Michael's Calvin Embodies His Spirit of Adventure

I met Michael back in August out on Penn Plaza and he shared this tattoo, on the upper left side of his chest:

That is, for those who don't know, the comic strip character Calvin, from Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes.
 
Michael is an illustrator and visual artist. He explains this tattoo:

"I’m a Calvin and Hobbes fanatic since I was a kid. I own every single strip. I actually have two of those omnibus hardcover [volumes] and I had gone on a road trip with my father and my 21-year old cousin. 17 states in three weeks. I‘ve always wanted a Calvin tattoo."

The tattoo depicts Calvin as one of his alter-egos, Spaceman Spiff.  The tattoo depicts Calvin, from the cover of Yukon Ho!, in which he runs away with Hobbes to the Yukon. Michael told me that this embodies his spirit of adventure.

The piece was inked by his friend Kyle Sajban at Red Rocket Tattoo in New York City.

We've featured a lot of work from Red Rocket here on this site, but I believe this is the first tattoo attributed to Kyle.

Thanks to Michael for sharing his cool tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2011 Tattoosday.


If you are reading this on another web site other than Tattoosday, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://tattoosday.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

Alison's Violet Lotus

I spotted Alison's tattoo as in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, back at the beginning of July. She was kind enough to share this lovely lotus tattoo:

This lotus has a spiritual meaning for Alison, and she pointed out the third eye at the center of the flower. This was also a cover-up of an older tattoo.

Craig Messina inked this when he was at Lone Wolf Tattoo in Bellmore, Long Island. He has since moved to the Long Island shop of Red Rocket Tattoo.

Work by Craig Messina has appeared previously on Tattoosday here and here.

Thanks to Alison for sharing this lovely tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2011 Tattoosday.

If you are reading this on another web site other than Tattoosday, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://tattoosday.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

Amanda's Hands Are Well-Armed

I met Amanda in my neighborhood a couple of weeks ago on a cold day in January. She wasn't wearing gloves which, despite the cold, was a good thing, as her hands bore a couple of nifty tattoos that really flashed in the sunlight.

Unfortunately for me, I was bogged down with a bag of groceries and dry cleaning, so I wasn't in any position to take pictures.

I did manage to chat with Amanda briefly, and I told her about Tattoosday. I passed her my card and asked her to email me if she was interested in sharing.

I was happy to hear from her a day or two later and, this past weekend, sat and chatted with her at a local Starbucks. It was there that I got to see her tattooed hands in all their glory:

Amanda hails from Kansas City, Missouri, and moved to New York several years back to pursue her dream of an artistic career. She estimates that her body is 30% inked, most of which was done by her home town artist Steve Drew, who works out of a shop called Irezumi Body Art.

She was looking around for an artist in New York, when she accompanied a friend to Red Rocket Tattoo in Manhattan. There, Mike Bellamy was working with her friend on a concept sleeve. Amanda liked what she saw and started working with Mr. Bellamy on her hand guns.

You can see other Tattoosday-featured work by Mike Bellamy here.

So, why put guns on your hands, of all places? Amanda says it was an aesthetic decision, and not any sort of moral or political statement. Nor, she says, was it necessarily a nod to her roots in Kansas City.

Rather, Amanda wanted a whimsical tattoo that anchored what will become, eventually, full sleeves. The old six-shooter style of revolver is a traditional tattoo, in some senses (see previous gun-themed tattoos here).

But Amanda wanted her hand guns to be colorful and depict a feminine side, reminiscent of a weapon tucked into a saloon-girl's garter belt. The red roses, set into the handles, give the guns a softer edge. Their placement on the hands recall a childlike innocence, reminding one of the gesture kids make when they pretend their hands are toy guns.

Amanda said that she had these inked in one sitting, each gun taking about an hour and a half each. Mike Bellamy inked the outline on each hand first, then went back and did the color and shading on both. How did it feel? "The most intense pain I've ever felt," said Amanda, "especially on the knuckles".

Thanks to Amanda for sharing her guns here on Tattoosday! We look forward to seeing more of your ink in the future!

Kevin's Gravitational Tattoo

I love word tattoos so I couldn't help but stop Kevin at Barnes & Noble earlier this month. He had this tattoo inked on his inner right forearm:

He explained that he enrolled in school not knowing for sure what he wanted to do. He was on a path for a career in finance, but also has a keen interest in art and graphic design.

He says that the tattoo is a reminder that, although gravity is all around us, and pulling us toward the status quo, he should stay true to himself and never give up his interest in art.

He had this done by Betty Rose at Red Rocket Tattoo in Manhattan. Work from Red Rocket has appeared previously on Tattoosday here.

Thanks to Kevin for sharing his Gravity with us here on Tattoosday!

An Elaborate Sugar Skull Reminds Chris That Death is Part of the Fabric of Life

Last Friday, I did my civic duty and served jury duty for Kings County Supreme Court. We were assembled and shown a video. They collected our cards and the first group of 30 citizens were called. I was among them. A court officer walked us several blocks to a different building. We passed through the lobby and broke into small groups to enter the elevators up to the 19th floor. In the elevator, I noticed I was standing next to a guy with with sleeves rolled up to mid-forearm. His right arm had an amazing sugar skull tattooed on it.

As luck would have it, the tattooed individual sat next to me on a bench outside a courtroom while we waited. And waited. And waited. Fortunately, we had something to talk about: tattoos (with a little surfing thrown in).

Chris and I talked for over an hour. Then, we were dismissed. No longer needed. Three hours of jury duty rather than three days. Since my camera had to be checked by security at the main courthouse, Chris walked back with me and let me take a couple of shots of his sugar skull.

This tattoo was inked by Adam Hays at Red Rocket Tattoo. There have been many sugar skulls posted here, but this one is among the most intricately done. The detail is phenomenal.


Chris, who is heavily inked, values this tattoo because the sugar skull's symbolism reflects the fact that he doesn't like to mourn death. It is a part of the natural cycle of life, and this piece helps him deal with life's problems.

He followed up with an e-mail expanding on his philosophy:

"...In my childhood/teenage years, a lot of close friends and family passed away in a short period of time - and yes - I was devastated, but couldn't just tie myself up in the mourning process, because that's what people do - they live and they die. And when I was first introduced to the concept of the sugar skull and it's meaning, [I came to understand] it's really all about embracing the power of death into the fabric of life. The symbolism of the sugar skull to me is kind of a way of transforming the painful 'miseries' of death into a source of nurturing and internal strength. It's a way for me to cherish my fallen dead and a way for their memory to live on in me (or, on me, for that matter). In any case, I feel that it's kind of ingrained in our culture that we need to feel grief and despair when someone dies, but you don't always have to follow the trend. The sugar skull is a way to remember, honor, and feel closer to the dead. And that's what it reminds me of each time I see it."

For prior posts with sugar skulls, click here.

For prior posts with work from Red Rocket Tattoo, click here.

Thanks to Chris for sharing his Sugar Skull tattoo here on 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!