Hey Jude, Thanks for Sharing Your Tattoo!

Sometimes, we don't get the whole story here on Tattoosday, but we share anyway, despite our best efforts to get the goods on the work we capture.

Take this tattoo, for example:

This tattoo belongs to Jude, who I met, briefly, on the subway platform at West 4th Street last month. She got off the downtown local train and, before I could get the whole story, she had boarded a downtown express train, and was gone.

I did manage to track down the artist, Kira Hosler, who inked this piece while she was at Moon Sheen Tattoo in the West Village. Kira has since moved upstate, and has acknowledged that she did this piece.

That's about it - so we are left to wonder what inspired this tattoo. I like the country and city duality of the work, seeing it as the rat in a hollowed out log in a park in the city (New York, I presume). The sunflower illuminates the metropolis.

Jude, wherever, you are, thanks for sharing this tattoo with us!

UPDATE: After posting this, I did finally hear back from Jude, and she gave us some more clarification on the tattoo:

" I got this tattoo to sort of represent freaks over running the city and 'taking it back' so to speak. Hence the little rat and plants growing over buildings. Also, I just really like rats."

Thanks for the update, Jude!

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Kyle's Industrial Sunflowers

Riding uptown on the 3 train, I see a sleeve half way across the car that just looks amazing. I can't make out the specifics, but the color and detail tell me it's a fantastic piece.

The problem is, it's a crowded express train during rush hour, and unless this guy gets off when I get off, I won't get a chance to talk to him.

As luck would have it, he does xit the train at the same stop, and as I am trying to catch up with him as he heads upstairs, and across Broadway, I recognize his left sleeve. His name is Kyle, I interviewed him in 2008 (using a borrowed camera, no less) and his post appeared here.

This is new ink, however, and when I finally catch Kyle on the north side of 72nd, it takes a moment, but he remembers me, and is happy to share his new work, which bears a similar theme to the tattoo I spotted last time our paths crossed:

It is by the same artist, Myles Karr, who had done the tattoo from the original post when he was at Saved Tattoo. Myles is now at Three Kings, also in Brooklyn.

Like the prior encounter, from over three years ago (May 2008), the right sleeve is a dichotomy. The left sleeve is a city vs country tension. This piece is dominated by a burst of sunflowers, which travel down the arm and circle the elbow.

On the flip side is another cityscape, this time more silhouetted, and he explains that his near-pastoral umbringing was punctuated by the sunflowers he and his mother harvested. This, juxtaposed by the industrial city, is the center of the tension between the two aspects of the tattoo.

As an afterthought, I snapped a shot of the murder of crows lining the inside of his arm. "I just love crows," he told me.

He also offered up this shin piece, also by Myles Karr:

He explained it is an old-time traditional circus strongman, as old circus and sideshow imagery being another style of designs that he likes.

It was great seeing Kyle again and appreciating the amazing work he had added since our paths last crossed three years ago. Thanks to Kyle for sharing his tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2011 Tattoosday.

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.