Two Tattoos, Starry Reminders of Youth and Friendship

I met Randy in front of Penn Station, where he was talking with Cait.

I spotted what appeared to be a Chilly Willy tatoo on his inner right forearm, but he dismissed it as a youthful mistake that he eventually wanted to get covered up.

He did offer me the three stars on his right hand as a tattoo that had much more meaning:


He got the three stars to remind him of youth and romance, an allusion to how kids tend to draw on themselves, often scribbling stars. The piece was inked at Lotus Tattoo in Sayville, N.Y.

He mentioned to me that Cait also had a tattoo. I asked her if she'd be willing to share, and she did. She peeled back a little of her top to reveal this beautiful piece on the top left side of her chest:
Cait and her friend Michelle have birthdays two days apart. When they turned 18, they took a design that Michelle had crafted to Da Vinci Tattoo Studio in Wantagh, New York. The artist she remembered as "Yoshi" inked matching pieces for the two.


Cait says the heart that encases the colorful stars represents their friendship, and serves to remind them of the bond. In the event that life ever separates them, the tattoos will link them, no matter where they are.

Work from Da Vinci Tattoo Studio has appeared on Tattoosday before here.
Thanks to Randy and Cait for sharing their ink with us here at Tattoosday!

Fabiana's Most Important Tattoo

If you haven't met Fabiana's ink yet, you may want to check out her previous posts here and here before continuing. The above tattoo is on her right bicep and has a remarkable story behind it.

Fabiana was born in Italy. When she was three years old, a mirror belonging to her parents broke. Rather than throw the whole thing out, Fabiana's father, who loved to paint, took the wood on which the mirror had been mounted, and painted this cross:


Sadly, her dad passed away about a year later and Fabiana's mom, wanting her family to have a better life, moved them all to the U.S.

Years later, as an adult, Fabiana decided to honor her father: "I thought about the painting and said Wow, it would be great to have a piece of my dad on me . . . so I took the painting to my tat guy [Lou at Third Eye Tattoos] and he was like, Sure!"

Fabiana loves this remarkable piece. She acknowledges that it's a bit different from the original but it still carries great meaning. Both Fabiana and her twin sister have the same matching tattoo to honor the memory of their father.

Thanks again to Fabiana for sharing another piece of herself with us here at Tattoosday.

Time Flies When You're Living and Dying

"No," I explained to Heather, "I don't troll the post office for tattoos." She was asking why, of all places, I stopped her in line at the Fort Hamilton Post Office in Brooklyn.

Really, it was a series of coincidences. My younger daughter was sick today, so I stayed home. Otherwise, I would have been at the main post office in Manhattan. But there I was, after an eternal wait in line, when I looked back and saw Heather talking to someone before getting into the endless line. I gasped. Heather has a lot of ink. She has sleeves (I think one was 3/4 and one was 1/2, I could be wrong) and a back piece that looks to be of significant volume, with other tattoos scattered across her self from neck to toe.

When I asked her about her tattoo count, she gave me an answer that you generally don't hear, except from the heavily-tattooed. "I estimate I'm about 40% covered." Wow. A lot of ink, indeed.

Heather gets tattooed by two main guys, and the piece she offered for Tattoosday was done by Lou Andrew at Third Eye Tattoos in Park Slope. You may be familiar with Lou's work, from Fabiana, whose ink has been appearing recently on Tattoosday.

Heather explained the piece, saying that the girl in the artwork has been "zombfied" to represent death

and the hourglass, with the wings, is symbolic of the fleeting nature of time ("time flies"), and ultimately, life. The detail is vivid and very well done:

I love the grains of sand falling in the hourglass and the red cobwebs.

Heather explained that this tattoo, on the back of her left calf, will have a companion piece on the back of the right, but not until fall. She acknowledged that her practice is not to get tattooed in the summer, when fresh ink is most susceptible to sun damage and fading.

Much thanks to Heather for sharing her tattoo here on Tattoosday! I hope she will make a return appearance in the future, perhaps later in the year when she has the other piece inked.

Marcus Sports a Heavenly Geisha

I ran into Marcus walking down 86th Street in Bay Ridge, just a block from Brooklyn Ink, where the above piece was tattooed by Joe. I hear Joe's name a lot, as his shop is closest to home for me. Although I have never been inked by Joe, everyone I've spoken to has nothing but good things to say.

Marcus, who has about a dozen tattoos, had this piece tattooed on his right forearm, because he is an artist and inspired by art. Geisha, best translated as "artist" in Japanese, are representatives of the traditional artist class in Japan. This geisha has wings, making her angelic, which adds an element of spirituality to the tattoo. The combination of the physical art form with a representation of the spiritual, appeals to Marcus' sensibility, and this tattoo ultimately captures his outlook on life.

Thanks to Marcus for taking a moment to share your heavenly geisha with us here at Tattoosday!

You can see other postings of work from Brooklyn Ink on Tattoosday here.

Angie's Life-Affirming Flower

I ran into Angie at Duane Reade and she offered up the above piece as one of her favorite tattoos (she has over twenty).

This flower is actually a composite, based on several different flowers. There is a clear lotus influence, as well, she acknowledged, a little bit of daisy. The color is based on that of the peony (right).

Angie had this inked while she was in the Army, prior to going overseas to Iraq. She identified the artist as Jim White at Halo Tattoo in Syracuse, New York. However, Jim is not listed on the shop's site, so he must have moved on.

This is located on her inner left forearm and extends upward to the inside of her elbow.

It's a beautiful flower, which was a life-affirming reminder that she carried with her to Iraq. I can only imagine how difficult the journey must have been, and I can see how one's body art provide strength as life's challenges are faced and overcome.

Thanks to Angie for taking a moment to speak to me about her tattoo!

Hello Polaroid, Goodbye Kodak!

Just a service note. The official camera of Tattoosday has been upgraded from a circa-'05 Kodak Easyshare (took a lickin' but kept on clickin') that snapped decent 4.0 megapixel shots, to a fancy-schmancy Polaroid 7.0 megapixel t730.This upgrade comes courtesy of two friends, who generously pooled their resources, and bought this for me on my birthday. They are awesome, not only for giving me such a cool and much-needed gift, but because they have been tremendous supporters of Tattoosday from the beginning. Tom and Sephora are their names, and I want to thank them all over the place. Sephora, actually, was the subject of Tattoosday's first post, back when it was an aspiring spin-off on BillyBlog.

Tom's ink appeared early on, here, back in September 2007 in this blog's infancy.

Thanks to both of these dear friends, who are affianced, by the way. Their generosity and support of the blog are above and beyond the norm. They are exceptional friends, and I formally extend my gratitude.

Amanda's Tree of Strength

It seemed quite appropriate that, as I had some guests over to celebrate my birthday, Amanda, a friend of my wife's, was sharing with me a tattoo she had inked as a 30th birthday gift from her husband.

I'm fairly certain that this is the first one of these tattoos appearing here and, when I say, "one of these," I am referring to the type of tattoo that looks like it has been painted on in a watercolor style.

This was inked by Adam at Electric Rose Tattoo in Olympia, Washington. According to Amanda, Adam has tattoo training in Japan, and this watercolor-style piece certainly evokes cherry blossoms.


Amanda elaborated on the origins of this tattoo. In 2001, she was dating James, who would eventually be her husband. She had become pregnant and suffered a miscarriage in September, and this experience, after they had been dating for only seven months, was very traumatic for them.

She has other tattoos (this one was number six), and she wanted something to mark the moment, to memorialize the difficulty of the situation that was such a touchstone for emotion at the time. As the years passed and she thought of the occasion for this tattoo, searching for what she thought was the appropriate art to base it on, she envisioned a tree from which to draw her strength.

Then, in 2004, she found the image upon which the tattoo was based, on a thermos, of all places. Amanda knew instantly that this was the art she wanted on her back. She finds that it symbolizes the rebirth of her self and represents what could have been, had she not miscarried. She recalls that this was more painful than any of the other tattoos she has (three on her ankle, two on her hip) and that the emotion behind the piece helped her transcend the pain as part of the healing process.

It's a beautiful tattoo with deep meaning, and I thank Amanda for sharing it here on Tattoosday!