Clinton's Colorful Chest Piece (at the NYC Tattoo Convention)

At the NYC Tattoo Convention earlier this month, one of my favorite pieces belonged to Clinton, who was kind enough to remove his shirt and share his work:

This was done by Jen Carmean from Monarch Tattoo in Newfoundland, New Jersey.

Clinton explained how this piece came to fruition:

"...The black part of my shoulders, I got ten years ago and then, about a year and a half ago, we did just the shoulder, expanded off of it, and then, in the past two months we did the whole chest part ... the shoulders were three sittings, about ten or twelve hours and then I think the middle came out to about another twelve hours ... it kinda represents my art ... people are always like, oh get your own art tattooed on you, but I pick my art apart and I couldn't do that, so it's kinda like what I'm into artwise but [Jen's] vision of it. I said 'Jen, I like patterns and eyes and wings' ... this was her interpretation of what I wanted."

You can check out Clinton's instagram here.

Thanks to Clinton for sharing his chest piece with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2015 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.

Naomi's Mandala, Plus Two More

Last week I was picking up a pie from Nino's, one of the better pizza places in my neighborhood, when I met Naomi, who was standing, waiting for her order. She shared this lovely mandala tattoo on the back of her neck:

Naomi later emailed me the details, and included a couple of extra photos of some of her other work. She explained:

"The woman who tattooed me is Sarah Herzdame from Germany and is currently tattooing in Berlin [at Erntezeit Tätowierungen]. She should be out here again in August at Gristle Tattoo [in Williamsburg, Brooklyn]. Her Instagram is @tilldthtattoo. Her email is on there too.

I've gotten two other tattoos at Gristle Tattoo. One by a man named Felix and the other by a woman named Anka. Felix's Instagram is @felixvayner and Anka's is @ankalavrivtattoo. 

Felix did the leaves, Anka did the cat. I got both of those on their Friday the 13th event and they were both $31. They had different sized tattoos for $13, $31 or $130 and had their local artists doing tattoos and a guest artist in as well from I believe Japan."

Thanks to Naomi for sharing her tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2015 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: Pamela Hart

Our next tattooed poet, Pamela Hart, sent us this interesting tattoo:

Pamela explains:

"I got this tattoo in 2010 shortly before my son headed off to do basic training in the Army. My husband and I decided to each get a tattoo to mark this occasion. I'd been looking around unsuccessfully for a design and finally found it at the Rubin Museum of Art in NYC in an exhibition of Tibetan mandalas. I took a photo, jotted down wall text info and did further research. What I learned endeared me to the design even further, which I already liked because of its textual nature. It's a Tibetan seed syllable -- Dhih -- and is apparently part of a number of mantras. It has to do with thought, knowledge, understanding and creativity. As you can imagine, for a writer, those ideas are important and compelling. The tattoo was done in upstate New York…nothing special about the place or artist."

Pamela directed me to the National Endowment for the Arts website, where I found one of her poems:

In the Red Cross Parking Lot After a Meeting on PTSD

What about your son, Nancy
Flannigan wonders, but really

she wants to talk about her son
Tom in Afghanistan

who never got with the program
six-two, on the swim team

until he was kicked out of high
school, has trouble with rules

which is how she explains
his wild streak, there's his hat

on the dashboard
Tom, she insists

won't make a career of this
Her hand brushes the dark

as spotlights halo the white-domed
rescue vehicles around us

Next door someone shouts
further off traffic glowers

along the expressway. Nancy
sends care packages, the good

socks, how to get them on the cheap
the rifle bolt she bought him

it's expensive, doesn't jam or clog
Tom's sergeant killed, will Tom get

with the program, her words
rocketing on and on in the night

We're like the Spartan women
how we send them off, the shields

we compare and polish
in the concrete firmament

(with permission of O-Dark-Thirty, Journal of the Veterans Writing Project)

~~~

To read another poem by Pamela, check out this one online at the Heron Tree Review. 

Pamela Hart is writer in residence at the Katonah Museum of Art where she manages a visual literacy arts in education program. She is a 2013 NEA poetry fellow and is completing a manuscript of poems exploring the intersection of family, community, and the military. Her chapbook, The End of the Body, was published in 2006 by Toadlily Press. Her work has been published in a variety of print and online journals.

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

This entry is ©2015 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.