Serenity from Anthony

I spotted Anthony's ink while biking along the Belt Parkway promenade at the end of May.

Always a fan of word tattoos, I stopped him while he was jogging and he was kind enough to stop and allow me to snap the photo above.

It was only after I got a chance to see it that I recognized the top verse as what is commonly called the Serenity Prayer:

God Grant me

the serenity to accept

the things I cannot change

courage to change

the things I can

and wisdom to

know the difference.

When I asked why he chose the Serenity Prayer as a tattoo, he said, "I think it's a good way to look at life, every day, with a positive attitude."

I am not as familiar with the passage below it

Living one day at a time

Enjoying one moment at a time

Accepting hardships as

the pathway to peace

It turns out that those four lines are the next in the sequence of the verse composed by Reinhold Niebuhr, from which the Serenity Prayer was adopted.

He credited an artist named Omar at a shop on Christopher Street in Manhattan with these tattoos. It likely could have been Tattoo Heaven.

Thanks to Anthony 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.

SWEET FACE.

Have a look on this portrait i did couple days ago.

Dave's Unusual Skull

Just a quick post for Friday.

Earlier this week, I met Dave on the West 4th Street platform and took a picture of this tattoo on his leg:

I like this skull because it's so unusual. It has the feel of a sugar skull, but it's not quite, It's certainly not your typical piece, and the neon colors really make it jump off the skin.

He got this about three years ago at a shop in Atlanta called the Ink Spot.

Thanks to Dave for sharing this cool tattoo 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.

Laici's Astrological Cluster

I met Laici last month outside of Penn Station, near the corner of 33rd Street and 8th Avenue. I was intrigued by this design on her upper right arm:

This design consists of several symbols from the Zodiac.

Laici explained, "My dad's a Cancer, my mom's an Aries, my sister and I are Scorpios, and my brother is a Sagittarius."


She designed this piece herself by combining the four symbols into a cohesive design:

The four elements combined on her arm to represent her family unit. It's a neat concept and it is executed rather nicely. I especially like how she combined the last two parts, Scorpio and Sagittarius, to form one fluid symbol that encapsulates her and her siblings together.

Thanks to Laici for sharing her tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!


This entry is ©2012 Tattoosday.

The four Zodiac symbols illustrated above were linked from TattooSymbol.com.

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.

Busy! Busy!

May and June have been super busy at the shop! What an exciting summer! Brett Baumgart had an amazing art opening at Geo Kayes! His show lassoed him a nice write up in the East Bay Express! We are preparing for the Body Art Expo at the Cow Palace in August....lots of sign making! Heres a sampling of whats been going on at the shop....

East Bay Express Write up on Brett 

TATTOO BY BRETT BAUMGART 

TATTOO BY BRETT BAUMGART 

TATTOO BY MATT DECKER

TATTOO BY MATT DECKER

TATTOO BY MATT DECKER

TATTOO BY DANIELLE SILVA

TATTOO BY DANIELLE SILVA

Originals!

Ok, as i mentioned in my last post, we decided to sell the original witch paintings from Saturdays flash day, since they're such a good little size, and we figured it'd be a nice opportunity for people to grab an Uncle Allan original (god knows there aren't too many of them around!)

So here are the ones we have left.
Size is approximately 10.5 cm x 14.7 cm.
If you're interested, send an email to conspiracyinctattoo@gmail.com and we'll take it from there!

Update: all of the paintings have been sold!
Thanks for the interest, we hope they'll look all pretty in their new homes!

Sierra's Mayflower in June

Last month, I found myself at the corner of 86th Street and 5th Avenue in Manhattan, waiting for the crosstown bus.

I looked over to my right and saw a tattoo with incredible line work:

This tattoo belongs to Sierra, who was kind enough to send me a photo of the tattoo later that evening. She also told me a little more about the piece:

"My tattoo is of the Mayflower. My parents took me to Plymouth a lot as a child and it fostered a great love of American History. I wanted something to commemorate that. I chose this scale drawing because I wanted something 'antique-ish' and not to 'pirate-y'."

Sierra credits the talented Mark Harada at East Side Ink with this amazingly well-lined work. "I love [his] work," she wrote me, "and do plan to have him do another for me in the future."

Thanks to Sierra for sharing her Mayflower 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.

Anna's Ship, With a Nod to a Favorite Song

Yesterday I posted Bjorn's Michael Jackson Thriller tattoo. When I met him, walking on the Coney Island Boardwalk, he was accompanied by Anna, who also had quite a few tattoos. She offered up this one on her left thigh:

The banner around this classic ship tattoo reads "Yo no soy marinero soy el capitán."

This is a refrain from the Richie Valens song "La Bamba," and is translated as "I am not a sailor, I am a captain." This was Anna's favorite song when she was a kid.

She credited this cool tattoo to Nick Caruso, when he was at Flyrite Tattoo in Brooklyn. Nick has since left Flyrite and opened up Bound for Glory Tattoo in Staten Island.

Thanks to Anna for sharing this awesome tattoo 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.

Remembering the King of Pop, Three Years Later

It's hard to believe that it has been three years since Michael Jackson's tragic passing. It only seems fitting that we pay our respects by sharing this tattoo, which illustrates the King of Pop in one of his most famous incarnations: a zombie in Michael Jackson's Thriller.

This piece belongs to Bjorn, who I met earlier this month, out on the Coney Island boardwalk.

The tattoo is inked by Alex McWatt at Three Kings Tattoo in Brooklyn. It was part of one of their Friday the 13th tattoo extravaganzas.

Thanks to Bjorn for sharing this timely tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

And just because it is such a timeless video, here is Michael Jackson's Thriller:

 

This entry is ©2012 Tattoosday. The video is (C) 1982 MJJ Productions Inc.

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.

Wicked witches

Boy, are we tired today, but yesterday was so much fun!
Sadly, i didn't take many (ahem, any) pictures during the day, but i do have tattoo pictures, at least.
But the shop looked pretty good too! Not Halloween good, but we had some serious candle action going on... and snacks. Lot's of snacks!
Allan kept busy all day on only breakfast and one short break between tattoos, cause he's a friggin machine, so he managed to do eight fantastic witch tattoos. It would have been seven if one of our regulars hadn't showed up sometime around 1 am when we were actually on our way home, but on walk-in day, there's always time for one more!

We got to meet some awesome folks and we even got some cool presents that i'll try to remember to photograph when we're back at the shop... pretty awesome stuff!
We wanna thank everyone who came out, to hang or get tattooed, we really appreciate it and hope you'll want to join us for the next walk-in day too! 

Here are, in no particular order, yesterdays tattoos... sorry if some are bloody or blurry, but there wasn't really time to let anyone bleed off!

Oh, and by the way, the original flash paintings Allan did for the event are for sale, and i'll post pictures here on the blog next week.
They're a cute little size at a reasonable price, and a pretty great opportunity to own an original Uncle A if you ask me.
But more on that later... tattoos!

Oh, and we missed you Chriss, you better make it up here soon!

Update from the Mermaid Parade, 2012

Yesterday I attended the 30th Annual Coney Island Mermaid Parade. It was my first excursion to Coney Island for this specific occasion and, let me say, it is sensory overload, especially if you are interested in tattoos.

Fueled by Coney Island lager, I managed to meet a few people, take photos, and even get some ink stories for future enjoyment. What you'll see here today are pictures of people and tattoos of folks who I have no information on. I gave them cards and fliers, so I'm hoping seeing their photos here will prompt them to reach out to me so I can give their tattoos proper Tattoosday treatments.

First I want to share my favorite pic of the day:

That would be a sailor kissing a mermaid. But I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the cool New York City tattoo, with the Chrysler Building prominently displayed.

Here's a random shot from the parade on Surf Avenue:

I snapped this tattoo on the Boardwalk:

After taking this picture, I turned on my voice recorded and said, "Bailey Robinson, um, out on the Boardwalk. I have no idea what I just took a picture of. It was really cool and there's tattoos everywhere. Bye."

A day later, I can clarify this. It's obviously a circus lady sitting on an elephant. Bailey Hunter Robinson is a Brooklyn-based tattoo artist, and he actually posted this piece on his website when he first outlined it here.

From the Boardwalk I headed to the Tattoo Shot Lounge to cool off and regroup.

Hanging out there, I met a lot of people, two of whom shared their tattoos. The place was loud and I have no information on these tattoos:

I did find out that "Attempting to discover where to begin" were song lyrics and a little research reveals that the words are from the song "Waiting" by an artist named City and Colour.

Perhaps I'll hear from these inked women who can give me a little more info about their tattoos.

I also met Katy, who got this tattoo in Arizona:

And from the inside of her arm:

Stay tuned in the weeks ahead to see more tattoos spotted at the parade.

Thanks to all of the participants in the Coney Island Mermaid Parade who allowed me to photograph them, and who spoke to me about their tattoos!

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.

Coney Island on My Mind

Earlier this month I met Jamie outside of Macy*s on 34th Street. She has eight tattoos and shared this fantastic piece on her inner right arm:

Jamie got this because she is from Brooklyn and, like most Brooklynites, Coney Island has a special place in her heart. The piece is a collage of all the Coney Island icons, from the Cyclone, to the Wonder Wheel, the Parachute Jump, with the Boardwalk and the famous grinning face of Tillie, which has become an image synonymous with the location.

She credited freelance artist, Jack Jerz, with this tattoo.

Thanks to Jamie for sharing her slice of Coney Island 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.

Update for saturday, and not the best kind...

Guys, bad news, Chriss Dettmer has had to cancel and is not coming on Saturday after all.
We're super bummed, but he had no choice, and he's working on finding some dates where he can visit and make it up to you.

We are not cancelling Anti-Sankt Hans, but since it's only gonna be Uncle Allan tattooing, there will, for obvious reasons, not be time for as many tattoos as we'd hoped.
So, there's no guarantee that you can get tattooed if you show up, and we might have to prioritize anyone coming from farther away than the Copenhagen area, but we'll try our best to make time for as many tattoos as possible.

It's gonna be an open event, anyone is welcome to drop by and check out the shop and grab a beer or something, and hopefully the weather will be great so we can throw something on the barbeque later.

See you Saturday!

Ps. If there's time we'll post a flash preview on twitter (@conspiracyinctattoo) and instagram (@unclea), if not, it'll be a surprise!


dk: Triste nyheder, Chriss Dettmer er blevet nødt til at aflyse på lørdag.
Han arbejder på at finde et tidspunkt hvor han kan komme herop og arbejde, så det sker forhåbentligt snart.
Vi aflyser ikke, men dersom det kun er Uncle Allan der skal tatovere på lørdag, bliver der af åbenlyse grunde nok ikke tid til så mange tatoveringer som vi havde håbet på.
Vi vil selvfølgelig gøre vores bedste for at der bliver tid til alle, men der er altså ingen garanti for at man kan blive tatoveret hvis man dukker op, og vi bliver også nødt til at give lidt særbehandling hvis der er nogen der kommer langvejs fra.

Det er et åbent arrangement, så du er velkommen til bare at kigge forbi og hænge lidt ud. 
Vi håber på godt vejr så vi måske endda kan grille lidt.


Håber vi ses!

Ps. Vi lægger måske et flash preview på vores twitter (@conspiracyinctattoo) og instagram (@unclea) men hvis ikke vi når det, må det blive en overraskelse!

Nicky Shares a Famous Mermaid

With mermaids on the mind, how about this tattoo from Nicky?

I spotted Ariel, aka The Little Mermaid, on Nicky's arm while walking through Penn Station last month.

When I asked him why he got this tattoo, he replied that she was "my favorite since I was little - she's awesome." He credited an artist named Dan at Cliff's Tattoo in Long Island.

Thanks to Nicky for sharing this cool tattoo 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.

Lindsay's Mermaid Kicks off Summer

Well, it's officially summer and we are expecting a scorcher here today in New York City.

I wanted to share a tattoo that would fit the theme, but I've been looking ahead to this Saturday's Mermaid Parade in Coney Island.

A couple weeks ago I rode my bike out to the boardwalk and was rewarded with a lot of sharing tattooed people. So, with the parade on the horizon and summer in the air, let's meet Lindsay and one of her tattoos:

Lindsay explained that she went to Black Cat Tattoos in Pittsburgh and consulted with the artist, Jason Lambert:

"I went to him and  ... told him my idea ... I wanted to go with the siren/mermaid theme, with like drunken sailors, luring them out to sea, and he drew it up and it went from there ... so this is original artwork."

Thanks to Lindsay for sharing this wonderful work 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.

Alfredo Shares a Sugar Skull with a Family Twist

I ran into Alfredo last month in Penn Station and he shared this tattoo:

He credited this to an artist named Sy at Sunset Park Tattoo.

Alfredo, who has "over 23" tattoos, told me that this traditional sugar skull is embellished with a hairstyle modeled after the way his mother wore her hair on her wedding day. The rose at the edge of the tattoo is in tribute to his grandmother.

Thanks to Alfredo for sharing his ink 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.

Spiro Shares a Cool John Lennon Tattoo

Being that today is Paul McCartney's birthday, I thought I would share this tattoo of John Lennon, since he and Paul are considered one of the greatest songwriting duos in popular music.

This tattoo was spotted in Penn Station earlier this month, on the back of an arm belonging to Spiro.

He got this piece done by Dave Lopez at Ron & Dave's Tattooing in Staten Island. Spiro explained that he went in with a basic idea and that Dave drew up the design and had a stencil ready in no time. It should be noted that the musical notes seen above wrap around the upper arm.

Spiro told me, "I'm a huge Beatles fan ... more John Lennon and what he stood for and his message ... so I kinda try to live by that." He added, "I'm like a little hippie born in the wrong generation."

According to Spiro, the artist Dave's mother is a huge John Lennon fan, so he was super passionate about the design of the tattoo. It always helps when your artist shares your enthusiasm for a tattoo idea!

Thanks to Spiro for sharing this cool John Lennon tattoo 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.

Happy Father's Day from Tattoosday!

In honor of the day, I am re-posting a piece I featured on Father's Day in 2009:

Last week, I posted about a trio of friends that had recently moved from San Francisco to New York, all of them inked.

Jake was the first of the three to share his tattoo with us, and it is such a good piece, I saved it for a special occasion, Father's Day:



This is, of course, a portrait of the great comedian Redd Foxx. People of my generation (X) remember him as the bristling curmudgeon in the sitcom "Sandford and Son".


For those who are unfamiliar with the series, the show is about a widower, Fred Sanford (Foxx), raising his adult son Lamont (played by Desmond Wilson), and their junkyard business. It was a breakthrough show that was one of the first on network television to feature a minority cast.

The father-son dynamic is an ongoing theme, and Jake recalls watching the show with his dad and it being a bonding experience.

His father passed away about four years ago this month from cancer. The tattoo is not only a tribute to the great comedian, but a reminder of the times Jake spent watching "Sandford and Son" with his dad. Jake added, "I'm pretty sure if [my dad] was still around, he would get a kick out of seeing Redd Foxx on my calf."

This amazing portrait was tattooed on the back of Jake's right calf by Greg Rojas at Everlasting Tattoo in San Francisco.

As we celebrate Father's Day today, I thank Jake for sharing this awesome tattoo with us here, and invite everyone to revisit the host of tattoos previously posted on Tattoosday that pay tribute to dads. Click here to see the lot.

And, as a special treat, in the spirit of the day, I present the following clip:



Happy Father's Day from Tattoosday!

If you want more dad-related ink, check out this link which will show you all of Tattoosday's posts with a "father" tag.

Have a great day, all!

This entry is ©2009, 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.