Tattoos I Know: Tracy's Tributes

Tracy is a friend of mine who lives in Fort Drum, New York. She was in town last weekend, visiting family, and this was the first time I have seen her since Tattoosday was born over the summer.

I knew Tracy had at least one tattoo, because she and my wife have talked ink before. So when I saw her on Saturday, unexpectedly, I was happy that I had a couple of Tattoosday printouts in my pocket.

I explained the blog and asked if she'd like to participate. She was happy to oblige and, as fortune would have it, she was coming to an indoor soccer game the following day. Her nephew plays on the same team as my daughter Shayna. We tentatively agreed to talk tattoo the following day.

After the game Sunday, I asked if she was ready. She lifted the back of her shirt to reveal:


I was surprised, honestly. I was not expecting butterflies, but expecting the one above it which, as fate would have it, is later in this post. But I wasn't about to pass up a cool tattoo, so I took a picture of this one as well.

Tracy is a mother of two boys, Matthew and Danny, and these butterflies represent each of them, as they flutter and transform, as ones children are apt to do, growing from infants into people. Tracy had these inked three years ago in Victorville, when she was living at Ft. Irwin. She said that they had been done at "Victorville Designs," which has either changed names or gone out of business, based on this link.

These butterflies are nicely inked and really seem to float over the skin. Definitely a nice tattoo, from design to execution.

Above the butterflies is the tattoo that I had heard about:



A simple, basic script. The arced triad of three pillars of strength in many people's lives: "Faith. Family. Friends."

In order to understand this tattoo, we have to take a little side journey.

Whatever one's politics may be, or however one feels about what we are doing in Asia and the Middle East, one thing must be acknowledged: the men and women in our military are there to do a job, to serve our country, and to fight to not only protect the people there, but here as well. Thousands of American men and women have given their lives and their souls to serve our country.

As one may have guessed by two prior references (Ft. Drum and Ft. Irwin), Tracy is closely tied to the United States Army, as she is married to Pete, who is a soldier with the 10th Mountain Division, Light Infantry.

On October 31, 2006, Pete's friend and fellow soldier, Major Douglas E. Sloan, was killed in the line of duty in the Wygal Valley in Afghanistan, while serving with Company B, 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment. You can read more about Doug here at the Arlington National Cemetary website.

As every drop of spilled blood in the line of duty hits home, the loss of Major Sloan was devastating to his family and friends back in the States. The community of Fort Drum mourned Doug's passing and hearts went out to his wife Kerry and their children.

In December 2006, to pay tribute to Doug's memory, Tracy and three friends, including Kerry, went to Tattoos Forever in Evans Mills, NY, and each had the same inscription inked. In hindsight, Tracy recalls how funny it must have appeared, for four moms in minivans to drive up to the shop and collectively get tattooed.

It is a recurring theme on tattoo shows. Memorial tattoos are among the most popular types of body art. People mourn, heal, and remember through the art of the tattoo. And a piece of the loved one lives on, for years, in the flesh of the survivors, who gain strength and hold on to the memory of the departed.

The alliterative mantra of "Faith, Family, and Friends" reminds not only the tattooed, but those around them, of the most important things in life.

I want to thank Tracy for sharing her tattoos, and the stories behind them. I would add a special nod of gratitude to the memory of Major Douglas Sloan, who I never knew. Yet, by virtue of this tattoo, helped remind me of the sacrifice that our soldiers make day in, day out, and their families they leave behind.

Some related links:

A touching tribute to Major Sloan from YouTube:



Also of note, Occidental College professor Mary Beth Heffernan's "The Soldier's Skin," currently on exhibit at Pasadena City College.

Tattoos I Know: Johnny Fears No Evil

A few months ago, Johnny started working at my company and I almost immediately noticed his tattoo on the inside of his right forearm.

I broached the subject (along with Tom) of having him join the Tattoosday ranks a while ago.

The last few warm January days hinted at a possible windfall unfurling of ink in the New York area, but I had no takers.

Today I asked Johnny if he wouldn't mind sharing his ink, and he agreed. Here it is:



This piece was inked three years ago in Newport News, Virginia, when Johnny was stationed there in the Navy. He had it done at Army-Navy Tattoo.

Like many tattoos, this horned skull is occasional. That is, he had it done to commemorate a significant event in his life. In this case, the occurrence was his first jump out of an airplane. He fearlessly overcame the initial anxiety of skydiving and chose to mark the moment with this
sweet tattoo.

Basically, in Johnny's words, it represents: "Fear no evil, not even the devil."

The tattoo is a composite of a skull design from the shop and the horns are borrowed from the art of David Boltt. His gallery of tattoos is here. I have to concur that the horns make the skull exceptional.


This is the third of Johnny's four tattoos, and the only one that appears regularly. Johnny and I were talking with Jerome recently and he talked from experience about the pain of having your side tattooed, so I imagine there is a big one there.

Johnny acknowledges that this piece is a work in progress and that he not only hopes to add the words "Fear No Evil" above it, but also plans to eventually add to the arm and build a sleeve.

Thanks to Johnny for sharing the reminder of your fearlessness with us here at Tattoosday!

Tattoos I Know: Jerome Finds Strength in a Tattoo

After my year end double-barrelled post of Erika's Ink, I wasn't expecting to post right away, but another co-worker of mine got his first tattoo over the weekend.

I hadn't even got into my office when I ran into Tom and Jerome.

Tom said "Bill, you gotta see this!"

Jerome took off his shirt to reveal this freshly-inked portrait of Jesus:


I had my camera out before I even knew what I was doing. There's nothing like fresh ink that pops off the flesh.

Jerome is 45 and this was his first tattoo, less than a week old.

Jerome says "I wanted a tattoo all my life, but I was fearful of the pain. I wanted to overcome my fears".

Jerome says that he finds this tattoo gives him strength. He is in Recovery, and this brings him "closer to a higher power". By being on him, Jerome beamed, "He is part of me".

This tattoo was inked by Jeff at Adrenaline Tattoos and Body Piercings in Brick, New Jersey.

Thanks to Jerome for sharing his fresh ink with Tattoosday!

Tattoos I Know: Erika's Ink (Part 2)

This is part 2 of Erika's ink (part 1 here). Erika has a lot of tattoos, so I had to split the post, since she generously offered them all up for Tattoosday.

Tattoo #7 is actually #7 and #13, as one element was added eight years later. We'll focus on #7 now, which is the flower on the inside of Erika's left wrist.


Erika, in her own words, went through what she calls "an experimental phase" in her life, during which she began dating women. To show her "true colors" at the time, Erika and her cousin, who was also dating women, got the same tattoo...a rainbow-petaled flower above a doubled female sign, to proudly display her alternate lifestyle.

The flower was inked at a shop called Murda Ink Tattoos, in Jamaica, New York.

Flashing forward to the Summer of 2006, Erika was having a cover-up done (see #8 and #12 below) and asked, as an afterthought, if the artist could cover the interlocking female insignia, as well. Erika's fiancee (now husband) didn't like the "advertisement" of the prior lifestyle. The leaves were added under the flower at Triple X Tattoo, now known as Red Rocket Tattoo on 46 West 36th Street in Manhattan.

Tattoo #8 was a boyfriend's name, inked along the front of her waistline, by Joe at Between the Lines. This name was covered up (see below) in 2007.

Tattoo #9 is a Chinese dragon on the middle of Erika's back. Her dress at the company holiday party afforded me a great opportunity to photograph it without her having to remove any clothing.


Joe at Between the Lines did this piece as well. Erika recalls just hanging out at Joe's shop and talking about how she wanted a big piece for her back. Joe was happy to oblige, and drew up the dragon free-hand.

She said that it took about ten weeks and three sittings to complete. The reason for the multiple sittings? The pain. To quote Erika, "I'll never forget how much that shit hurt."

The other elements of the tattoo are the kanji. When I asked Erika what they meant, she said, "Well, one of them is supposed to mean "to love life":

and the other is supposed to acknowledge that former lifestyle and say "to love women":

Erika, when she told me this, seemed to have her doubts, and was receptive to the idea of me looking into their actual meanings.

I went to my resident Chinese language expert, who quickly debunked their meanings. They do not mean what she thinks they do, he said. Because they don't make much sense. The best translation he could give was "good girl" for the top and "born/appear" for the bottom.

If you look at the kanji for "love,"


you'll notice it's not similar to any of the kanji in the tattoo.

Tattoo #10 may look familiar, as it is the first one I noticed on Erika which started out this whole business. Despite "never being crazy about tattoos on arms," Erika inked this in the Summer of 2003, while on a date. She doesn't recall the name of the shop, just that it was somewhere in the East Village. Of course, the East Village is likely one of the few places in the U.S. where tattoo/piercing shops outnumber Starbucks.

So, Erika still had a soft spot for little girl things, unicorns and fairies and such, so she designed this fairy, using several different drawings to create a composite she liked.


She designed the wings and changed the outfit color to red. Why red? As a tribute to her younger brother, who was in the Bloods, a gang whose colors are red. I, for one, appreciate the irony of a pixie sporting gang colors. This is definitely a tough, New York fairy, not some wimpy woodland nymph!

Tattoo #11 also has a pretty interesting story. Erika got married in the Spring of 2007, but she met Lance, her husband-to-be in February 2004.

They dated for a couple of weeks, but she knew he was still dating another woman. Erika thought that this other woman, who had been seeing the guy first, was going to be a problem and that, as long as she was still in the picture, their relationship wouldn't go anywhere.

Erika made a conscious decision to "steal him away" once and for all. Because he had kids from a previous relationship, she plotted to surprise him on Father's Day with a surprise trip to Florida. He had never been to South Beach in Miami and she wanted him to experience it. And so she did.

The day before they were set to return to New York, they were walking around South Beach and they stumbled upon a tattoo shop. Lance already had one small tattoo with some kanji, so Erika suggested that he go in and get a new one. The subject of tattoos had come up before (how could it not when you already had 10 pieces?), so they went in and he got a new piece on his
arm, a huge lion with a crown, representing his last name in Hindi.

It's incredibly hard to be an inked person and watch someone get a tattoo and not want one for oneself. Therefore, Erika found a piece on the wall that she liked and had it done on her back, below the bluebird, above the dragon.


Sorry, the name of the shop and the artist are not recalled.

Tattoo #12 came in the early Summer of 2006, around late June/early July. She and Lance were engaged, and she wanted to cover up the name of an ex-boyfriend tattooed across her lower abdomen.

A co-worker recommended Red Rocket Tattoo, and it was there that she had this lotus inked on her waistline:


Yep, no name anymore!

Now, for some disclosure. Erika is the first Inked Person to let me photograph her stomach for Tattoosday. I did have a mutual friend present, Sephora, who was the first person who hosted a tattoo here.

Erika wanted the lotus for two reasons. In addition to wanting something pretty to cover up an old name, she had heard that the lotus was a symbol of fertility, and she hopes to have kids some day. She hopes the lotus will be lend good luck for future procreative purposes.


There are over one hundred various types of lotus, so I can't pinpoint the exact one this is modeled after.

Once this cover-up was done, Erika asked for the leaves on the flower mentioned above to cover up the double female insignia.

Well. a hearty thanks to Erika for her participation here! She definitely holds the record for most tattoos offered up to the Tattoosday masses. Her ink is closing out the year for Tattoosday. Here's hoping that her lotus will spawn a healthy blossoming of tattoo posts here in 2008!

Tattoos I Know: Erika's Ink (Part 1)

A long, long time ago, in a place called BillyBlog, an idea was formed. It was the idea that became Tattoosday. I decided to celebrate the many tattoos I encountered, with a photo (or two) and a story. A Miami Ink for the blogging crowd. Nothing about the artists' personalities, all about ink. In fact, all you see is the art, and very little else of the hosts.

The idea was to find strangers willing to let me take pictures of their tattoos, and post them with an accompanying text explaining when and where and why they chose to be inked. But I needed a guinea pig, so I started with a co-worker, Sephora, who seemed to enjoy talking with me about tattoos and music of all sorts. She was game, and she inaugurated the Tattoosday feature here.

And the rest is (brief) history. The Tattoosday feature, appearing every Tuesday was so much fun, I spun it off into its own blog and it has enjoyed a small, small viewership. But a blog can only dream. Through the odds and ends and goods and bads of Tattoosday's growing pains, I would occasionally saunter over to Sephora and chat about tats. The woman who sat in front of her, Erika, would often join in the conversation, but was mum about her own tattoos (if she had any, I couldn't tell. I wasn't scanning her clothing edges for ink slippages.)

Then in November, Erika was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and lo! and behold! What did I see?



Well, now I was chatting with Erika about tattoos and she mentioned she had a lot. I asked her if she would be interested in Tattoosday and she was game. So, over the last few weeks, starting with our holiday party when she was wearing a dress that showed off most of her back, through very recently when I snapped the pictures of the last of Erika's dozen (or so) tattoos, I managed to capture the catalog of Erika's ink, which is presented here for the Tattoosday readership.

Enough of my gab, lets roll with the body art!

Erika doesn't know exact dates on all her ink, so we're going to go chronologically. First up is this basic, rudimentary rose on her right lower calf.

By the way, Erika's tattoos all have pretty good story behind them. About 14 years ago, circa 1993, she was 18 and went into Your Choice Tattoo, in East Meadow, New York (on Long Island, for you non-New Yorkers). She was scared to death of what then pain would be like, Her boyfriend suggested the location on her lower leg because it wouldn't hurt so much. Of course, in hindsight, that's one of the more painful spots because it is so close to bone.

The co-owner of Your Choice Tattoo, Joe, made her go home and get her birth certificate, because he thought her ID was fake. He even joked that she would need to get a letter from her mother!

Two years later, at 20, she was back at Your Choice, this time working with artist Michelle, who put this unicorn on the right side of her lower back:



Erika explains that she was still a kid at heart, and that she had a lot of unicorns in her room. She saw this design on the wall and went with it. It's a reminder of that little girl she once was.

A year later, she was back at Your Choice Tattoo, with Michelle again. Like for most people, Ericka's tattoos serve as signposts for different periods of her life. In 1996, she was dating a guy who was heavy into the Black empowerment philosophy. "He was a big 'Power to the People' guy," Ericka recalls, "And I wanted to show him I was down with that." She exhibited this commitment by having an Egyptian ankh inked on her left shoulder:


Because the symbol simultaneously recalls Egypt and represents the hieroglyphic symbol for "life," it still resonates as a powerful image on her skin.

A year later, she had befriended another tattoo artist, Joe, at Behind the Lines II Tattooing in Jamaica, Queens. She had this small piece inked on her right shoulder:


The piece in question is the heart with the crown and the name "Marie". It's a tribute to her mother, Marie, who, Erika acknowledges, is "the Queen of her Heart". Below the tribute to her mom is another piece by Joe at Behind the Lines. It's a hybrid of the Puerto Rican flag and the Haitian flag. Her father is from Puerto Rico and her mother is from Haiti and she wanted a tribute to her heritage.


A year later (approximately 1998), she was hanging out with Joe and things were slow in the shop. He offered up, "I'm bored. Want a tat?" Ericka was game and this bluebird was inked on her neck:


She acknowledges that there is no real story behind it, but that she does like the art. Ericka is a great example of how tattoos can be addictive and that, once you get one, you want to keep going.

This concludes part 1 of Ericka's Ink. Stay tuned for part 2!

Thanks again to Ericka for sharing her tattoos!

Dana's Stargazer Lily

At the beginning of November, I found a cool tattoo where I least expected to: a bat mitzvah. Such occasions are not generally tattoo-displaying events, especially with the misconception that tattoos and Jews do not go together. However, we here at Tattoosday know better and I, with my two, and my spouse with her four, are always appreciative of a finely-inked piece.

The bat mitzvah girl was too young to be tattooed, but her older sister wasn't, and she had something on her back that I noticed in the shul. Nonetheless, she was not the person who ended up here on Tattoosday.

During the cocktail hour, post-service, pre-dinner, my lovely wife spotted a be-flowered bicep of a woman at the party.

However, she disappeared once we are all seated, and I figured that was that. Besides, I had no printouts of the blog with me, just the camera.

Later in the evening, post-dinner, post-performance (the bat mitzvah girl did a song and dance for the guests' entertainment). A bit after that, I spotted the woman on the other side of the
ballroom, seated at a table. I hate interrupting people while they are conversing with others, so I waited.

A bit further on, I saw her just outside the entrance, smoking a cigarette. Smoking may be hazardous one's health, but it seems to be Tattoosday's Best Friend. I've found the Smoking Tattooed among the most approachable, as they are standing around and not necessarily in a hurry anywhere. And by talking to them, I am not interrupting anything (generally speaking).

So, out I went to introduce myself and tell her about the blog. And, of course, she was totally cool. It turns out she had been the bat mitzvah girl's choreographer. Her name is Dana Athens, and she is a singer as well (check out her website or her MySpace page). I finally got a good look at the flower on her right biceps:


Dana explained that the tattoo is a stargazer lily, inked for inspiration as it represents "always reaching for your dreams". It is one of five tattoos she has.


When I asked her where she had it inked, she started, "A great artist named Peter...."

I cut her off...."At Body Art Studios?"

There's something about having been mutually tattooed by the same artist. It's more than just both knowing the same person. You both have let the same person artistically alter your respective bodies for life. I think it's a bond only the tattooed truly understand.

So we chatted and I took pictures of her lily. After we went back inside, I tracked down my wife, Melanie, and brought her over to Dana to introduce her.

Again, there was that connection between the mutually-tattooed. Melanie has had 3 of her 4 tattoos inked by Peter. She showed Dana her tattoos and we chatted awhile.

It was an unexpected bonus to an already festive evening.

My apologies to Dana for the delay in posting this sweet tattoo. Thanks again, Dana, for sharing your lily with us!

Jason's Koi and Flower

While wandering aimlessly at work, I ran into Tom (see his tattoo here) with a couple of contractors. One of them had a cool tattoo and when I mentioned it to Tom, he told me to go get my camera. And so I did.

Tom introduced me and summarized my Tattoosday project.

The guy, Jason, actually had two pieces that formed a quarter-sleeve that covered pretty much the entire upper arm.

The inner arm/bicep has a flower on it which he referred to as a pantisse.




I checked an encyclopedia and found no such name. I could spend a long time trying to figure it out, but am not willing to do so.

He got it at Fly Rite Studio in Brooklyn. The artist is Elio Espana.

The outer arm hosted the koi tattoo, which was the one I first noticed.



Jason is a Pisces, and the koi represents good luck.

This piece was inked by Damien Bart at Bruce Bart Tattooing in Ft. Lauderdale.


Thanks to Jason for contributing to Tattoosday!