April Marching into May

Last Friday, I spotted this tattoo on Seventh Avenue in the 20's:April was happy to stop and chat about her black and gray tattoo which was a gift from her boyfriend on her 27th birthday.The piece is fairly straight forward - cherry blossoms bloom in late March/early April. Her birthday is in March and her name is April.For that alone these traditional tattoo flowers seemed appropriate for

Ben's Amazing Back Piece

With the Tattooed Poets Series under way last month, I was a bit remiss in posting about the "regular" tattoo encounters.With apologies to the following volunteer, I am presenting some amazing work on a gentleman named Ben, who I spotted back on April 2 while walking through Penn Station.Ben was wearing a short-sleeve shirt and had tattoos covering his arms. When I approached him and explained

The Tattooed Poets Project: Raffaella Ciavatta's Trio of Amazing Tattoos

Today's tattoos were submitted by Brazilian-born, New York-based poet Raffaella Ciavatta. She heard about the Tattooed Poet's Project earlier this month from Jackie Sheeler at a local reading. Jackie's tattoos were featured earlier this month here.Raffaela sent three photos:Raffaela says that this is "my own design mixing a Chinese dragon, representing strength, and the lizard, for the soul's

Tattoorism: Sean's Leg Piece Represents His Transformation from Child to Adult

This installment of Tattoorism comes from Sean, a reader who offered up his leg piece for our viewing pleasure. The detail above is my favorite aspect of the tattoo, which wraps around Sean's entire left leg.In Sean's words:"...Even though this was done in about 4 or 5 sessions, I could not describe this in any other way except as one big tattoo. Each piece works together with each other. I

Jessica's Back, Sharing Tattoos 51 and 52

I met Jessica back in June, prior to a Pearl Jam concert, in front of Madison Square Garden. She is an artist in her own right, doing a lot of the work her self, using her own kit and mirrors. Check out the original post here. I followed up with a post of more of her work here. I had a third post planned, as she had sent me some more photos of new work at the end of July.I recently reconnected

Crys Shares His Colorful Arm

When I passed Crys on Seventh Avenue last Friday, I knew I had to stop and ask about his arm.Aside from the matching ohms-within-nautical stars on both elbows, Crys has two main pieces on his left arm.Chronologically, the dragon came first:He got it basically because he liked the design. It was inked by Nick at True Blue Tattoo in Austin, Texas.The kanji surrounding the dragon were added later

Erica's Ink: A Tale of Two Tattoos

Last Saturday I was riding my bike on a gorgeous day (see this post here) when I passed Erica who was sitting on a bench along the Shore Promenade.I spotted a tattoo on her back as I rode by, so I circled around for a closer look:It seemed interesting so I asked her about it. She said there really wasn't anything interesting about it but I told her to try me. Sometimes when you've lived with a

Jay's Incredible Chest Pieces

Last Friday, I met Jay on the 59th Street platform in Brooklyn. He had well-inked arms and he clearly had other ink peeking out from the edges of his shirt.We chatted for a while on the platform and on the R train after it arrived. Jay was game for contributing to the blog, but wanted to offer up his chest pieces, of which he is most proud. Since taking off his shirt was not an option, he