Anna's Amazing Half-Sleeve Honors Her Brothers and Where They Have Lived

Yesterday we saw work from an Italian artist, today we are admiring ink I spotted on the subway last month that originated in Sweden.

I met Anna on the West 4th Street platform and hopped on the F train toward Brooklyn just to have a moment to talk to her and find out a little about her tattoos:

Anna explained the concept as a family-related sleeve. The two faces that are featured in the hot air balloons are portraits of her brothers, Mike and John. The maps that appear as background represent many of the places they have lived, like Japan, Peru, and Puerto Rico.

She credited this stunning work to Vilda Nordström at Vild@art in Vårgårda, Sweden. Check out their Facebook page here. Vilda's work is very impressive!

Thanks to Anna for sharing her 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.

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.

Jasmin's Phoenix Keeps Her Grounded

As the year winds down, I am clearing out the cobwebs - a hodgepodge of posts that just didn't make the grade. What causes an encounter from May to be delayed over seven months? Several things, like, in this case, a photo that just didn't make the grade. Further problematic is a subject's non-working e-mail address, and a credited artist who is not listed on the attributed shop's website.

Still, I hate to just totally abandon a piece, so we'll just go with what we have...

I met Jasmin just outside of Penn Station and she let me photograph this tattoo:

This is a phoenix that Jasmin got in 2010. It doubly keeps her grounded and represents her rise from the ashes.She told me she wanted the "girliest-looking phoenix," something "light and wispy".


The two phrases in the banners are "Ut prosim aliis" and "Il buon tempo".

"Ut prosim aliis" is the motto on her family (Jennings) crest and translates to "that I may be of use to others," or, in Jasmin's words, "that I might profit others".

She told me that "il buon tempo" meant "each new day is bright," but it is more commonly translated from the Italian as "good times".

She credited the work of this tattoo to an artist named Zack at Psycho Tattoo 2 in Atlanta.

Thanks to Jasmin 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 contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

Musician Monday: A Trio of Tattoos from Justin Y. of Everyone Dies in Utah

 Back in May, I met Justin in the Borders at Penn Plaza and he shared his three tattoos. Justin had recently been signed to a band from Texas called Everyone Dies in Utah and he was moving out from Maryland. He offered up his knuckle tattoos:

Justin has been playing drums for about eleven years and loves drums, which explains these knuckles. Of course, I would be remiss if I mentioned knuckle tattoos and didn't direct you to KnuckleTattoos.com to see more, courtesy of my friend Nathan.

The most compelling tattoo Justin shared was this piece, on his right forearm:

He explained:

"I have a little sister, she's ten now, but it was last year, so she was nine, and she was all bummed that I was moving really far and touring and stuff, so I told her I would get a tattoo for her ... I was trying to think of what would be absolutely unique, and the only thing I could think of was fingerprints. So, I decided it would be cool to get her hand print, so I went out and got a big old ink pad and did her hand print on a piece of paper, took it in, and he [Jason Kramer at Positive Image Tattoos in Baltimore] did all of his magic and got it done."

Justin's third tattoo was this piece on his left forearm:

He told me

"I love Jesus ... simple as that. I was thinking about doing a whole arm, faith-based kind of thing, and I ike the ides of just being able to walk into a room and people know exactly like, well, that guy's definitely a Christina and he's for serious ... It's a good starting piece to talk to people."

All of Justin's work is by Jason Kramer at Positive Image Tattoos in Baltimore.

Be sure to check out Everyone Dies in Utah on Facebook here.

Thanks to Justin for sharing his cool ink 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 contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.