from my hometown of Saginaw, Michigan, and we grew up with the same people. I find this important. I kind of believe people who have a lot of tattoos are damaged in some way, and Chad, being from Saginaw, kind of gets my damage with no explanation. In 2006, I got a piece by Chad on the outside of my right arm, a fully-rigged ship, and then this piece, a gypsy, is on the inside of the same arm. To me, the pieces are related. They both represent people. This gypsy represents a particular person but can stand in for many as I have been lucky to have been surrounded by many strong women in my life. When I ask people what they think a gypsy means, aside from the occasional "stealing babies" comment, I often get strong-willed, mischievous, and free-spirited. To which I respond: "Yes, that sounds pretty good."

Thanks to Gina for sharing one of her amazing tattoos with us here at Tattoosday!

Please head over to BillyBlog to read one of Gina's poems.

The Tattooed Poets Project: Kat Zemmel's Twisted Clock

Kat Zemmel is a poet and Master's candidate at the University of Tennessee.

Her amazing "twisted clock tattoo" is on the right side of her torso.

Kat explains the story behind this time piece:

"The design is the work of the tattoo artist--I came in one day, and said that I'd recently been enamored with antique clocks, antique watches. I love old mechanical things, the care with which they are put together is something that is hidden in the everyday present American culture. We buy computers, coffee makers, cars, and watches expecting them to work, and for the workings to be concealed. I think that there is something vulnerable and exposed about antique watches--their need to be daily wound, the care one puts into having such an object.

Sheri Matlack is the tattoo artist who drew the design--at the time she was working at Lone Wolf Body Art in Nashville, but since has opened her own tattoo shop: Electric Athena Tattoos (also in Nashville). We had discussed the placement of the tattoo--I wanted it on the ribs, and she thought to twist the watch/clock to fit the contour of my body. The number 8, featured prominently in the lower square, is a favorite number, a good number for me. The design, overall--the shape of the twisted watch-face, the way that the watch itself is segmented, everything--was Sheri's work. I only directed the theme, and she executed it, perfectly. I think that when I first saw the design, I was hesitant and unsure--it was too strange to my eyes; since I've had it done, I've loved Sheri's work, and have come back to her faithfully, for almost every tattoo. I still think it's the best damn black and grey work I've ever seen.

The tattoo was done over two 2.5 hour sessions in December of 2006.

Kat sends along some additional biographical information, including how the art of tattoo influences some of the classes she teaches as a graduate student:

"...As in many programs, graduate students are assigned to teach some sections of first-year composition; second-semester composition courses, while still courses in writing, can be centered around a theme chosen by the instructor. Thus, I am presently teaching a course called "Inquiry into Body Modification." I had some doubts about being able to sustain students' interest in the subject matter, but have had little trouble so far. With this course, I wanted to make students aware that body modification is something people do every day, that it also includes the likes of plastic surgery, body building, dieting, as well as piercing and tattooing. I hope to teach my students to look at every body critically, to read the argument a body makes, to be able to understand a body's stance within culture. Presently, they are working on a paper assignment (Historical Inquiry unit) that asks them to trace the changes in a body modification practice over time, or to study a body modification practice that has been transplanted from another culture... In either case, I ask them to make an argument about the nature of the appropriation or change--for example: how is Chinese foot-binding similar to the Western practice of wearing high-heeled shoes? or: how do Western tattoos differ in meaning from their earlier ancestors? These, and many other questions, are important, I think, to consider--especially in a culture that takes body modification for granted.

I am presently teaching a composition course at UT, but it's a little different because the second semester freshman comp (102) is a theme-based course. The theme of the course that I'm teaching is Inquiry into Body Modification, so my students and I talk a lot about tattoos, and the way they are viewed--the way that tattoos change the surface of the skin into a thing to be viewed differently. It almost gives people permission to look at a body, to enact a weird kind of voyeurism.

Kat is also part of Shelley Jackson's Skin project:

I am a word in her story, and that has also has changed my perspective of tattoos. Having a tattoo means that I am a part of a community, but one in which the members don't necessarily know each other...

I want to thank Kat for sharing her incredible tattoo with us here on Tattoosday, and telling us a little about the courses she's involved with at the University of Tennessee.

Be sure to check out one of Kat's poems over on BillyBlog.

Abbey Nex Contemplates Transforming an Iconic Tattoo Image

Just a brief note...despite the Tattooed Poets Project for National Poetry Month, I still plan on spotting ink on the streets of New York, and posting it here.

This is one of those posts....

Back on April 1, I spotted a very distinct-looking individual at the Amtrak terminal in Penn Station. It's a great inkspotting locale, as people are usually standing (or sitting) around, waiting. Those folks are more amenable to chatting about their tattoos than their counterparts who are rushing for the train, or are running back from lunch.

I mention that he was distinct looking, because he stood out in the normally conservative Amtrak crowd. He looked the part: performing under the name Abbey Nex, the gentleman was headed back to Baltimore after a tour of Europe with his band, Psyclon Nine. He primarily plays bass for the band, although Psyclon Nine's MySpace page credits him with broken mirrors and scabbed knees, as well. The band is classified as metal/black metal/industrial.

Abbey Nex has ten tattoos in all, but we decided to share the one that I saw first, an old Jack Skellington piece that his friend Emily did about 8 years ago on his inner left forearm:


Nightmare Before Christmas tattoos are among the more popular movie-themed pieces in our society, primarily because the stop-action animation classic has such a huge following, but also because the main characters make such great designs for big tattoo pieces. He also has one of Jack's girlfriend Sally on his inner right bicep.

Abbey admits that he has come to regret this piece a bit, having outgrown it to some extent. However, he plans to alter it to bring it more in line with his aesthetic sensibilities. The plan is to leave the majority of the tattoo intact, but to replace Jack's trademark head with a less childish,
more macabre and elongated animal skull. The piece directly above the Skellington tattoo is an elaborate bat skeleton.

I want to thank Abbey Nex for sharing his tattoo with us here on Tattoosday, and for giving me a pen, liberated from the Four Seasons Hotel in Dublin, since I ventured out lacking a writing instrument to scribble my notes.

Here's a video of the band's song "Parasitic":