Mike Bakaty, Rest in Peace

I learned last night of the passing of a legendary NYC tattoo artist, Mike Bakaty. Our friends over at Needles & Sins informed us of the sad news, with this touching remembrance .

I never met Mike, whose Fineline Tattoo NYC is a great shop, thanks to his talent and hard work, along with that of his son Mehai. But, as you would imagine, a couple of his tattoos have appeared on the site over the years. Interestingly, both examples I found were for the Tattooed Poets Project:

That was from Ethan Hom's contribution last year (here) and this:

which is courtesy of Christine Hamm, in 2010 (original post here).

You can see more examples of some of Mike's work on the Fineline website here but I encourage you to head over to Needles & Sins to get a true appreciation of the importance of Mike Bakaty and his impact on the tattoo community.

It reminds you that every time you see a tattoo, it's often not just a work of art on the skin, but a reflection of the hard work of an artist, with a soul and a life, and that they truly do live on in this world through their work, even after they have passed on to the nect.

Rest in Peace, Mike.

This entry is ©2010, 2013, 2014 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 Tattooed Poets Project: Ethan Hon

Next up in the Tattooed Poets Project is Ethan Hon.

I met up with Ethan in the Carroll Gardens section of Brooklyn earlier this month and took photos of three of his tattoos.

Ethan credits the talented artists at Fineline Tattoo in Manhattan.

Ethan explained that "the tattoos of Keats [above] and f(x) [below] were done by Mehai Bakaty." He added, "Keats is self-explanatory [and] F(x) I got done as reminder to be a person, to function."

As for the third tattoo (directly below), Ethan explained,

"Mike Bakaty tattooed Boy with Machine by Richard Lindner [and] was done because I couldn't stop looking at it and also because as Deleuze and Guattari remind us: A schizophrenic out for a walk is a better model than a neurotic lying on the analyst's couch. A breath of fresh air, a relationship with the outside world.

I have two other tattoos not pictured: Cascading black hearts and [one] of Ulysses with his dog once he has returned, along with the Arnold Geulincx phrase, 'Ubi nihil vales, ibi nihil velis' translated roughly as 'Where you are worth nothing, then you shall want for nothing' beneath it.

Ethan sent us this poem:

Red Hook

Jesus has dicks for hands
we must not tell him. Of course,
we will never tell him. Again,
or rather once, Dan walked, drenched
from New Jersey, home to New Jersey.
Last night I lay on the floor with a dog
named Pirate. Don’t tell Creezy.
When Santo told me his tattoo
was of his brother, I told him he should
never wear sleeves. It was not but
it was warm. I should only think
of things that are dripping with fuck--
across her lips, I did not negotiate a life
preserver. The world opens to my de-claring.
To have once been enamored is nice
but now I think everyone is divorcing,
Sail by me on your bicycles,
saying, “See you next Tuesday.”

~ ~ ~

Ethan J. Hon is from Omaha, Nebraska. He is a co-founder of JERRY MAGAZINE. His poems and prose have appeared or are forthcoming in Screen and Paper, TheThe, The New Inquiry, Dossier, Tin House, Cimarron Review, Cannibal, Nebraska Review, and Assembly Magazine. His paper “It Is Easier to Raise a Shrine than Bring the Deity Down to Haunt It: Beckett in the Blogosphere” was presented in June of 2011 at Samuel Beckett: Out of the Archive International Conference. He lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Thanks to Ethan for contributing to 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.

The Tattooed Poets Project: Gina Abelkop

Our next tattooed poet is Gina Abelkop, who shared this awesome portrait of Emily Dickinson:

Gina tells us:

"I've long loved Emily Dickinson and her poems and last summer took a trip to Amherst to visit her home and grave. I traveled to NYC after Amherst and booked an appointment for a tattoo to commemorate the trip; prior to traveling, I'd asked my friend and artist Susanna Troxler to illustrate a portrait of Emily to use for the tattoo. I brought the drawing to Mehai [Bakaty] at Fineline Tattoo in NYC and asked him to draw lilies and roses around the portrait, as those are two flowers Emily references in my favorite poem of her's. I get lots of compliments on the beautiful work from both Dickinson fangirls and people who think she's a great-grandmother of mine."

Gina sent us the following poem:

~ ~ ~

I Sit in No Sour Light

I can be a good woman         Venerable,

esteemed good women    tell me    how it is

to be good      Your gutsy wealth of love

slobbery all over lips of tubs    Smell clean

All of that            Swung lurid as titties

over shoulder    I’m not bad    Good women

of wide love and baffling extension       your eye please

~ ~ ~

Gina Abelkop swims in the river and dances to Bow Wow Wow. Her first book, Darling Beastlettes, is out now from Apostrophe Books.

Thanks to Gina for sharing her tattoo and poem with us here on Tattoosday's Tattooed Poets Project!

This entry is ©2013 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.