Peter Caruso's Ink: Old-School Brooklyn Represented

These two inner-arm pin-ups belong to local free-lance tattoo artist Peter Caruso.

I ran into Peter a couple of Sundays ago, caught without my camera at the local 7-Eleven, so I left him with a flier so he could check out Tattoosday . He did, and e-mailed me shortly thereafter, offering to meet up, take pictures, and talk tattooing. This past Sunday, we reconnected in front of the 7-Eleven and I took a few shots of his awesome tattoos.

Here's Peter with his forearms extended:

Your standard article on the popularity of tattooing in 2008 always looks back to the old days, back when the only inked folks around (supposedly) were bikers, veterans or sailors, criminals and circus performers.

But we are living in an "enlightened" era, says the conventional wisdom, when there is a lot less stigma attached to the art. Tattooing was illegal in New York City from the early 1960's to the mid-1990's.

Peter remembers growing up in Bensonhurst and admiring the tattoos of the neighborhood heavies. There was a lot of admiration for the tattooed gangster-types that were the fixtures in the neighborhood delis, hanging out in front of the mom-and-pop stores, and being active in the community.

Peter admired the ink, and that old school style has influenced not only his own work, but the work he had done on himself.

Peter learned from, and was influenced by, those artists he considers to be the "Old School" of Brooklyn tattooists.

He worked with and apprenticed under Paul Raffelo of Paulie Tattoo and Vito of Vito Tattoo.

He estimates that he has approximately 13 tattoos, including 2 full sleeves.

A closer look at the pin-ups on his forearms shows a style of tattoo that is classic old-school. Peter said that this was the type of tattoo that was typical in the old neighborhood he grew up in.


The "Steady as She Goes" motto was a standard phrase in a lot of old naval flash art.

These pinups were inked by Paulie Tattoos.

On Peter's inner right forearm is a green Tibetan ritual mask:

The mask is used, according to tradition, to drink the blood from the head in an attempt to keep the spirit alive after the body dies. Vito of Vito tattoos was the artist.

Peter is also particularly proud of this Sanskrit piece on his forearm:

Peter explained that this represents the thunderbolt that destroys ignorance, a concept explained by the term vajra and a precept in Buddhism that leads to the destruction of ignorance through enlightenment.

Thanks to Peter Caruso for sharing his tattoos here on Tattoosday. Peter is currently working free-lance and can be contacted by clicking here.

Tattoos I Know: Paul Part 2, or, The Traditional Japanese Sleeve

NOTE: This post was updated on March 31, 2008 with three additional photographs.

Here's a Tattoosday first: a repeat subject in this blog's history.

Paul appeared here first, showing off his first tattoo, a dragon. In this post, Paul returns, showing off a full sleeve on his left arm.

The sleeve consists of traditional elements: there is a dragon, a lotus, a mask, a lily, and a koi.

If you went back in a time machine 8 or 9 years to visit Paul's arm, you would have seen a grim reaper holding a skull on the bicep:


and some roses in a pattern on the forearm. These earlier tattoos have been covered by elements in the sleeve. Even when told where the original ink lies, it's extremely difficult to see the previous work.

So I will break this down into two sections: the upper arm and the lower arm.

The upper arm began with the dragon cover-up:

The dark rock below the dragon covered the old piece. This design, which included the aum or om symbol at the top of the arm, was inked by Carlos at Rising Dragon Tattoos in Chelsea back in 2001. The aum symbol is the Siddhaṃ script version and is a mystical and sacred symbol in Indian religions. Note that this om is different than the one that appeare din the first Tattoosday post here.

Paul was not 100% thrilled with the dragon, so when he decided to finish the sleeve, the following year, he went elsewhere.

The lower part of the arm, which is the more prominent part of the sleeve, was inked by Mike Bellamy at Red Rocket Tattoo in Manhattan, although at the time his shop was known as Triple X Tattoo.

The specific elements in the sleeve are all traditional irezumi, or Japanese tattooing, elements.

The largest piece is the koi. It appears to be a golden koi.

There's a whole discussion here on what koi tattoos symbolize.

In addition, one can read here about the symbolic nature of the lotus flower in tattoos.

Paul also referred to the other flower as a spider lily.

However, there are so many different varieties of specific families of flowers, that I often have a hard time finding good pictures to represent the tattoos.

The additional element in the sleeve which is only a small part, but is still interesting is what Paul referred to as the "kite mask":

Masks are traditional parts of Japanese tattoo design, but this specific one is hard to pinpoint for me. Here are some Chinese mask kites. Yet, the fact that I cannot easily find one on the web, just fascinates me more.

Paul estimates that the whole sleeve (including the dragon from 2001) took about 20 hours of work, and he did it in 6-7 sittings, mostly in 2002.

Paul sent me the following photos from the New York City Tattoo Convention, where Mike Bellamy did some of the work on Paul's sleeve:

That's Paul and Mike on the far left of the photo:

Thanks to Paul for helping me update this post with additional shots!