The Tattooed Poets Project: Puma Perl

Our final installment of the fourth annual Tattooed Poets Project is from a repeat contributor, Puma Perl. Puma graced us last year with this contribution.

 Puma wanted to share her newest tattoo with us, and I couldn't possibly turn her down after I saw it:

Puma explains:

"This tattoo was just finished ... on Saturday 2/18/12. It is a companion piece to the mermaid with the Wonder Wheel on my back, which I sent you last year. I guess the Coney Island Theme will continue as Coney Island is torn down, or 'redeveloped.' Both pieces were done by Emma Griffiths, who now works out of Tattoo Culture."

As I live in south Brooklyn, near Coney Island in Bay Ridge, I can't help but be partial to Coney Island-themed tattoos.

Puma sent us a Coney Island-themed poem, to boot:

CONEY ISLAND FEBRUARY
 
He leaves,
the sounds
of a concrete
boardwalk
trailing behind him
 
and I dream
of bass players
and Coney Island,
broken benches
and Coney Island
 
and I dream
of warm peaches
and Coney Island
burlesque babes
and Coney Island
 
I dream
I dream of
Coney Island
 
and I wake,
hands filled
with pussy,
 
unsatisfying,
but I go on
because
progress
must continue.

~ ~ ~

Puma Perl is a NYC-based writer, performance artist, and curator. Her poetry and fiction have been published in over 100 print and online journals and anthologies. 

She is the author of the award-winning chapbook, Belinda and Her Friends, and a full length collection, knuckle tattoos. 

She lives and writes on the Lower East Side and has facilitated writing workshops in community based agencies and at Riker’s Island, a NYC prison. She is a founding member of DDAY Productions, which presents poetry and performance events. Link to her blog for info about book purchases and events: http://pumaperl.blogspot.com/.

Thanks to Puma Perl for her contribution and for rounding out this year's Tattooed Poets Project!

This entry is ©2012 Tattoosday. The poem and tattoo 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.

Lori Shares Some Peonies, and a Fairy Mermaid

When I post here at Tattoosday, there is no definite chronological order. I tend to follow a variety of factors, which can often result in older encounters waiting in the wings for a very long time.

Take Lori, for example. At the beginning of May, while my wife was at Maimonides Hospital in Brooklyn, fighting a bout of appendicitis, I walked over to a pizzeria on 50^th Street and Fort Hamilton Parkway for a quick bite for lunch. On my way out, I noticed  two women at a table, one of whom, Lori, had some pretty nice ink. Generally, one of my unwritten rules is not to bother people while they are eating, so I handed the woman my card and asked her to contact me if she was interested in contributing to Tattoosday.

Lori e-mailed me shortly thereafter, and a few weeks later, she sent me some photos. Since then, she has been patiently waiting for the post. E-mailed submissions tend to get a little lost in the shuffle but, finally, thanks to a little nudge on our Facebook page, we’re finally seeing them here on the site.

I’ll let Lori explain what we’re seeing:

“Here are 2 peonies, one is a flash stencil, done by Mike B. at Studio Enigma on Avenue U [in Brooklyn] .... the other peony (my favorite), was hand drawn by Pablo Barada, who is from Argentina [also at Studio Enigma] …

The Fairy mermaid was a picture I found just surfing the internet,  so I printed it out. I wish I still had the black and white photo before Mike B. colored it in. Now that I look at it, I think the B&W was much prettier. By the way, she took 18 hours to do, six three-hour sittings.”

Thanks to Lori for sharing some of her 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.

Andrea's Half-Sleeve with Mermaid

Today we are checking out an awesome traditional half-sleeve by Charlie Foos at Reade Street Tattoo Parlour. I spotted it on Andrea outside of the Fuse studios on Seventh Avenue in Manhattan:

Andrea told me this was completed in three sessions of three and a half hours each and was inspired by s piece of jewelery. "I bought this pendant of a ship," she said, "and I decided I wanted a half-sleeve of something traditional." The rest is history.

Thanks to Andrea for sharing this great 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.

Our 1000th Post! David's Mermaid and Seahorse Blow Us Away......

Pardon the royal "we," but this is our 1000th post, and we feel a little celebratory.

To honor this milestone, we are sharing this amazing half sleeve belonging to David:

This astonishing work is the creation of artist Erick Lynch at Redemption Tattoo in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

David said that he had wanted a mermaid, as his wife loves mermaids, and that Lynch's work reflects a traditional Japanese style, thus the female figure appearing as a pearl diver, which is more in line with Japanese artistic tradition.

The whole of the half sleeve represents about 12 hours of work, in David's estimation, which includes the inside of the biceps, and this phenomenally vivid seahorse:

David points to Erick Lynch's use of white highlights in the seahorse, which really makes it "pop".

All in all, this is a remarkable piece of work that we are honored to have as our 1000th post here at Tattoosday. Thanks to David for sharing it and to Erick Lynch for his mastery of the art form!

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.

The Tattooed Poets Project: Puma Perl

It is with great pleasure that we present another tattooed poet, Puma Perl. She offered up this beautiful tattoo:

Tattoo by Emma Griffiths, Photo by Stas Nuke

We'll let Puma talk about this great piece:

"Everything of importance in my life has involved Coney Island. As the developers moved in and the city became more and more a playground for wealthy transplants, I knew I wanted to pay homage with a tattoo. I love the Mermaid Parade and the Wonder Wheel, so envisioned a mermaid with the Wonder Wheel in the background. A friend of mine happened to give me a magnet that she had bought at Lola Starr on the boardwalk (http://www.lolastar.com/) and I used that as the basic shape, changing the tattoo on the mermaid’s arm to a tiny replica of one of mine. I’d wanted to add my eyeglasses, but it was too tiny a detail. I contacted the amazing Emma Griffiths, Porcupine Tattoo, 31 Norman Avenue, Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and made an appointment for a consultation. I brought the magnet and a photo of the Wonder Wheel and we collaborated. Emma drew our vision of the Wonder Wheel in the background and modeled her mermaid on the magnet."

Puma, as is the custom, also shared a poem. She commented that her poem is "about the Mermaid Parade, which also mentions Cha Cha’s, which was slated to be torn down but was recently granted one last season, along with 8 other unofficial Boardwalk landmarks." She also noted that "this poem was previously published in the Coney Island Examiner, along with several other poems about Coney Island." You can read all of them here.

The Best Day of the Year

We hung out on the roof at Cha Cha’s

watching the Mermaid Parade.

This is my favorite day of the year,

said Danny, snapping pictures

with a camera recently lifted

from the trunk of a Buick.

They need Mambo Mermaids

I said, as Zombie Mermaids,

and Vampire Mermaids

sauntered by. He ignored me,

entranced by glittery pasties

and hundreds of tits.

I had met Danny at the Siren Festival.

You can be my Coney Island Baby

was the first thing he told me,

while the New York Dolls played.

We danced straight down Surf Avenue,

all the way to Seagate where he rented

a room from a bunch of rabbis.

We’d been together almost a year.

You don’t need calendars on the boardwalk,

time is measured by cyclone screams,

sideshows, and wooden horses,

by two shadows on the sand,

by memories of striped chairs,

and thunderbolt rides.

We climbed down the stairs.

Danny tried to steal an antique car

but nobody took him seriously.

Coney Island kids paraded in wigs

left behind by drunken mermaids,

who now littered the street,

pasties lost, and breasts drooping.

This is the best day of the year,

said Danny, as we drank warm beer

and headed towards the after- parties.

We were never invited, but it was the best

day of the year, and we weren’t worried

about a thing.

© puma perl, 4/13/09

~ ~ ~

I want to interject that this poem coincidentally hearkens back to a very fortuitous day in the history of Tattoosday. For it was on July 21, 2007, when I attended the Siren Festival, the same day mentioned in the poem, when the first seeds of the Tattoosday concept began to sprout in my brain. For it was on that day, when we saw the New York Dolls, that I spotted a Keith Haring tattoo and started to connect the idea of asking about someone's tattoo, and blogging about it. Ten days later, the first Tattoosday post came to life. My recap of that day in Coney Island is recapped here, on BillyBlog. 

Puma Perl is a NYC-based writer, performance artist, and curator. Her poetry and fiction have been published in over 100 print and online journals and anthologies. 

She is the author of the award-winning chapbook, Belinda and Her Friends, and a full length collection, knuckle tattoos. 

She lives and writes on the Lower East Side and has facilitated writing workshops in community based agencies and at Riker’s Island, a NYC prison. She is a founding member of DDAY Productions, which presents poetry and performance events. Link to her blog for info about book purchases and events: http://pumaperl.blogspot.com/.

Thanks to Puma for sharing her awesome tattoo and poem here on Tattoosday, on the Tattooed Poets Project! Remember, all contributors, including those from 2009 and 2010, are indexed here.

This entry is ©2011 Tattoosday. The poem is reprinted here with the permission of the author.

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.

Two-for-Tattoosday, Brazilian-Style

Sometimes, due to a) a language barrier and b) the passage of time, we're not always able to give you the most in-depth story about our subjects' tattoos.

Such is the case with Celso and Reginaldo, who I met back in September outside of Madison Square Garden.

Both gentlemen were visiting from São Paolo, Brazil and one of Celso's tattoos caught my eye:

That was on his right arm. He also had this one on his left arm:

Celso's friend Reginaldo pulled his shirt off so I could get the full view of his koi tattoo:

Celso credited Artur at True Love Tattoo in São Paolo for inking his dragon and his mermaid.

Artur also was the artists who did Reginaldo's koi.

Thanks to Celso and Reginaldo for sharing their tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!