HORFEE.

From now on, every Sunday i'm going to be sharing something with you that inspires me.. either art, fashion, music or other. Today i'd like to share some of Horfee's work with you guys. Growing up in France and being into grafitti as a young'in, I've always followed and been inspired by Horfee's work. From tagging the streets to painting on canvas, Horfee seems to be comfortable on any support and each of his design are so unique. Here is a video and a couple of pictures to get you familiar with his world. Enjoy…

Find more of Horfee's work on theartofhorfee.blogspot.com

Celebrating Five Years of Tattooed Poets

As many of you who have followed Tattoosday over the years, April is a special month here, where we feature, in honor of National Poetry Month, thirty days of tattooed poets.

It is astonishing to me that what I dreamed up in 2009 is now entering its fifth installment.

When I first reached out to Stacey Harwood at the Best American Poetry blog and asked if she and David Lehman would help promote the idea on their site, I worried that I would be able to find enough poets willing to participate. I didn't doubt the existence of tattooed verse-slingers, I just wondered if they'd be interested in sharing with a fledgling tattoo blog.

Fortunately for me, and for you, Dear Readers, my doubts were quickly dashed and this year, it looked as if we were going to have too many poets. Is there such a thing?

A nasty case of unemployment has left me with extra time to prepare the month so, on this March 31, I have pretty much prepared and scheduled the entire month. I do expect to be busy with stragglers to whom I had granted spots, and will now find themselves as part of double days of tattooed poets.

In general, posts will go up in the wee hours of the morning and, if there are two poet days, they will go live in the afternoon.

I can't begin to name everyone who has helped with this endeavor over the years, but I thank you for reading, and ask you to enjoy the month of April and the wide range of poets from all over the U.S. who will be seen here, in the flesh, and in the written line.

Enjoy!

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.

TIMOTHY.

Last week, the brother Timothy came to the studio for his very first tattoo. He had a special request.. The graphic was taken from a skateboard. Timothy started skateboarding in 1988 and discovered punk music that same year, so it was only logical for him to start his tattoo collection with the graphic design of one of his first Santa Cruz boards by Tom Knox.

Timothy owes everything to skateboarding, from meeting his wife, his friends his career and traveling all over the world. 

Myself being a skater, it was very exciting and inspirational to do this piece on such a genuine and humble man. 

"This image represents where I came from and embodies the spirit of youth- individuality and questioning the status quo. As my wife and I prepare to bring a new person into this world. I have truly been blessed in life, and I'm honored that you did the work for my first tattoo."  - Timothy

CESAR.

Yesterday Cesar was at the studio to get his Saint Michael piece. He drove all the way from Vegas to get his first tattoo. This piece is such a detailed and intricate design. It took me 10-11 hours to get it looking the way I wanted it to.

"It was a long and painful day but it was all worth it! Thank you!"

- Cesar

 ...By the way, here is a glimpse of one of the new hats we just received at the D9 reservoir.

GLEN.

Today my family and I kept working on the studio, building new furniture and arranging the layout. My homie LT also rolled through to show some love and gave us a sneak peak of how his Buddha back piece is healing, after having a session on it 2 weeks ago. I still have a long way to go but some progress is better than no progress. After the sun went down, my brother Gza hit me up to get some more work done on a piece I started a few weeks back. I couldn't say no! Here's what went down this evening..

I still have more work to do on it but here is a look of what we got done.

It looks like someone was tired...

STUDIO.

Tonight the fam and I spent a couple of hours painting my workshop area. It's a work in progress but full steam ahead and hopefully my private studio will be an inspiring and cosy space to work in. I'll keep you guys posted with some new pictures soon.

BERRICS.

The presentation on the new Emerica Andrew Reynolds shoes was held today at the New Berrics skatepark. All thanks to my brother Timothy, my homie Sergio and I got to pass through and ride the skatepark. There is nothing better after a long day tattooing, than to go and skate especially when its such a great spot. It was more than necessary to take a couple of shots of the park to share with you guys. Check it out...

We've Made Another List!

What can I say?

We were recently honored in a post over on Boar Skull, a site that sells plugs, body jewelry and organics.

We made their list of "Six Tattoo and Body Modification Blogs You Should be Reading".

I'm sure the six are not in any particular order, but we're #2 and, anytime Tattoosday is spoken in the same breath with the good people over at Needles & Sins, we're in damn fine company.

Hold on to your tattoo-loving hats, people. Spring is in the air, and the Tattooed Poets Project, Volume V, is a week away!

Inkspotting in the Media: Daisy Shares a Horse Tattoo

Way back in January 2012, I was reading an article in The New York Times called "Continuing Education, At the Bar" which reported on the growing popularity of educational events in NYC watering holes, citing "The Secret Science Club" as one of the more popular of these phenomena.

The club's Carnivorous Nights annual Taxidermy Contest was the event that really stood out, and the Times article was accompanied by a slide show, featuring club members posing with their contest entries.

Several participants were sporting tattoos. As it was January, a "slow" time of year for Tattoosday, I thought it would be cool to perhaps reach out to some of these individuals and see if anyone might be interested. It could be a new series of sorts, say "Inkspotting in the Media," for lack of a better term.

One person I selected was Daisy Tainton:

I noticed she had a tattoo on her arm and, well, she looked pretty cool, so I found her on Facebook, and sent her a message inviting her to be on Tattoosday.

I didn't hear back from her until eight months later, last September, with a note apologizing that it took so long to respond, but my message had been delegated to one of Facebook's sub-folders.

To make a long story longer, the passed time had addled my memory, and I thought Daisy was a straggling tattooed poet, who was responding to one of my inquiries for the Tattooed Poets Project, for which I send out numerous inquiries every year. I politely told her I would reach out to her in the winter, when I started working on the following April's installment.

Well, ultimately, this was all sorted out, but only after Daisy had sent me photos of a tattoo on her upper left arm, just shortly after it had been inked:

Here's the tattoo in better detail:

Daisy explains:

"I saw a lamp in the window of Housing Works, snapped a photo through the grate (they were closed and the items in the window were to be sold upon store opening) and sent it to my good friend Nathan Burke. He drew it as a tattoo, and my boyfriend at the time fine-tuned it before I took it to Annie [Lloyd] and Three Kings Tattoo [in Brooklyn]."

Daisy tells us:

"I am an Insect Preparator at the American Museum of Natural History. I love insect jewelry because it showcases nature's beauty and bounty -- and I feel good about using beetles that were farm raised instead of harvested wild. This way they get to live their full lives in peace and then live on as exquisite adornments in loving homes.

In addition, I have the pleasure of being a yearly entrant and award-winner in the Carnivorous Nights Brooklyn Taxidermy Contest, where in years past I have displayed many ridiculous and whimsical items ranging from beetle dioramas to antique fur coat sculptures to jewelry."

Here are some more great links about the Carnivorous Nights events:

This is a great video from Daily Motion:

New York hosts annual taxidermy contest by afpenglish

And a piece in The Wall Street Journal online.

And this post which has a photo of one of Daisy's dioramas.

Thanks to Daisy Tainton for sharing her tattoo and introducing us to the art of competitive taxidermy!

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.

Body Art Expo March 22-March 24

Body Art Expo Website

 Premium Tattoo will be exhibitors at the Body Art Expo next weekend! If you are interested in booking an appointment with Matt, Brett, or Danielle during the convention give us a call at (510) 922-8901. Great shops, fun vendors, and friendly competition!  Follow the link under the above image to the Body Art Expo website for further information involving directions and hours of operation. Due to our participation in the expo, Premium Tattoo will be closed Friday, March 22 thru Monday, March 25. We will open our doors again Tuesday at 11am. See you at the Body Art Expo!

Re-Post: A Piece of Tattoosday Pi

The following post appeared in October 2009, and I've been meaning to re-post it, but I always forget. This year, on 3/14, I remembered while it was still "Pi Day":

I was on the 34th Street subway platform, waiting for a downtown N express train, when I met Joe who had a series of numbers inked around his arm:


I asked him if the digits represented his social security number (don't laugh, I've heard it has been done) and he shook his head and rolled up his sleeve to reveal the top of the tattoo:


This, of course, is the value of π (pi), which mathematicians have determined, possesses an infinite number of decimal places.

As a physics enthusiast, he loves what pi represents. He told me, as the "meaning of symbols change a lot, what better [to have tattooed] than a transcendental constant?"

Despite π's infinite number of decimals, he only has the tattoo calculated out to 27 places because, he said, it was "all I could afford" at the time.



Later, Joe e-mailed me and gave me more specifics. The tattoo was done at Utopia in Huntington, New York (out on Long Island). I can't find a current listing foe the shop, so it may no longer be in business. And, Joe said, "the font is Times New Roman, the π symbol is 180pt font (π in degrees) and the numbers are 90pt font (π/2 in degrees)".
This careful selection of font size only emphasizes Joe's commitment to the purity of this πtattoo.

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

This entry is ©2009, 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.

New Tattoos

 New pieces by Matt Decker
and Brett Baumgart!

Large line work piece on Allison. Tattoo by Matt Decker.

Gears tattoo by Matt Decker

Tribute tattoo on Mickey. Tattoo by Matt Decker.

Tattoo by Matt Decker

Johnny Cash leg piece on long time client Brady

Alicia Keyes signed and Brett Tattooed.

Alligator tattoo started by Brett, color to follow. Big thanks to Craig for traveling from New York for some ink!

Small memorial tattoo in progress. 3 hours in another 4 hours to go.

Small back of the neck tattoo on Teddy from the uptown.