Asia's Ink Personifies Anxiety

It's so easy to be spoiled by reporting on spectacular tattoos, that one often loses sight of the fact that even rudimentary designs can also be really interesting.

Take Asia, for example, who I ran into at my local laundromat. He has a simple black line drawing tattooed on his inner left forearm. It looked really interesting, so I asked him if he'd be kind enough to share, which he did:

I asked Asia to explain:

"It's just some original artwork I did maybe about 16, 17 years ago. And I decided a couple years later to get it done as [a tattoo] ... it's kinda like a reference of a hard time and what anxiety or a panic attack would look like ... if  you had to visualize an anxiety attack or panic attack ... some of the things that I use in this tattoo ... the compressions of one arm wrapped around itself, kinda like an octopus ... some tension here with the lines on the [side of the] body ... tension here ... where the mouth would be ... so being unable to speak ... same thing with the blacked out eyes .... tension with the thoughts, which is the nails going in and of course, you know, head on fire ...I call it the Dead Mermaid but it's really about anxiety."

I really like the concept and how well Asia explained the manifestation of anxiety in his original artwork.

He had this done a while back at FunCity Tattoo on St. Mark's Place in Manhattan.

Thanks to Asia for sharing this cool tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2013 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: Stephen Caratzas

Today's tattooed poet is Stephen Caratzas, who was sent our way via Jillian Brall, a tattooed poet who has appeared on the Tattooed Poets Project twice before (here and here).

Stephen sent along this cool photo:

The tattoo in question is on his wrist. For a closer look:

Stephen explains:

"The tattoo is a griffin, inspired by an image of a griffin holding a Walther PPK automatic pistol on the cover of Ian Fleming's On Her Majesty's Secret Service. The artist, whose first name was Mike - don't recall his last name - decided to make the gun into the griffin's paw, which I agreed was a sensible idea.

I got the idea for a tattoo on the inside of my wrist from one of the characters (Casper, I believe) in Larry Clark's film, Kids. I liked the idea of having a visible tattoo even while wearing a long-sleeve dress shirt."

The tattoo is among eight Stephen has, and was inked at Fun City Tattoo on Macdougal Street in Manhattan back in the late 1990s.

Stephen sent us several poems, but I liked this one best:

THE NEW CORONERS

I never felt so good as when a waiter

in Amsterdam called me monsieur

after ordering beef champignon

putting his pen to his lips and looking off

“I believe monsieur has ordered the better dish”

so then you ordered it too

in a place called De Oude Doelen

(the old aims the old targets the old goals)

a drunk at the bar sang along with the jukebox

for years afterward I searched for the song

it wasn’t Elvis but it was sad

the song and the drunk and it was our last meal

when we two parted it was inevitable

it always is it always is

~ ~ ~

Stephen Caratzas is a writer, musician and visual artist living in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. His writing has been published in Terra Incognita, Maintenant 5, the tiny, and many other journals.

Thanks to Stephen for sending us his tattoo and poems! We here at Tattoosday are grateful for his contribution.


This entry is ©2011 Tattoosday. The poem is reprinted here with the permission of the author.

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.

Don't Worry

I was walking through Penn Station last week when I spotted Turner. Actually I spotted what looked like a tattoo on his wrist. So I stopped and asked him and sure enough, he had words on the inside of his wrist, still healing from a recent inking:


The tattoo reads "A: Don't worry".

Turner explained that he is a performer/author/speaker who worries a lot, so it's sage advice that is always good to follow.

The quote itself is from a segment in a one-man show that he performed called "Becoming a Man in 127 EASY Steps". During one part of the show, Turner answers self-posed questions in an imagined dialog with his father. One of these questions is: "Q: What's the number one thing to think about when you're a dad?" And the answer is "A: Don't worry".

What's particularly special about this tattoo is that it is based on his father's handwriting.

Turner has a book out called Two Truths and a Lie that includes the aforementioned Becoming a Man....

Turner had this tattoo done by Big Steve in Manhattan at Funcity Tattoo.

He also gave me his card, which promotes Two Truths and a Lie. You can read about Turner at his site Undergroundtransit.com. It was there that I learned that Turner is a transgender, a woman who became a man. Of course, this adds, in my opinion, a whole different layer of meaning on the tattoo, and makes the experience of meeting Turner that much more interesting. He is just another example of what I love about writing Tattoosday. I get to meet so many people in such a wide range of diversity. It's well worth exploring his site to see clips of his shows to fully appreciate Turner as a performer.

I thank Turner for sharing his tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

Elaina's Ink: The Mermaid and the Tarantula

Elaina has eighteen tattoos. And not to heap loads of praise on her, but her work is brilliant.

It was the mermaid on her inner right forearm that first grabbed my attention:


She told me that the drawing was indicative of her state of mind at the time it was inked. Her boyfriend had just moved out and she was feeling reflective (thus the hand mirror).


Elaina later followed up with an email, further clarifying the tattoo:

"I realized today when you asked me the significance of my mermaid tattoo that I probably would have been better quoted saying the absolute truth. The underlying universal secret wish of all girls and women alike... I've always wanted to be a mermaid."

But Elaina had more to share. Much to my delight, she lifted her skirt on her left side to reveal this wonderful tattoo:


The spider is modeled after her mother's pet tarantula, Shelob, who is named for the giant spider in The Two Towers, book two of The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

I asked her what Mom thought of her ink and Elaina rolled her eyes and said that her mother recently wept when she told her she was planning her nineteenth tattoo. And, Elaina added, her mom is no stranger to ink. She told me that her mom was tattooed by legendary tattooist Lyle Tuttle during the Rolling Stones' Tattoo You tour.

The mermaid was tattooed by Claire at Funcity Tattoo in Manhattan. The spider on Elaina's thigh was done by Neal Aultman at Physical Graffiti in New Jersey.

Thanks to Elaina for sharing her amazing ink with us here on Tattoosday!

The EMC is the Only EMC

I met Eric in Penn Station as I was headed back to work during lunch.

His sole tattoo on his right forearm reads "THE EMC". The EMC refers to his initals, his full name being Eric Manuel Concepcion.

He prefaced his initials with the article "the" so he can set himself apart. It's an manifestation of his individuality.

He wants to have "great significance in life" and has a larger piece in mind to build around this tattoo.

"Only one person can be me," he says, and this exemplifies his conviction that he will be great at being who he is, and that "no one will copy" him.

I've invited Eric to submit more photos as the piece evolves.

The tattoo was inked at Funcity Tattoos in Manhattan. Other work from Funcity has previously appeared here.

Thanks to Eric for sharing his personal tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

The Return of Danielle's Ink

I first ran into Danielle here, back in the Fall of '07.

Her upper arm tattoo jumped out at me then, as it isn't often you see Hawaiian words in Broolyn, and it jumped out the other day, when I had just come off the subway.

Last time I saw her, she had a burn on her right forearm, close to her other tattoo. So I took a rain check and cashed it 7 months later.

What looks initially like a few squiggles is actually a more complex piece she designed herself.

Danielle is the feminine form of the name Daniel. She appreciates the meaning of her name, in Hebrew, which is "God is my Judge." She elaborated on her name by transforming it in a stylized fusing of the Hebrew and Aramaic script. One familiar with either language can see, deep down, the daled, nun, yud, lamed.

Very cool design.

This piece, like the Hawaiian inscription, was inked at Funcity Tattoo in the East Village. The artist was Joe.

Thanks again to Danielle for sharing her ink here on Tattoosday!

Hawaiian in Brooklyn

It's not every day that one sees the Hawaiian language tattooed on a Brookylnite, so I was stunned to see the following tattoo wrapped around the arm of a woman in Foodtown earlier this week:


The tattoo reads, in Hawaiian, "e ola aui ke Akua". I'm not fluent, but I know the Hawaiian language when I see it. I had to speak to this person and find out what possessed this person to inscribe these words on their flesh.

The woman is Danielle Tay, and the tattoo is a tribute to her Hawaiian heritage. Her paternal grandfather is Hawaiian, her father was half-Hawaiian, or one hapa-Haole, as we would say it in the islands. Danielle is therefore a quarter Hawaiian, by birth, and despite being a Brooklynite, feels connected just the same.

"Uh," I asked, "Can you tell me what that means?"

Danielle believes it to loosely mean "May God grant me Life".

This was inked at Funcity Tattoo in the East Village.

Danielle, thanks for letting me take your tattoo's picture. I lost your e-mail address, however. Please shoot me an e-mail if you're reading this....I have some additional questions for you.

UPDATE: My friend Cat in Hawai'i says:

"E ola au i ke Akua" means "I live in the Lord" or "I live because of the Lord". There's some flexibility in translation, but that's the gist, I think. It's OK, although the "aui" should be split into "au i".