Celebrating Five Years of Tattooed Poets

As many of you who have followed Tattoosday over the years, April is a special month here, where we feature, in honor of National Poetry Month, thirty days of tattooed poets.

It is astonishing to me that what I dreamed up in 2009 is now entering its fifth installment.

When I first reached out to Stacey Harwood at the Best American Poetry blog and asked if she and David Lehman would help promote the idea on their site, I worried that I would be able to find enough poets willing to participate. I didn't doubt the existence of tattooed verse-slingers, I just wondered if they'd be interested in sharing with a fledgling tattoo blog.

Fortunately for me, and for you, Dear Readers, my doubts were quickly dashed and this year, it looked as if we were going to have too many poets. Is there such a thing?

A nasty case of unemployment has left me with extra time to prepare the month so, on this March 31, I have pretty much prepared and scheduled the entire month. I do expect to be busy with stragglers to whom I had granted spots, and will now find themselves as part of double days of tattooed poets.

In general, posts will go up in the wee hours of the morning and, if there are two poet days, they will go live in the afternoon.

I can't begin to name everyone who has helped with this endeavor over the years, but I thank you for reading, and ask you to enjoy the month of April and the wide range of poets from all over the U.S. who will be seen here, in the flesh, and in the written line.

Enjoy!

This entry is ©2013 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.

We've Made Another List!

What can I say?

We were recently honored in a post over on Boar Skull, a site that sells plugs, body jewelry and organics.

We made their list of "Six Tattoo and Body Modification Blogs You Should be Reading".

I'm sure the six are not in any particular order, but we're #2 and, anytime Tattoosday is spoken in the same breath with the good people over at Needles & Sins, we're in damn fine company.

Hold on to your tattoo-loving hats, people. Spring is in the air, and the Tattooed Poets Project, Volume V, is a week away!

Inkspotting in the Media: Daisy Shares a Horse Tattoo

Way back in January 2012, I was reading an article in The New York Times called "Continuing Education, At the Bar" which reported on the growing popularity of educational events in NYC watering holes, citing "The Secret Science Club" as one of the more popular of these phenomena.

The club's Carnivorous Nights annual Taxidermy Contest was the event that really stood out, and the Times article was accompanied by a slide show, featuring club members posing with their contest entries.

Several participants were sporting tattoos. As it was January, a "slow" time of year for Tattoosday, I thought it would be cool to perhaps reach out to some of these individuals and see if anyone might be interested. It could be a new series of sorts, say "Inkspotting in the Media," for lack of a better term.

One person I selected was Daisy Tainton:

I noticed she had a tattoo on her arm and, well, she looked pretty cool, so I found her on Facebook, and sent her a message inviting her to be on Tattoosday.

I didn't hear back from her until eight months later, last September, with a note apologizing that it took so long to respond, but my message had been delegated to one of Facebook's sub-folders.

To make a long story longer, the passed time had addled my memory, and I thought Daisy was a straggling tattooed poet, who was responding to one of my inquiries for the Tattooed Poets Project, for which I send out numerous inquiries every year. I politely told her I would reach out to her in the winter, when I started working on the following April's installment.

Well, ultimately, this was all sorted out, but only after Daisy had sent me photos of a tattoo on her upper left arm, just shortly after it had been inked:

Here's the tattoo in better detail:

Daisy explains:

"I saw a lamp in the window of Housing Works, snapped a photo through the grate (they were closed and the items in the window were to be sold upon store opening) and sent it to my good friend Nathan Burke. He drew it as a tattoo, and my boyfriend at the time fine-tuned it before I took it to Annie [Lloyd] and Three Kings Tattoo [in Brooklyn]."

Daisy tells us:

"I am an Insect Preparator at the American Museum of Natural History. I love insect jewelry because it showcases nature's beauty and bounty -- and I feel good about using beetles that were farm raised instead of harvested wild. This way they get to live their full lives in peace and then live on as exquisite adornments in loving homes.

In addition, I have the pleasure of being a yearly entrant and award-winner in the Carnivorous Nights Brooklyn Taxidermy Contest, where in years past I have displayed many ridiculous and whimsical items ranging from beetle dioramas to antique fur coat sculptures to jewelry."

Here are some more great links about the Carnivorous Nights events:

This is a great video from Daily Motion:

New York hosts annual taxidermy contest by afpenglish

And a piece in The Wall Street Journal online.

And this post which has a photo of one of Daisy's dioramas.

Thanks to Daisy Tainton for sharing her tattoo and introducing us to the art of competitive taxidermy!

This entry is ©2013 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.

Re-Post: A Piece of Tattoosday Pi

The following post appeared in October 2009, and I've been meaning to re-post it, but I always forget. This year, on 3/14, I remembered while it was still "Pi Day":

I was on the 34th Street subway platform, waiting for a downtown N express train, when I met Joe who had a series of numbers inked around his arm:


I asked him if the digits represented his social security number (don't laugh, I've heard it has been done) and he shook his head and rolled up his sleeve to reveal the top of the tattoo:


This, of course, is the value of π (pi), which mathematicians have determined, possesses an infinite number of decimal places.

As a physics enthusiast, he loves what pi represents. He told me, as the "meaning of symbols change a lot, what better [to have tattooed] than a transcendental constant?"

Despite π's infinite number of decimals, he only has the tattoo calculated out to 27 places because, he said, it was "all I could afford" at the time.



Later, Joe e-mailed me and gave me more specifics. The tattoo was done at Utopia in Huntington, New York (out on Long Island). I can't find a current listing foe the shop, so it may no longer be in business. And, Joe said, "the font is Times New Roman, the π symbol is 180pt font (π in degrees) and the numbers are 90pt font (π/2 in degrees)".
This careful selection of font size only emphasizes Joe's commitment to the purity of this πtattoo.

Thanks much to Joe for sharing this cool tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2009, 2013 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.

Tattoosday Goes to L.A.: Oscar's Horror Sleeve

I previously wrote about meeting Javie Dev, one of the artists at Ace of Hearts Tattoo in San Pedro, along with Vanessa, the shop piercer.

I also spoke to another of the artists, Oscar Montes, who shared his horror-themed sleeve:

He credited the top image in this sleeve to his mentor, Guillermo Figueroa, who works out of Tinta Maldita Tattoo Shop in nearby Wilington, CA.

The middle image, of Leatherface from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, is credited to "the world famous Diablo," a.k.a. Edgar Marquez, who is owner of Long Beach Ink Assassins.

And the bottom piece of the sleeve, the iconic hockey mask belonging to Jason of Friday the 13th fame, was inked by Oscar's friend Irving Lozano, who works out of Addinktion Art Gallery and Tattoos in Los Angeles.

Thanks to Oscar for sharing his work with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2013 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.

Tattoosday Goes to L.A.: Alisonna Shares a Little Hawai'i at LAX

Despite the fact that my flight was boarding, I was at the next gate over, talking to Alisonna.

My trip to Los Angeles was pretty much over, but I spotted Alisonna's foot and couldn't resist one last interview. Having been raised in Honolulu, this tattoo was an added bonus:

Despite my initial guess that this was a gecko, Alisonna clarified:

"Have you ever heard of ʻaumākua? It's a family guardian. Hawaiians believe in family guardians ... there's multiples, like geckos, sharks, turtles ... Gecko is mine, and so I decided to put it on my foot, on me left side, actually because in Hawaiian culture, your left side is your man side and your right side is your woman side ... the two orchids are for my ... parents, and this right here, the lauhala [the curved fragment above the two orchids] is for the family."

She credited the work to an artist called "Nae" who had worked at 808 Tattoo Studio in Kāneʻohe, Hawai'i.

A warm mahalo to Alisonna for sharing her guardian tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2013 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.

Congrats to Our freestyleXtreme.com Winners!

As promised, we drew two winners from those of you who entered the giveaway we were running with freestyleXtreme.com!

Congrats to Linda B. and Gina!

Linda chose this shirt:

and Gina chose this one:

Thanks to the good people at freestyleXtreme.com for partnering with us in this promotion!

This entry is ©2013 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.

Tattoosday Giveaway! Win a Free T-Shirt from freestyleXtreme.com

Occasionally we like to partner with vendors and have a little fun, giving our readers a chance to win some cool prizes.

This week you have a chance to win a t-shirt of your choice, from among thousands of different quality styles and designs.

I recently got a couple of great shirts from freestyleXtreme.com that are way cool. They have a lot of different designs, including Sullen Clothing, Metal Mulisha, Miami Ink, Hart & Huntington, and loads more.

For example, I got this sick Sullen "Caleb Badge" shirt:

as well as this sweet tee from Metal Mulisha:

They also sell a lot of other great accessories, like this cool New Era cap by Sullen:

So, here's how to win a t-shirt from freestyleXtreme:

1) Head over to their website and browse through their seemingly endless supply of apparel.
2) Find the t-shirt you want - you can search by brand name or design styles pretty easily
3) Leave a comment on this post, on the Tattoosday Facebook wall, or e-mail TattoosdayContests@gmail.com, saying which t-shirt design you want (no caps, sorry).
4) On Friday morning, we will select two random winners and they will get a free shirt.

This is easy folks! It doesn't cost you anything but your time, and you can get a really cool t-shirt out of the deal.

Good luck and have fun browsing!

This entry is ©2013 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.

The February Links Go Marching On ...

Now some links for your weekend consumption:

Friend Brian Grosz appeared on Fox 411 on Tuesday (February 12) here. As a contributor writer for Needles and Sins, Brian chimed in on the subject at hand, "Are Reality TV and Pro Sports Helping Tattoos Go Mainstream?"

Sure enough, Colin Kaepernick makes another appearance.....

[Note: I meant to post that two weekends ago when I was in Los Angeles, but it never went live. Better late than never....].

People who follow UFC should know who Ronda Rousey is. Last weekend she made history by defending her title as the first UFC Women's Bantamweight champion (as reported here, among many places). Why do I even care? We here at Tattoosday are fans, ever since meeting Ronda in Penn Station and interviewing her about her Olympic-inspired ink (here) back in 2009. Congrats Ronda!

One of my friends from college alerted me to this interview of Baba Austin, at Vintage Tattoo Art Parlor. The interviewer is senior at my alma mater, Occidental College, which is in close proximity to the Highland Park neighborhood where the shop is located.

Tattoosday Goes to L.A.: Stephanie's Southwestern Scene

Last week I was headed back to New York from L.A. when I met Stephanie out near my gate at LAX.

She estimates that she is about 70% covered with tattoos, and she shared this piece on her foot:

Stephanie is originally from Philadelphia, but she got this as a ten-year anniversary gift commemorating  a decade of living on the West Coast.

She credited this colorful Southwestern tattoo, complete with cacti and animal skull, to Cameron Chase at Tat-Fu Tattoo in Flagstaff, Arizona.

Thanks to Stephanie for sharing her colorful anniversary tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2013 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.