The Tattooed Poets Project: Bridget Lowe

Our next tattooed poet is Bridget Lowe, who sent us this photo:

Bridget explains:

"I got this tattoo rather impulsively in the fall of 2008 in Syracuse, New York, at the excellent Halo Tattoo. I had recently found out that my surname came with a motto, Spero meliora, which translates to 'I hope for better things.' I just thought it was hilarious and apt that the Lowe family motto pronounced to merely hope, while so many other family mottoes announce intentions to destroy, maim, annihilate, etc. The motto seemed like a weirdly accurate summation of my Irish Catholic ancestors, who were overall a suffering bunch, from coal miners to morphine addicts to alcoholics to religious fanatics to general melancholics. Better things--that’s not much to ask for, and they asked so nicely. It really killed me. "

Bridget was also kind enough to send us this poem:

Heaven

The villagers are reading hot guts
and drinking tonics. I’m relaxing
on a rock, sunning my midsection,
my delicate white legs.
The palm trees stand stiff
in the wind, archaic, shyly optimistic,
foreign. A Cuban boy
presents me with a muffin, his homeland
a mere neck’s-turn away.
My hair blows this way
and that, as if I’m the featured guest
in a music video from my childhood.
For every broken heart, one golf course.
Everything comes out even.
The birds call me by name
and while I’m distracted, fish heap themselves
into my basket. And the loaves,
the loaves! They multiply.

~ ~ ~

Bridget Lowe is the author of At the Autopsy of Vaslav Nijinsky (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2013). Her poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, The New Republic, Ploughshares, The Best American Poetry (2011), and elsewhere. She has received a "Discovery"/Boston Review award and fellowships to attend The MacDowell Colony and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. She lives in Kansas City.

Thanks to Bridget for sharing her poem and tattoo with us here on Tattoosday's Tattooed Poets Project!

This entry is ©2013 Tattoosday. The poem and tattoos 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.

Steve's Sleeve and the Narrative Behind It

Earlier this month, I was in the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn for a mixer for The Brooklyn Crescents lacrosse program.

The event was held at Der Schwarze Kolner, a beer garden that offered up some tasty beverages. Over the course of the evening, I noticed one of the employees who was diligently passing out frosty steins to patrons. I introduced myself and asked if I could photograph his sleeve:

Since Steve was working, I asked him to e-mail me with details about the tattoo, and he didn't disappoint, even sending along a collage of the sleeve so our readers could get a better look at the full scope of the artwork:

One of the aspects missing in both photos is this part, which I captured when Steeve bent his arm:

Steve explained:

"First, one needs to know that this tattoo was about 4-5 years in the making before I sat for my first session. So I definitely thought about it for a long while. It was originally inspired by a Bansky stencil in which a woman in a dress is shooting herself in the head. From this bloody mess emerges a number of butterflies. Interpret what you will... I took this to mean rebirth after death and the cleansing properties of fire. I had studied medieval alchemy heavily as a graduate student, and this symbolism of death and rebirth through flame resonated with me greatly. Plus, I know that each of us has a fiery  self-destructive side and I am no exception. I wanted to honor that side of myself and also to silently pay homage to those friends over the years that I have lost to suicide.

So working closely with Joy Rumore at Twelve 28 Tattoo in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, we designed the upper sleeve [that] would show a woman, slightly cartoon-like and pin-up styled, holding a gun to her head. Rather than a bloody mess like in the stencil, I wanted her face to be content and pretty. Her hair burns red and orange like the fire elemental she is. From the gun, which has been fired, emerges stars and smoke. From the smoke, moving down the sleeve, emerges a spiral galaxy and more stars in negative space. The bottom sleeve is dominated by a salamander and a phoenix inside of a retort.

These two creatures are mythical symbols of fire, as they both burn up and rise from their own ashes. Fire blows from the top of the retort, and a 1up Mario Mushroom [visible in the top photo at the bottom of the sleeve, near the wrist], the one overt pop-culture reference on my arm, comes forth again illustrating rebirth and 'extra' life after death. Other features of the sleeve are the bullet casing, which is haloed inside my elbow pit, and the final black star on the inside of my wrist, which has the alchemical symbol for Mercury within. Mercury is the activator, the 'invisible, secretly working fire' of the purification process. Lastly, the Latin words MUNDUS VULT DECIPI are inscribed on my arm. They translate to 'the world wishes to be deceived.' I agree with this saying, attributed to the Roman Petronius (1st c. AD), as many individuals live life 'asleep.' Only though the fire can one truly awake into a higher self.

Still, despite the short novel of meaning I find and imbue into this tattoo, overall it is a beautiful piece of art and I couldn't be happier with Joy's work. She was very patient with me as we completed the piece over the course of three years! Money ran tight at times and our schedules conflicted, but in truth the time allowed for us to work together and for the tattoo to organically take shape. For instance, the bottom sleeve was not designed at all when we began the top sleeve. I remember suggesting to Joy the idea of the 1up Mushroom blasting from the retort, only to have her laugh with enjoyment at how nicely it would bring things together. You know you have found an excellent tattoo artist when they are genuinely interested and excited to work to create a shared piece of art.

I guess that's my sleeve's story then. Oh, and by the way, the girl has no name and I doubt she ever will!"

Steve's praise for Joy Rumore is not unfounded. She's a remarkable artist who has had work featured on Tattoosday several times before (click here to link to all previous posts tagged with her shop).

I greatly appreciate Steve sharing his sleeve with us, and for taking the time to give us a full and thoughtful explanation of the design process. Thank you Steve!

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.

Joe's Motto: Ora et Labora

Last September, at my dear friend Jill's wedding, I met Joe, who is the father of Kathy (Jill's step-mother).

There wasn't a lot of visible ink at the wedding, but when Kathy saw me at the reception, she yelled "Hey, Tattoosday!" and brought Joe over to see me.

He held out his wrists and I snapped the photo above.

It was a bit noisy at the reception, but he basically said that this was his motto. In Latin, Ora et Labora  mean "pray and work," and as Joe tells it, all he does is work and pray. The phrase is attributed to Saint Benedict.

Kathy concurs, "I will tell you that he does is work and pray ... or tell us to work and pray ... it really is quite a theme with him."

This was tattooed at Godspeed Tattoo in Breckenridge, Colorado. Joe got these words inked on his wrists a few years back, when he was in his early seventies. Who says cool tattoos are just for the youth?

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


This entry is ©2012 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.

The Tattooed Poets Project: Shannon Phillips

Today's tattooed poet is Shannon Phillips. She has five tattoos, none of which are in color. All of them are on her back. She sent us a few photos so we could appreciate them:

I'll let Shannon tell their stories:

"I knew I wanted a tattoo, but the commitment to one idea was freaking me out.  However, I took an Art of Mexico class and when I learned the term 'Nepantla' I knew that was it. Nepantla is a term in Nahuatl that roughly means 'on the border' or 'in between.' It seemed perfect. I got the tattoo done at a place off Pacific Coast Highway in Sunset Beach, California. It was a birthday gift from an ex that I was still friends with.

The next tattoo I got was of a coyote ouroboros. I love the coyote as a trickster symbol in Native American myth and I was also very drawn to the symbolism behind the ouroboros, the life-death-life cycle. I did not relate to the more classic ouroboros images of a dragon or a snake so I asked a young artist named Natalie Robles to design the coyote ouroboros for me. The tattoo was done at Atomic Tattoo off Hollywood Boulevard [in Los Angeles].

On the drive to a wedding in Arizona, my friend and I decided to get almost-matching tattoos. It seemed that since we were both people who had tattoos that we should have at least one on a whim. It had to be something simple since we didn't have a chance to research the tattoo shop. We settled on cat silhouettes.

The next tattoo I had done [seen at the bottom of the back in the top photo above] was at a shop in Lake Forest, California.  While walking to class one day at Cal State Long Beach, a flyer grabbed my attention – it depicted an awareness ribbon designed to resemble an Asian character. I saw it and I simply knew.

My quid pro quo\ tattoo was done at Wicked Ink in Knoxville, Tennessee.  I had heard the phrase literally translated to 'what for whom' and I had known for some time I wanted a tattoo that embodied my fascination with the structure of power. Again, I wanted something simple because I hadn't researched the tattoo shop – I was on another trip. I chose a female tattoo artist because it occurred to me that all my previous tattoos had been done by men."

Shannon sent us three poems to consider and I selected this one:

To My Stretchmarks

Fossilized jelly fish tendrils.

Moon-colored veins,
chalk-scrawled tree roots,
icicle milk.

On my hips,
Nature tattoos lightning.

--originally published in RipRap #30, 2008

~ ~ ~

Shannon Phillips earned an MFA in creative writing from Cal State University Long Beach. Her work has been published in Pearl, Verdad, RipRap, Rectangle, and her poem “Plum” placed second in Beyond Baroque's First Ever Poetry Contest. She previously taught ESL for two years and now edits Carnival, an online literary magazine.

Thanks to Shannon for sharing her poem and all of her tattoos with us on Tattoosday. I'd also like to thank her for referring us to Eric Morago, who appeared on the Tattooed Poets Project here, earlier this month.

This entry is ©2012 Tattoosday. The poem and tattoos 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

Joe is Armed with Words of Strength

Last month on 86th Street in Brooklyn, I met Joe, who shared this cool tattoo on his right bicep:

Joe credited Matt Van Cura, formerly of Lark Tattoo. Matt now works out of Da Vinci Tattoo in Watagh, New York. 

Joe came in with an idea for this piece, armed only with the phrase "Increscunt animi virescit volnere virtus," and worked with Matt for a couple of hours as they pieced the art together. Be sure to click on the photo to get a larger view of the exceptional shading, line work and detail. 

When I asked what the Latin translated to, Joe told me it meant "the spirit grows, strength is restored through wounding." A little research on my end revealed that the exact translation,"the spirits increase, vigor grows through a wound," is a quote attributed to the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche from Die Götzen-Dämmerung (Twilight of the Idols).


Thanks to Joe for sharing this tattoo 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 can contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

Amanda's Phoenix

Amanda has two tattoos, one of which she shared with me at the end of August in the Penn Plaza Borders store.

This is the tattoo she designed:

Amanda was inspired by the "compelling mythology of phoenixes" and had Bobby at Modern Age Tattoo in Nanuet, New York, translate the design into the final product.

The quote, in Latin, "post tenebras lux" means "After darkness, light". This mirrors the life cycle of the mythological phoenix who dies, bound in flame, only to be reborn from the ashes. Clicking here will display the vast array of phoenixes that have appeared on Tattoosday previously.

In other words, even when things appear their darkest, affirmation is just within reach.

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

Tattoosday Goes to Hawai'i: In Nomine Patris

On my last day in Hawai'i, I was at Pearlridge, when I spotted a guy walking through Borders. The swirling script on his inner left forearm grabbed my eye:

This Latin phrase, "In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti " translates to "In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit".

Dustin, who serves in the Navy, is a Catholic, and he wanted something that expressed his faith. This is one of his three tattoos.

The tattoo was inked by Jeremie Miller at 3D Ink Tattoo Studio in Pensacola, Florida.

Thanks to Dustin for sharing his tattoo with us here at Tattoosday!

Two Tattoos From John: One for Superstition, One for Courage

Last Friday, I met John, who was in Penn Station in a t-shirt and shorts, certainly brave, considering the cold temperature outside.

He has four tattoos, and shared two with us. First, a four-leaf clover on his right elbow, which he got because he is superstitious:


And this Latin phrase "sine metu," which means "Without Fear" on his left forearm:


Both tattoos were inked by Eric Barrett, who currently works at Orange Tattoo Company in Annapolis, Maryland. Please note, I previously attributed this to a different artists named Eric in Annapolis. My apologies for the mix-up.

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

Cogito Chuck Robbins (Literary Ink)

Sometimes I abbreviate post titles and they seem nonsensical, like one of those captcha messages, or a subject line in a morsel of spam.

So I'm sticking with this title "Cogito Chuck Robbins" because I like the way it sounds. So there. It will all make sense eventually.

I met Chris outside of Penn Station one Friday afternoon, intrigued by his forearm tattoo:


"Cogito ergo sum" is a Latin phrase that means, in English, "I think, therefore, I am." It is attributed to the 17th Century French philosopher René Descartes.

This was the first of Chris' three tattoos. He is a philosophy and creative writing major at SUNY New Paltz. This phrase is the "missing link in a belief system," or, in his words, "what I always knew, but never knew".

The tattoo was done at a shop in East Meadow, New York.

Chris also has this dead bird near his right elbow:


Inked at Skin Deep Tattoo in Levittown, this is inspired by the art on the cover of Chuck Palahniuk's Lullaby.

Work from Skin Deep has appeared previously on Tattoosday here. Palahniuk also has quite a cult following, and his work is the most often represented in ink here on Tattoosday. Check out other Palahniuk tattoos here.

And Chris' third tattoo is based on the cover art from one of my favorite authors, Tom Robbins:


This echoes the front of the great book Still Life With Woodpecker, which has made many people a fan of the writer.


The piece, which was inked by Mike Vlad at Triple X Tattoo in Manhattan, is a subtle nod in appreciation of Robbins and his great book. Work from Triple X has appeared previously on Tattoosday here.

If you like these pieces, and are a fan of literary tattoos, you should certainly check out Contrariwise, a site dedicated solely to contributors' literary ink.

A hearty thanks to Chris for sharing his tattoos with us here on our site!

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!