The Tattooed Poets Project: Shana Wolstein

Our penultimate tattooed poet is Shana Wolstein, who sent us this photo:

Shana explains:

The word 'always,' was the first tattoo I got. It's on my left-wrist, facing me. The song 'Always,' by Irving Berlin, was what my mother used to sing to us when we were sad as children. My sister got a similar tattoo and when my dad asked what my mother would have said, we both had to sheepishly grin because the answer was always 'Wait until I'm dead.'

I got it while I was studying abroad in China and visiting Hong Kong, a few months after she passed away. I wrote [the following] poem after visiting Tai Shan or Mount Tai, one of the 'Five Sacred Mountains' in China. According to Wikipedia 'it is associated with sunrise, birth, and renewal.' "

My Journey of Over 6,000 Steps

The best way to cure a cold
is to climb up the tallest mountain
you can find. Spot as many lucky
birds, rest on every turn, and when
a man offers to carry you—refuse.

When you think you can't go any further,
you will. Like the bird pacing
the ground and shuffling dirt
with his beak, you need patience.

When you close a lock, throw the key
down the mountainside, it can only make
the bond stronger. Forget about food,
or what you thought it was, question

the safety of bottled water, watch old
women climb faster than you, watch
the clouds erase your time, the sun
write it on the walls, the dry stones bleach.

 ~ ~ ~

Shana Wolstein has her MFA from Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, where she was the 2011 recipient of the Herb Scott Award for Excellence in Poetry. She has been published by Third Coast Magazine, Anomalous Press, Hinchas de Poesia, OVS Magazine, and more. Still in Kalamazoo, she works as Coordinator for the Prague Summer Program and Managing Editor of the academic journal Reading Horizons.



Thanks to Shana for sharing her poem and tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!



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.

The Tattooed Poets Project: Will Roby

Today's tattooed poet is Will Roby.



It is also the birth date of the philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein.



You might think these two items are unrelated, but you'd be wrong.



Here is the tattoo Will selected for us:

Will elaborates:

"I am a huge fan of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, and I'm interested in covering my entire back with words. You'll notice the edge of an image of Texas, but other than that, all of my tattoos are text-based. The artist is a friend of mine, who requested to be called simply 'Heath.' The inspiration is simple: to remind me that my thoughts are capable of becoming reality if I allow them."

Will selected this poem to share here on the Tattooed Poets Project:





Stupefactive

Half a glass full, optimistic warbling grackles; they pester me.
To the dogs with them! It's abrasive, this new sweater, get it off me.
So restrictive, I'm in shackles, knuckles tickled. Stupefactive
glance along a mirror, that old meme, "coexistence or bust." Alternator
of my heart, spark plug liver: must they rust so fast? A last jitterbug
then no more jumpstarts, I'll have to quit her.  Shrug twice 
if you understand, here's a sidesplitter: never once changed the oil, bugs
all jammed up in the works, tin foil holding up the engine mount. And count
the parts you couldn't sell, the fans and belts, good for nothing, hell,
the junkman sniffs the air. There you have it, glass half full, a queasy
spare tire of a feeling. Easy, Tiger, someone says, a glass half full
might be the only thing to crack through that thick skull.

~ ~ ~

Will Roby is a poet living in Texas. His poems have appeared at 32 Poems, Tri-Quarterly, Umbrella,The  Melic Review, Karawane, Yareah Magazine and others. He's madly in love with Emily Van Duyne and their child Hank.



Thanks kindly to Will for contributing his tattoo and poem to this year's poetic adventure on Tattoosday!



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.

The Tattooed Poets Project: Bianca Stone

Today's poet is Bianca Stone, who I met last year at the Best American Poetry 2011 launch reading. I spoke to her about contributing then and, true to her word, she was the first poet to confirm her participation this year.



Bianca sent me this photo:

She explains:

"At first this was just a tattoo of Pinocchio and Jiminy Cricket. The drawings was based on the original drawings from the book by Carlo Collodi. I was 20 years old and at Antioch College at the time. There was an aspiring tattoo artist who studied there and had a tattoo gun and a make-shift studio and he did it for me as practice...(NOT one of my brightest ideas, since it's poorly done. People always ask me 'what is that supposed to be?') The idea had been in homage to my twin brother, Walter, whose nickname is Jiminy/Jimmy, and my mother used to read us the book when we were young. 

The 'Ex Libris' was added three years ago when I was studying poetry at NYU's MFA program, to honor my love of books and antique book-plates. It means 'In the Library Of' and in theory should have my name under it. It was done at Fineline Tattoo in the East Village, by a very nice guy who I guess doesn't work there anymore...I can't remember his name. I do remember he went by one word."

By way of a poem, Bianca shared this poem, which originally appeared in Post Road Magazine:



Someone Will Have to Tell You

Someday soon you will let your hair grow
and look like everyone else. And let there be a kingdom
alongside the kingdom and a forsythia alongside you.
Your mother has walked out of all her pictures



into the ether. There is hair in envelopes and the hair
in lockets and the hair growing
in graves. Saints are kneeling over your portrait.
The stratocumulus clouds are forming
in your chest. Fog around your feet.



You’ll have to listen to the bananas peeling.
Listen to your books on tape. Little by little
your face will float away
from your other face.



Someday you won’t know what to eat. Someone
will have to tell you. Someone will have to carry you
into the back yard so you can hear the Canadian geese
rise hysterically from the river.

~ ~ ~

Bianca Stone is the author of several chapbooks, most recently Someone Else's Wedding Vows (Argos Books), and I Want To Open The Mouth God Gave You, Beautiful Mutant (Factory Hollow Press). Her poems have appeared in The Best American Poetry 2011, Conduit, and Crazyhorse. Her collaboration with Anne Carson, Antigonick, a new kind of comic book and translation, will be published in spring of 2012 by New Directions. She lives in Brooklyn.



Thanks so much to Bianca for sharing her tattoo and poem with us here on the 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.

Tattoos I Know: Paul's Love, Over His Heart

On this Valentine's Day, I'm sharing a tattoo that my friend Paul had recently done. He showed me when I was taking the latest set of photos on the cover-up her is working on.

He pulled down the top of his shirt to reveal this simple message:


Paul's message to his wife is simple, but it is what is not spoken that is most remarklable. Paul always swore up and down that he would never ink a woman's name on his body. When he showed me this, I was surprised, but love can make us express ourselves in such ways, especially when we love getting tattooed.

Paul had this done by Pierre at Fort Apache Tattoo Studio, just around the corner from where we work in Manhattan.

Happy Valentine's Day from Tattoosday to Paul and Ana. Stay tunde, as there may be more Valentine's ink on the horizon!

Nathan's Luck

I first became friendly with Nathan over at KnuckleTattoos.com as a peer in the inkblogging community.

Based in Texas, Nathan's site specializes in what you would expect from the name, Knuckle Tattoos.

As a contributing writer, I have posted a handful of knuckles (ha) from people I have met in my Tattoosday wanderings in the Big Apple.

And although the last post on his site (as of this writing) was back in May, Nathan has been busy indeed, traveling over the late summer, courtesy of a 30-day Jet Blue pass and blogging about it. The trip was documented here, on 30 Days in the Air. Not only that, he has ink to memorialize the journey. See what I mean in this post.

Nathan was in New York as part of his adventure back in October and I met him for a slice of pizza on Broadway near Herald Square.

We talked shop, mostly, about blogging, tattoos, and his trip. And, of course, he shared one of his tattoos for the folks here at Tattoosday:

Nathan explained that this is a "kitchen table tattoo inked by a Japanese fellow calling himself 'Cadillac'. He was in town [Austin] for a week from Japan tattooing in order to pay for his rent when he got back".

The tattoo features all of Nathan's "luck pieces," such as dice, cards, his lucky number (23), a horseshoe, a black cat, and a banner that reads "Fortune Favors the Valiant".

It was great meeting Nathan and I thank him for sharing this tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

A Cinematic Heart

I met Daniel last week on Seventh Avenue in the 20's.

I spotted this tattoo peeping out from under his left shirt sleeve:


Daniel was a film student at St. John's University, and this tattoo, cleverly designed with film reels as part of the heart, is a tribute to his love of film.

I also spotted another tattoo on his inner right forearm:


A tribute to The Beatles, this tattoo lets everyone know that Daniel is a fan of the Fab Four. When I asked him why the names were McCartney, then Lennon, as all songs penned by the two are credited as Lennon/McCartney, he just smiled and said, "because I like Paul more".

He believes the typeface for this tattoo is Century Gothic.

The film heart tattoo was inked by Dan at Addiction Ink on St. Mark's Place in the East Village. Dan's not currently listed on the shop's website, but work from Addiction has appeared on Tattoosday previously here.

Thanks to Daniel for sharing his tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

Zack's Spectacular Foot Tattoos

I met Zack earlier this month as he was walking north on Broadway. But, like many Tattoosday encounters, the ink I spotted (on his leg) was not what ended up here on the blog.

Behold, Zack's feet:

These incredible foot tattoos were created by Beef Stu at Bleed Blue Tattoo in Lexington, Kentucky. Zack recently moved to New York from the Bluegrass state.

Zack told me that the idea for these tattoos came to him in a vision. His right foot tattoo is comprised of a DNA strand, the key to life.
And the left foot. with the skull, represents death.


The word "LIVE" is spelled out above the pieces, with "LI" on the right foot and "VE" on the left. The tattoos, together, Zack told me, serve as a "reminder not to get caught up in the shit" and to "make the most of what you can between life and death".

It took three or four sessions (the feet are not easily inked) for these tattoos.

Thanks to Zack for sharing his amazing foot tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

Christina's Flawed Tattoo is Just Right

I spotted this interesting tattoo while in Penn Station last month:


Christina, to whom this piece belongs, called this a "reverse tattoo," in that the main focal point of the piece is the word "Flawed".

The word is empty of ink and is created by the artist using negative space.

But why "flawed?" Christina explained that "we all have a weakness" and that "only God is perfect." It"s a reminder that "everyone has need for improvement" and that no one is ever perfect.

This is one of four of Christina's tattoos.

Thanks to Christina for sharing this with us here on Tattoosday!

Mike's Amazing Back Piece

I had just exited from the subway station in Bay Ridge when I spotted an extremely-inked couple.

I talked with both of them, but Mike was gracious enough to share this phenomenal back piece:


Mike, a musician, has been on the receiving end of the tattoo machine for many years. He is currently lead singer/bassist for The F.T.W.'s, a New York-based rock band.

He even speaks nostalgically about the mid-90's, when tattooing was still illegal in New York City. He has a critical eye and like many people with a commitment to old school tattooing, is dismayed by the skyrocketing popularity of the art, and the subsequent deterioration of the overall quality of tattoos.

For every great tattoo you see here on Tattoosday, there are two dozen others that were inked because they are trendy, and not out of appreciation of the art.

We had a lengthy discussion about this and I worried he might not be so down with the site because I don't always feature top quality tattoos, and am oftentimes just as interested in the story behind an average tattoo as I am in a convention-quality piece.

As for Mike's back piece, he credits Miss D'Jo at the fabulous Lark Tattoo in Westbury, New York for the creation of this gigantic tribute.

See other work from Lark on Tattoosday here.

Mike spoke of a friend and tattoo artist, Chris Lewis, who committed suicide many years ago. Chris had given Mike a knife as a gift, and after his friend passed, Mike had this quasi-memorial back piece done. The knives in the tattoo are modeled after the blade in question.

The detail in this gigantic tattoo is simply phenomenal. Just take a look again at the handiwork on the knives:

Much thanks to Mike and his girlfriend Amanda for stopping and talking tattoo with me. Your contribution to Tattoosday is much appreciated!!

Amy Beckerman's Ink: Laughter and a Peony

It was Amy Beckerman's peony above her right ankle that first caught my attention:


This beautiful floral tattoo, designed by Dan Bythewood at Regeneration Tattoo in Alston, MA, is one of four tattoos she has.

Dan is a friend of Amy's from college who had studied art then went on to become a tattoo artist.

I thought this one was wonderful, as well:


The word "laughter" pefectly suits her, as Amy is a professional comic. This was also inked at Regeneration, but by Cathy Johnson.

You can see a segment of Amy performing below, as one of her characters, "Ida Felter":



Amy performs regularly in a show called "Dykes on Mics," the second and fourth Tuesday of every month at Comix (353 West 14th Street in Manhattan). It's a free show, starting at 9:00 PM. The next performance is Tuesday, September 28.

Amy's website is here.

Thanks to Amy for her enthusiastic participation in Tattoosday!

Elizabeth's Alphabetical Ink

Imagine me in Penn Station. I see a woman with a small letter tattooed on her. Interesting. Then I notice that she has them everywhere, in no apparent order, on her legs, on her arms, on the back of her neck. Not something you see every day. I had to ask her about them, and Elizabeth was kind to indulge my curiosity.

Elizabeth is a typographer, by profession, and she works with letters as part of her trade. Over the course of three years, she had the entire alphabet tattooed, two or three letters at a time, all over her body.

Here's the one photo I took that captured two letters in one frame:


I asked her if she went in alphabetical order and she told me she hadn't. Whatever letters she was working on at the time, she would have inked. In other words, she'd head into New York Adorned for her appointment with Stephanie Tamez, and whatever was at the forefront of her consciousness, that's what she had tattooed.

I was familiar with Stephanie Tamez for, most recently, this tattoo on the writer Eileen Myles. So I sent Stephanie an email and asked her to comment on this particular twenty-six part tattoo.

Stephanie wrote:

"I...remember the alphabet on Elizabeth, she is sweet and lovely as well. As you may or may not know I have had a reputation for tattooing many a letter, many a word, many a sentence and many a paragraph. I bet I have in all filled a few novels. Ha. Anyway from what I can recall with Elizabeth, it was very simple and fun and straight forward. I have done several alphabets throughout the years on mostly graphic designers who are captivated by fonts. I have done words on graphic designers from France to Mexico and done many a word on many a writer. I wish I could remember them all and had been logging all their tales..."

Elizabeth had also mentioned to me that she was meeting with Ina Saltz, an art director, designer, writer, photographer and professor at City College of New York. Unbeknownst to me at the time, Ms. Saltz had written a book called Body Type, which is a study of typographic tattoos.

Having since read the book (highly recommended to all), I related to Ms. Saltz's quest, that began with a chance spotting of a word tattoo on a crosstown bus several years ago. Of course, I have featured numerous word tattoos over the past couple of years, but Body Type's chronicling of the vast array of typographic tattoos is certainly entertaining to anyone who appreciates the art. In fact, Ms. Saltz goes out of her way to acknowledge Stephanie Tamez as one of the premier word tattooists. In all fairness to Ms. Tamez, one look at her website will reveal that, although she is acknowledged as a skilled tattooer of words, her skills and artistry go far beyond the inking of letters!

Anyway, back to Elizabeth, who followed up our encounter with an e-mail discussing the font she used for her tattoos, but also with (per my request) an alphabetical catalog of all her letters:

My tattoos are in Garamond (for the real font nerds out there, it's a few different cuts, mostly Garamond 3 and Stempel Garamond, a couple are in Adobe Garamond). I'm a typographer and I've always loved Garamond — the first Roman font to be used on Gutenberg's press. The typeface has been in existence since 1530, and still embodies so much of what we perceive as 'perfect' in letterforms today. Yes, they're all in lower case. No plans for capitals, or punctuation...no plans for any more tattoos, in fact.

Below is the catalog of letters. although I will say I didn't get them in alphabetical order, and I got them slowly over a few years. It was usually whatever letters I was drawing a lot at the time, or thinking about.

a: front-facing left shoulder
b: left thigh
c: inside left arm
d: right upper right arm/bicep
e: sternum
f: right calf
g: inside right wrist
h: inside right calf
i: inside left thigh, just above knee
j: inside left wrist
k: left upper left arm/bicep
l: left forearm
m: right forearm
n: collarbone
o: inside right bicep
p: inside right thigh
q: nape of neck [pictured]
r: top of right shoulder
s: top of right foot
t: left shin
u: back
v: back
w: back
x: shoulder blade
y: left calf
z: behind left ear [pictured]

Thanks to Elizabeth for her cooperation and participation here on Tattoosday. Also, much thanks to Stephanie Tamez (see her official website here) for her chiming in on the experience.

Do look into Body Type, as well. It's a lovely book indeed.

Camila's Inspirational Quote from Gandhi

I spotted an amazing tattoo-in-progress last month in Penn Station and I just had to stop and ask the young lady what it was about.

Camila has a piece that, among other things, represents the cityscape of Rio de Janeiro, circling her lower left calf. Alas, you won't see it here (yet), as it is not finished. [Update, November 16, 2009: Camila sent me photos of the tattoo which was subsequently finished. See it here.]

Some people are reluctant to have me photograph their works-in-progress, as they would rather the tattoo be complete before being displayed for all on the blogosphere to see. Others are indifferent and tell me to snap away.

There's pros and cons to both approaches, but one of the pros is that we see a tattoo in its pre-completion stage and then get to see it after it's done. The two versions are often quite interesting to compare and contrast.

But that's neither here nor there. Fortunately for me, Camila has ten tattoos, and she offered up this quote attributed to Mahatma Gandhi on her inner left forearm:


The quote, "Be the change you wish to see in the world," speaks to Camila, as she is a social worker and, she says, "it represents what I stand for in life".

I thank Camila for taking the time to chat with us on Tattoosday, and look forward to featuring her other tattoo(s) in the future!

Kevin's Angel Tattoo Inspires

I spotted Kevin at the corner of 33rd Street and 7th Avenue and asked him about his incredible tattoo covering the majority of his left arm:


His upper arm has a cross on it, so Kevin worked downward on the arm. The angel is based on the sculpture of "The Angel of the Waters" in Central Park's Bethesda Fountain.



He subsequently added the banner that reads "Veni Vidi Vici" on the back side of the forearm:


This famous Latin phrase, attributed to Julius Caesar, means "I came. I saw. I conquered." In his mind, this sums up Kevin's life, having moved from a town of 70,000 people to a megopolis of over 7 million, attaining a senior position with a fashion corporation.

Kevin is particularly happy with the detail in the wings and the angel herself.


Ray Jerez at Inborn NYC on the Lower East Side of Manhattan is the artist behind this tattoo.

Thanks much to Kevin for sharing his amazing tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!