Tattoosday Blog: Grateful Dead

Andrea's Dancing Bears Show Her Dead-ication to Her Favorite Band

A couple months back, I met Andrea, on 3rd Avenue in Bay Ridge, and she shared these bears which are one of the many graphic representations of the band, The Grateful Dead:

I recognized the design right off, so I asked Andrea why she chose a Dead tattoo. She responded, "because they were my favorite band ever since I was a little kid." She added, "my dad used to listen to them, so I kinda got into 'em that way."

When I asked how many times she had seen them, she told me, "I've only seen Bob Weir and Phil Lesh. I saw them two summers ago."

She initially credited this tattoo to Jim Palmer at Moon Gravel Arts in Milford, Pennsylvania, but later corrected me, via e-mail:

"i actually did that one it was the first tattoo i ever did as practice... jim did ...all of my other tattoos however ... he has great work ... u should still check him out, jim palmer is his name and moon gravel arts ... is his shop ... have a grateful day:)"

Thanks to Andrea for sharing her self-inked dead-icated tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

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Tattoosday in the Berkshires: Bob & Sue's Excellent Tattoos

Back in June, we took a trip up to the Berkshires in Western Massachusetts to drop my older daughter off for a summer program in Lenox. I had anticipated seeing some cool tattoos on the weekend trip, but came up empty-handed. That is, until we were headed back to New York, and took a small detour in Stockbridge, MA, where I ran into Bob and Sue.

We spotted the couple in a shop along Main Street and talked to them about their tattoos. They had been up at Tanglewood the night before to hear the Boston Pops perform a "Jerry Garcia Symphonic Celebration," which made sense, when we took a closer look at Bob's tattoo:

Bob explained:

"The sun is from the Filipino flag - it's my heritage. The hills are covered with trees from New England, that's where I grew up. The road is not straight, it's narrow ... that [Yamaha Stratoliner] is based on my bike, and I'm a Grateful Dead fan."

The artist is Canman out of Visions Tattoo Gallery in Medway, MA.

Sue shared these two tattoos:

This portrait, inked six months ago, depicts their children, who are in their thirties now. Their daughter is twelve in the portrait and this, too, was done by Canman, as was this other piece on Sue's opposite arm:

This piece is about four years old, yet it's still fairly bright.

Thanks to Bob and Sue for sharing their tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!