Caitlin's Faulknerian Tattoo and Language

This past summer, while attending the 2nd Annual New York City Poetry Festival on Governor's Island, I saw a lot of great ink. I have a soft spot for word tattoos, and was drawn to this one, on the back of Caitlin:

This reads, in Latin, "Et ego in Arcadia."

"It's actually grammatically incorrect, but it's as it appears in a Faulkner novel [The Sound and the Fury] ... something Quentin's father says to him," Caitlin told me. "And," she added, "he says it with that wording, but it's really supposed to be Et in Arcadio ego."

Loosely interpreted, she understands it to mean "I am even in paradise."

When I asked her why she had that phrase tattooed on her, Caitlin elaborated:

"It's difficult to say ... I just think, reading Faulkner, when I was a teenager was sort of the first time that I realized what language could do. I thought ... it had certain constraints ... that is part of why I chose the saying from the Faulkner novel, I also liked the idea that ... language is fluid, there aren't really rules to it. We're changing language every day ... It's sort of comforting, walking around New York City and you see, like, all of these signs and they have grammatical errors in them ... it's sort of comforting to think of language as this living, breathing thing."

She had this done at White Rabbit Tattoo Studio in the East Village.

Thanks to Caitlin for sharing this literary tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2012 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.

Swallowing the Sun(day)

As I mentioned a couple days ago, back in July, I attended the 2nd Annual New York City Poetry Festival on Governor's Island. One of the people I met was Anthony, who shared this tattoo on his arm:

Anthony explained that this is an eagle, swallowing the sun. It represents being part of the earth and the sky, being one with the universe.

He credited the work to Flying Ace! Scotty Lowe at Shotsie's Tattoo in Wayne, NJ

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

This entry is ©2012 Tattoosday.

If you are reading 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.

Caitlin Shares an Undersea Cover Up

Back in July, I attended the 2nd Annual New York City Poetry Festival on Governor's Island. Not only did I meet some great tattooed poets, I met a lot of other folks too. The festival had a few of Brooklyn's famous food trucks lined up, serving people hungry for grub and verse.

One of these vehicles was the Kimchi Taco Truck, and Caitlin, one of the truck's employees, shared this cool cover-up on her back:

Caitlin got this tattoo at East Side Ink from Patrick Conlon, who she picked because he was from San Francisco, which is where she is from as well.

She explained that the piece is a cover-up. "I had a really janky tattoo of a star back there," she said, "that's where the starfish is." She had Patrick do the whole design and turn it into a seascape.

Patrick also works at Graceland Tattoo in Brooklyn, His work has been featured previously on Tattoosday here and here.

Thanks to Caitlin for sharing her work with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2012 Tattoosday.

If you are reading 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.

Bailey's Pocket Watch at the New York City Poetry Festival

Last month I had the pleasure of attending the second annual New York City Poetry Festival on Governor's Island. I met some great tattooed poets, but I also ran into a few tattooed poetry fans, one of whom was Bailey, who has this cool tattoo on her foot:

The chain from this pocket watch runs up and around part of her calf, which makes this piece even neater. Bailey explains:

"It's the White Rabbit's pocket watch from Alice in Wonderland ... It's always been my favorite story and something that's stuck with me for a long time ... and I thought it was going to be the only tattoo that I got, so I wanted to get something big and meaningful."

I asked her if there was a significance to the time shown on the watch. She confirmed, "Yeah, it's 3:36, it was a time that connected with this band that I was really into and I wanted to make a little tribute without doing their logo and when [the artist] actually put the hands on the clock, he looked up to see where they were placed and it was 3:36."

The band in question? AFI. 336 is the name of one of their EPs. And, as it turned out, Bailey didn't stop with the pocket watch, she also has two sparrows at the top of her chest.

She credited this tattoo to "Pee Wee" at Bolder Ink in Boulder, Colorado.

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

This entry is ©2012 Tattoosday.

If you are reading 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.