Best Tattoos

Monday, May 6, 2013

Tattoosday in Massachusetts: Ariel and Her F-Holes

On our way back to New York after a brief stint in Boston, we stopped in Northampton to visit our friends, Anne and Liz.

At their house, I met their friend Ariel.

At one point in the conversation, I asked Ariel if she played the violin.

Initially, she looked surprised that I would ask, but I pointed to the tattoo on her inner forearm, which had tipped me off:

Ariel explained that these are, indeed, representative of a violin's sound holes, commonly referred to as the "F holes." She elaborated:

"I play the violin. I love violin music and fiddle music and this is exactly where, if you h0ld the violin ... if the sun were shining through ... the violin, I feel it would pierce right there, while you were playing ... It's just a good spot that always reminds me of it, but it's also not very visible and ... these are abstractions of it, they're not perfect, I drew them myself. They're not traced from an actual violin."

Ariel had this tattoo done at Lucky's Tattoo & Piercing in Northampton.

Thanks to Ariel for sharing her musical tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

If you are seeing this on another website 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.

Sunday, May 5, 2013

Michelle Shares A Pin-Up Modeled After Her Passion for Pool

Last month I was hanging out with some friends at a bar called Niles across the street from Madison Square Garden.

It was a gathering of old work friends, actually, and my friend Brooke (who last appeared on Tattoosday here) and her husband were going to Eric Clapton's Crossroads Festival concert at MSG.

At some point in the evening, I spotted a woman near the front of the bar, standing with several people, including a gentleman wearing a jacket from the Buddy Guy band.

What jumped out at me, however, was the tattoo on the woman's left calf. As she was leaving the bar, I approached her and was thrilled when she agreed to let me photograph her work:

When I asked her why the woman on her calf was holding a pool cue and an eight ball, she explained that she was a competitive pool player.

It turns out I was talking to Michelle Hughes, a member of the Northwest Women's Pool Association and their 2009 Rookie of the Year.

Michelle Hughes in action, from Flickr

The tattoo was inked by Paula Hathaway at Industry Tattoo in Bellingham, Washington.

Thanks to Michelle for sharing this cool pin-up with us here on Tattoosday!

Saturday, May 4, 2013

The Return of Saturday Links

It has been a while since we posted about the tattoo-related items we browsed on the web over the last week, so here's a few to whet your weekend appetite.

One of those not-so-often-discussed benefits for getting tattooed?

It's easier for the authorities to identify your body, like this John Doe whose ink helped the powers-that-be identify him. Full story here.

The Department of the Medical Examiner (Hawaii) released a photo of an eagle or phoenix tattoo found on the body of a man recovered from the ocean off Sand Island Thursday morning. (Courtesy Department of the Medical Examiner)

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On the flip side, if you get a unicorn tattooed on your butt, you might still be regretting it thirty+ years later, as this writer recounts in the New York Times here. Thanks to Marisa at Needles and Sins for pointing that gem out to me. There's no photo, but if you're jonesing for one, it might look like this:

Or perhaps not, but you can see more like that one on Holy Taco's gallery of 30 Awesomely Bad Unicorn Tattoos.

Then again, Buzzfeed always rocks out with their awesome lists, like this one I saw late Friday: "47 Cringeworthy Tattoos Being Regretted As We Speak" here.

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The big news this week in New York was Rapid Realty's promise to give significant raises to any employee who got their logo tattooed on them.

via CBS

Read about the deal here (among others).

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And my favorite link of the week came from those mammoth sources of all thing tattoo, Inked Magazine.

Among other goodies, they feature "The Best Tattoos in Movies Ever" in three parts. One of my favorites:

Gotta love those Blues Brothers!

That should whet your appetites for the weekend!

Friday, May 3, 2013

Tattoosday in Massachusetts: Katie's Candle Illuminates Her Arm

On our last full day in Massachusetts, we stopped to visit friends in Northampton and ended up at Woodstar Cafe for some delicious coffee and afternoon snacks.

The cashier, Katie, had tattoos, and shared this one:

She told me that this piece, on her upper right arm, was based on an old illustration from a history book. The idea, she explained, was "something I'd been carrying around for a while and it just felt right to me."

She credited the work to Jeff Ash at Horseshoes & Hand Grenades Tattoo in Chicopee, Massachusetts.

Thanks to Katie for sharing her tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

Thursday, May 2, 2013

Tattoosday in Massachusetts: After a Good Meal, Danny Shares His Costa Rican Heritage

We're back from our Poetry Vacation and we have some tattoos to catch up on. The family and I were up in the Boston area at the end of March, and while staying with cousins in Swampscott, MA, we decided to go out for brunch on Easter Sunday.

We ended up at Mildred's Corner Cafe and Old Soul Gift Shoppe in neighboring Lynn, MA, and I enjoyed this amazingly delicious dish with chorizo and poached eggs:

Not only was the food great but, as an added bonus, our waiter Danny was heavily-tattooed, and he was kind enough to share the work on his left arm:

The emblem in the center of this sleeve is from the Costa Rican flag, which he had tattooed to honor his country of birth. He has lived in the U.S. for about nine years.

~~He credited the work to Ryan Murray at the Black Veil Studio of Tattoo & Art in Lynn, Massachusetts.~~

UPDATE: Although Ryan has done work on Danny, I was notified by the shop after this posted, that he was not the artist responsible for this particular piece. I'm waiting to hear back from Danny for the corrected information.

He credited the work to Jeffrey Brito, a free-lance artist that did it out of his house. Although initially credited to Ryan Murray at the Black Veil Studio of Tattoo & Art in Lynn, Massachusetts, we should point out that Murray has done work on Danny, not just this particular piece.

Thanks to Danny for sharing his tattoo with us here on Tattoosday and thanks to the good folks at Mildred's for a delicious meal!

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

The Tattooed Poets Project, Volume 5, A Postscript

Cheryl Maddalena's Beautiful tattoo from 2009

As I look back at the fifth installment of the April tattooed poets extravaganza, I am astonished by the amazing array of talented poets who have contributed to Tattoosday over the years.

This year's contributors totaled 35, and we had even more than that many who had previously expressed interest and did not submit their work in time.

That said, I have high hopes for the 2014 edition, which is only 11 months away. Also, I am going to attempt to add more tattooed poets throughout the year, contributing in non-poetry months. Just to keep our collective appetites whetted.

The list of people I would like to thank grows each year. I'd start with directing readers to the Tattooed Poets Project here and expressing my appreciation to the 155 poets who have appeared on Tattoosday over the past five years.

I am also deeply indebted to Stacey Harwood and David Lehman at the Best American Poetry blog. Their continued support over the years has been immeasurable and they have been nothing but encouraging.

I still maintain that the wonderful writer, Dorianne Laux, is also someone to whom I am deeply indebted. She referred me to a slew of tattooed poets in the first year of this project, and each year sends me more subjects.

I want to thank all the poets who answered my initial inquiries, especially those without tattoos, who often directed me to poets who they knew to be inked.

And finally, I want to thank all of my readers, in and out of the poetry community, who have continued to support and read Tattoosday, and have encouraged me each year to come up with thirty posts (or more) to help celebrate the wonders of the written word and the beauty of tattoos.

Bill Cohen
5/1/2013

Monday, April 29, 2013

The Tattooed Poets Project: Carl Phillips

We're closing out this year's Tattooed Poets Project with Carl Phillips. I've had the pleasure, over the years, of meeting Carl and hearing him read on at least two different occasions at the New School in Manhattan, in conjunction with the Best American Poetry readings. Needless to say, when Carl agreed to participate, I was thrilled.

Here's a photo of Carl's tattoo:

Carl explains:

"I got the tattoo after seeing a compass on a map in my copy of Moby Dick. I chose not to include the N,S,W,E part, to suggest that I lack direction, though the compass itself suggests the desire for direction ... it's on my left upper arm. A guy named Barber did it, at a place here in St. Louis called Iron Age."

Carl pointed me to a few poems online that he said we could share here, and I chose this one:

Leda, After the Swan

Perhaps,
in the exaggerated grace
of his weight
settling,

the wings
raised, held in
strike-or-embrace
position,

I recognized
something more
than swan, I can't say.

There was just
this barely defined
shoulder, whose feathers
came away in my hands,

and the bit of world
left beyond it, coming down

to the heat-crippled field,

ravens the precise color of
sorrow in good light, neither
black nor blue, like fallen
stitches upon it,

and the hour forever,
it seemed, half-stepping
its way elsewhere--

then
everything, I
remember, began
happening more quickly.

~ ~ ~

You can hear Carl read the poem here.

Carl Phillips is the author of twelve books of poetry, most recently Silverchest (2013). He's a professor of English at Washington University in St. Louis.

Thanks to Carl for sharing his tattoo and poem with us here on the Tattooed Poets Project on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2013 Tattoosday. The poem and tattoos are reprinted with the poet's permission.

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.