Jesse's Tribute to Pee-wee

On a Saturday back in March, I was passing through Penn Station when I spotted Jesse, who had quite a few tattoos. He shared this great Pee-wee Herman tattoo on his foot:

Why did Jesse get Pee-wee inked on his foot? He explained, "When I was growing up, the only good thing that was happening in my childhood was watching his TV show [Pee-wee's Playhouse] ... so I felt like I owed it to him".

He credited this incredible piece to Blake Brand, a California-based artist who occasionally comes out to the East Coast and tattoos out of at Philadelphia Eddie's Chinatown Tattoo.

Thanks to Jesse for sharing this amazing piece on Tattoosday!


This entry is ©2012 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.

Erin's Tribute to Thomas, Her Grandfather

Back in June, I met Erin on the subway, and she shared this section of her inner forearm:

This tattoo is a tribute to her grandfather, Thomas, who served in the U.S. Navy.

The work was done at High Street Tattoo in Columbus, Ohio.

Erin explained: 

"I just told [the artist] that I wanted something that would relate to the Navy, I guess, so that's the anchor. I like Old School tattoos, I like Sailor Jerry classic-style."

 Erin also has a Friday the 13th tattoo below this, on her wrist:

This was done at Only You Tattoo in Atlanta.


Thanks to Erin for sharing these cool tattoos 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.

Gretchen's Shrine for Federico

I spotted Gretchen in the Penn Plaza Borders and asked if she'd share the tattoo on her upper left arm. She gladly agreed:

This piece is an homage to grandfather Federico. She remembers that he introduced her to nature, so she included natural elements like plants and butterflies. Gretchen also added a replica of her grandfather's tattoo, which was inked with the name of her grandmother, Hermes.

This is one of about  ten tattoos Gretchen has, and she had this done at Liquid Skin Studio, in Inwood, on the north end of Manhattan.

Gretchen is an artist that works with craft and jewelery. You can see her website here.

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

Nick Remembers Billy, I Remember Siki

My first tattoo was modified from a piece of flash at Body Art Studios by an artist who goes by the moniker "Siki". Shortly thereafter, Siki left the shop and went on his way.

My friend Pete knows who he is but, until recently, I hadn't met anyone with ink from Siki, other than myself.

Then, I met Nick on the R train one day after work and, while discussing his many tattoos (he "lost count after 45," they've all connected) , I heard him talking about Siki.

So today's tattoo is by Siki and was, like my lynx, modified from an old piece of flash. Although he adapted it a lot more fully and developed a more unique tattoo.

Siki and Nick had a mutual friend named Billy, who Nick would often go with to get tattooed. When he passed away, they added Billy's name to the bottom of the tattoo as a tribute to their departed friend.

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

Sugar Skull Sunday: Hannah and Her Family

I met Hannah in Penn Station one afternoon after spotting this amazing sugar skull on her upper left arm:

Here is a broader glimpse of the tattoo:

Hannah has over twenty tattoos and told me she wanted this piece to have alot of different elements in it. The gold tooth was a must, because Hannah loves pirates.

Gold teeth in sugar skulls are not necessarily unusual. Chainsaws, however are a bit out of the ordinary:

The chainsaw, Hannah explained, is a tribute to her uncle, who is a lumberjack. And, she added frankly, the bottle is there to acknowledge her grandfather, an alcoholic.

This sugar skull was completed in two 2-3 hour sessions by Tim Barnes at Holeshot's Premium Tattoo & Piercing in Amherst, Massachusetts. Tim has moved on to Florida, according to Hannah, but I haven't been able to identify where he is currently working.

Readers can see all of the sugar skulls previously posted on Tattoosday by clicking here or on the Sugar Skulls tag at the end of the post.

Thanks again to Hannah for sharing her sugar skull with us here on Tattoosday!

Charlie Honors The Birth of His Youngest Son

A cold and dreary day drove me underground on Tuesday, as I spent some of my lunch hour inkspotting, and meeting some new tattoos.

Since it was Tat-Tuesday, it only seemed fitting that I met a father and son, Amtrakking from Florida up to Boston, who had four tattoos apiece.

I met Charlie first, who had a tiger on his forearm. However, he offered up this piece on his right bicep instead:


As a parent with child-inspired ink, I certainly appreciated this tattoo which honors the birth of his youngest son, Derry.

He wanted to do a tribute, but didn't want to do a portrait, which is a popular method for doing so. Instead, he went for the footprints, name and birth date.

Whereas a portrait is a snapshot in time, footprints and/or hand prints are a record of your child's beginning, and a literal imprint of part of their flesh on one's own. There's something remarkable about the historical record contained therein, like the door jamb in the family home that displays the height-marks of the child, growing over the years.

This piece was inked by "Old School" at AK's N Chevrolets in Hollywood, Florida.


I can't find an active link for the shop, and it appears as it was renamed Almost Famous 2 Tattoos (not to be confused with Almost Famous Tattoos in Miami).

Check back in the coming days to see the tattoo offered up by Charlie's older son Jason, that ties in to this piece as well.

Thanks to Charlie for sharing his little piece of family history here on Tattoosday!

Christopher's Ink Bridges Generations

Last Friday I met Christopher on Penn Plaza. He estimated that he had tattoos numbering in the mid-fifties.

Again, I am sometimes intimidated by folks with a lot of ink, and will usually not trouble them, but not this time.

And, of all those tattoos, Christopher lifted up his shirt to reveal one of his most meaningful pieces:


The cross with angel wings behind it is graced by a banner that reads "In Loving Memory ... Grandpa Al".


This tribute tattoo was inked at Good Times Tattoo Studio in East Islip, New York by Bill. Christopher is a tattoo artist there as well.

Grandpa Al was a tattoo artist himself, at Ace Tattoo in San Diego, one of the oldest shops in the city (founded around 1947). I acknolwedged that Al must have been busy working in San Diego, with several military bases nearby.

Christopher always knew he wanted to be an artist, and has been tattooing about 14 years.

"What about your Dad," I asked him, "is he an artist?"

Christopher shook his head and said he wasn't. "And he doesn't have a single tattoo. Not one!"

"Really?" I asked.

He shook his head and laughed "I just don't understand it."

So the ink-lination to tattoo skipped a generation in his family, but you could tell he was proud of his grandfather's legacy, and he bore it like a badge of honor.

Thanks so much to Christopher for sharing his tribute to Grandpa Al here on Tattoosday!

Mercedes Honors Family Members with her Ink

Mercedes doesn't remember the specific shops where she got her ink, but each piece honors members of her family, both living and gone.

Mercedes is a make-up artist that has very close ties to her family, and these relationships have manifested themselves on her tattoos.

The piece I first noticed, on her right arm, was this one:


This is actually comprised of two parts, the rose and the ankh. The rose was her first tattoo, inked because her mother and grandmother were both named Rosa. The ankh and the name "Iggy" were done as a memorial for her brother who had passed away.

Her neck/upper back piece is actually three tattoos inked in succession:


Mercedes started with the top segments, which she described as tribal dolphins. They are in honor of her niece, who is a Pisces.

Next is the piece below the dolphins, which is a representation of fire that corresponds to Mercedes' birth sign Aries, whose zodiac element is fire.

Below that are flames rising from the number 3. This is for her nephew. The flames correspond to his sign, Leo, whose zodiac element is also fire, and the number represents that he is third in the family line.

Thanks to Mercedes for sharing her ink with us here on Tattoosday!

Michelle's Amazing Owl Tattoo Honors Her Dad

I follow a method to creating content for this blog and I generally post ink in the chronological order that I see it. Sometimes a post may take longer because it requires more research. Other times, a tattoo is so good, it deserves to be seen right away. The tattoo above is one of those that demanded it be posted immediately. It helped that the story behind it is short and sweet.

I had left the office for lunch on Friday and I spotted this owl (sorry, bad pun) going into Starbucks. I suddenly realized I had left my camera on my desk. What to do? Run upstairs and risk missing the chance? Ask her to send me a photo? Then, I realized I had my phone, a recent upgrade, with a functioning camera. But would it take a good tattoo picture?

I believe so.

This is Michelle's tattoo, covering her upper left arm. It is dedicated to her father, who is her very own "wise old owl". The tattoo artist was Marina, who was apprenticing at Fly-Rite Studio, in Brooklyn.

All I can say is, "Wow." Not only is it an amazingly beautiful piece of body art, but it rendered the dozen or so tattoos I saw throughout the day uninteresting. When you fly first class, it's hard to go back to sitting in coach.

Everything I've seen come out of Fly-Rite has been spot-on. See other tattoos that were inked st the studio here.

Thanks again profusely to Michelle for sharing her wonderful owl tattoo with us here on Tattoosday, and thanks to Marina for inking such a cool piece!

Erica's Ink: A Tale of Two Tattoos

Last Saturday I was riding my bike on a gorgeous day (see this post here) when I passed Erica who was sitting on a bench along the Shore Promenade.

I spotted a tattoo on her back as I rode by, so I circled around for a closer look:


It seemed interesting so I asked her about it. She said there really wasn't anything interesting about it but I told her to try me. Sometimes when you've lived with a tattoo for a while, the circumstances surrounding the piece seem ordinary. But to a fresh set of ears (and a blogosphere full of eyes), the story can be fascinating.

About 12 years ago, and a year or two out of high school, Erica was dating a gang member. (See? Interesting already!) She was born in 1976, the Year of the Dragon in the Chinese Zodiac. Her boyfriend's gang nickname was "Big Dog," and not wanting to have that written in English in the tattoo, she had the Chinese translation inked in the piece.

When people asked, she would just tell them in stood for "Year of the Dragon". She notes, however, that she has received a negative reaction from the Chinese women who work at the nail salon. So, she acknowledges, the inscription probably isn't very nice.

I showed the picture to my local Chinese language expert, Kwok, who has helped me translate kanji before, and he shook his head and said that, technically, the characters are correct, but a person well-versed in Chinese would not have selected those characters to represent the name of
“Big Dog”. He acknowledged that the reaction that Erica has experienced is probably due to the elementary nature of the words. As written, it is a literal interpretation of the meanings, and not necessarily in a flattering way.

To make this piece even more interesting, the tattoo was done at a defunct Bay Ridge shop called Ink Masters (their work has appeared previously here). She noted that the guy that tattooed her was named Eric and that she knew he had been "featured" in a film called "Erica" (same spelling as her name, incidentally), which was, in fact, an adult film. Erica wanted me to reiterate, the tattoo artist had been the adult film star, not her.

Finally, to make this tattoo's tale complete, two years after she had broken up with "Big Dog," she regretted the youthful folly that had caused her to get the tattoo. Rather than laser it off, or cover it up, she chose instead to improve it by adding flames to it to represent her anger over getting it in the first place.


Erica then offered up a bonus: a tattoo that, to her, meant much more:


Often, asking someone about a visible tattoo is rewarded by the unveiling of a much more significant piece (see here and here for two of the best examples on Tattoosday).

The new piece above, a pattern of fifteen dots, was inked by Erick Diaz at Asylum Studios in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn.

Erica entered the shop not with the intention to get tattooed, but to accompany her cousin Samantha when she went in for a tattoo.

Samantha has an interesting story. Many years ago, she had been a passenger in a vehicle that was involved in a drunk driving accident. She was ejected from the vehicle and hospitalized in critical condition. In a coma, Samantha faced life-threatening circumstances when her brain underwent significant swelling, so much that part of her skull needed to be removed to accommodate the condition. Ultimately though, Samantha recovered and was none the worse for wear. She currently is residing in South Africa and working as a photographer.

So Samantha was visiting her cousin Erica who took her to get a tattoo. When Samantha was getting the phrase “the sky is my only witness” inked, Erica was watching, knowing that she needed to get a new tattoo that honored her cousin’s miraculous recovery.

Which brings us back to the fifteen dots. Erica explained the code to me. She used dice as a metaphor and four rolls run together. A four and a three, along with a two and a six. The pattern is symmetrical and if you add the four and three, you get a value for 7. The two and six represent
the number 26. Erica wanted a representation of a magical date, July 26, the day when Samantha opened her eyes and emerged from her coma.

The piece is inked on the lower right side of Erica’s stomach, along the waistline. It serves to remind her about the value of life and mark the date that is so important in the lives of her family.

I want to thank Erica for her taking the time to talk with me, and for sharing her interesting stories about her ink here on Tattoosday.

A Newborn Tattoo for a Newborn Daughter

Although it was the shamrocked neck piece that first grabbed my attention, Vicki offered up the above piece on her right shoulder instead.

Vicki explained that this rose tattoo is in honor of her daughter, born just two months ago. The piece was inked only last month by Michelle at True Blue Tattoo in Queens.

As a fellow inked person with two tattoos honoring my two girls, I certainly can appreciate the piece that honors one's kids.

Thanks to Vicki for sharing her fresh tattoo with us here on Tattoosday.

Welcome to the world, Olivia Rose!

Honoring His Son

I ran into Alex at the laundromat and complimented him on the name inked on his left forearm.

The piece is a tribute to his son Julian. As a fellow father with tattoos honoring one's kids (see one of them here), I certainly appreciated the sentiment.

This piece was done by an artist named Salem, who is part of the DFM crew in San Francisco.

Another interesting fact about this piece is that it is on Alex's left forearm. Both he and his son are left-handed, and Alex's four other tattoos are on the left side of his body. He strongly believes in inking only on that side of his person and does not intend to ever ink the right side of his body.

Thanks to Alex for sharing his ink with us here at Tattoosday!

Tom's Arthurian Tattoo

I ran into Tom coming off of the subway at 86th Street in Brooklyn. He had several tattoos (four, to be exact), and he offered up the above one as a special piece. Do note that he said, as many people do, that all of his tattoos are special.

Tom told me this piece, on his right bicep, is a representation of one of the more famous aspects of the King Arthur legend - the sword in the stone. The sword of course, is Excalibur. Tom's parents, when raising him, gave him a thorough teaching of the Arthurian stories and the lessons from these tales carried with him through to his adult life.

He indicated that the colors of the stained glass behind Excalibur are significant in that the blue represents courage, the red represents honor, and the purple represents valor. He had this inked the year that his father passed away from cancer, in part, as a tribute to the morality with which he was raised by his parents.

The tattoo artist was Mike at a shop that closed its doors many years ago (somewhere in the vicinity of 18th Avenue and 77th Street in Brooklyn).

Thanks to Tom for sharing this tattoo with us here at Tattoosday!

Syndy's Windjammer in Honor of Nanny

It was the swallows on her back that I noticed. But they were covered partially by the straps of her top, so I was just going to give her a Tattoosday flier and go on my merry way.

But, Syndy, a first grade teacher visiting from North Carolina, blew me away by peeling up her shirt on the sidewalk in front of Penn Station to reveal this stunning black and gray Polish windjammer.

This tattoo was inked in honor of her late grandmother, with the banner inscription "Forever -n- Ever, Nanny".


Syndy says her Nanny was a remarkable woman who always encouraged her to "be free," and loved going sailing.

This piece was inked in two sittings by Craig Foster at Skinwerks Tattoo & Design in Atlanta.

Thanks to Syndy for sharing her beautiful tribute here at Tattoosday!

Heeeeeeeeere's Victor's Tattoos!

As awesome as the tattoo above is, it was The Who tattoo that first jumped out at me from the back of Victor's right arm when he passed by me on the sidewalk near Penn Station:

He had a few minutes before he had to catch a train to New Jersey, and was waiting for a friend, so he proudly showed me his gallery of tattoos, on both arms and his right leg. He has 13 in all, and here are 8 of them.

Generally we here at Tattoosday like to focus on one or two, but he had so many cool pieces, and he was totally game for sharing them, I just kept taking photos.

I'm going to divide them by the artist that did the tattooing.

We'll start with the "Soozie tattoo" because it was his first tattoo, drawn by Victor's favorite actress, Angela Bettis, who has quite a following among her fans. She is best known for her role in the film May, and works primarily in independent films.

Victor explains how this tattoo came about:

“I met her at a horror convention, and on an autographed poster she gave me, she drew a ‘Soozie doll’, which is one of the characters in the film. I went home and said this would be great for my first tattoo. So I did it, just as it is drawn on my poster”.

Victor adds that this tattoo "is one of my favorites because it looks like it was drawn on with a sharpie (it was supposed to)". And, like most of the tattooed can relate, once he got this inked, he became “addicted”.

This was inked by Kurt Fagerland at Empire State Studio, in Oceanside, New York.

Fagerland also inked this black heart:

This piece, done in tribute to Joan Jett and the Black Hearts, is on his left forearm, below the Soozie piece.

Victor didn't mention this, but I would interject that the Joan Jett tattoo could also symbolize that one wears one's heart on their sleeve.

Another piece from Empire State is a tip of the hat to the film Donnie Darko, on his inner left forearm:

Finally, the last tattoo inked by Fagerland is a portrait of Pee Wee Herman, the character portrayed by actor Paul Reubens. This piece is on Victor's right leg (calf):

One may have noticed, near the "Soozie" tattoo, there are some other lines drawn below and to the right of it. If it looks like an autograph, it is.

Nikki Sixx, the bass-player for Mötley Crüe, signed his arm. He then had the signature permanently inked by Chantal at Sparrow Tattoo in Franklin Square, New York.

Believe it or not, this is the second Nikki Sixx tattoo I have seen since the dawn of Tattoosday. The other is on the back of a woman who lives in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. I saw her on the R train one afternoon last Fall, but didn’t have my camera with me at the time.

Why did he tattoo the autograph? Again, he elaborates:

“I have been a Motley Crue fan for a while, but I always loved Nikki. He's dreamy. I went to his book-signing for The Heroin Diaries, and got him to sign my arm, because the asshole security guards would not let me get anything else signed. So I said ‘Fuck it, I want to engrave Nikki Sixx in my arm forever’ ”.

The three remaining tattoos were all inked by Vinny Romanelli at the House of Colour, in Bay Shore, New York.

He did the Mod symbol, appropriated by The Who, as seen above on the back of Victor's right bicep, above, and the New York Dolls pin-up on the inside of his right bicep.

Most impressive is the awesome Nicholson portrait, commemorating the famous “Heeeeere’s Johnny!” scene from the Stanley Kubrick film, The Shining. It’s worth a second look:

One might question why someone would get these various tattoos like Victor has chosen to do. People get tattoos for various reasons: as memorials, as decoration, and as commemorative pieces. Victor explained poignantly why he has chosen to decorate his body with such a variety of images from popular culture:

“The reason I get tattoos is because I pay tribute to the things that inspire me. Mostly movies & music, and certain people. I am a filmmaker myself, and one day hope to have a scene from one of my movies tattooed on some weirdo’s body.”

Well-put, Victor, and thanks for sharing the sources of your inspiration here on Tattoosday!