Born on the Third of July (Dispatch from the Urban Tattoo Convention, Part 2)

When I went to the NYC Urban Tattoo Convention last weekend, I was expecting a lot, but I wasn't anticipating walking out with a fresh new tattoo. It was an early birthday surprise, to say the least.

My night changed for the better when, turning a corner, I ran into Phil Phlash aka Phil Sheridan aka inkone aka Flex Sinatra. Phil and I worked together years ago, before he left for bigger and better things. He left the office and picked up a tattoo machine, but before he did, we had many office conversations about tattoos, and he was an early fan of Tattoosday.

Fast forward to Saturday night at the UTC, Phil and I were catching up, and he asked me if I wanted to get tattooed. I knew he had recently started working at Tuff City Tattoos and was trying to figure out how to make it to the Bronx, when he clarified, "No, tonight."

I've been following Phil's work on the various social media and have seen his talents develop over the years. It had always crossed my mind that, one day, he might be adding to my collection, but it was not in my immediate plans. Until now.

Phil brought me back to his booth, and he showed me a flash book of some classic old-school traditional designs. If you check him out on Instagram (under Flex_Sinatra), you'll see that his traditional work is solid, and his tattoos are done with confidence and passion. My head was spinning as he suggested designs, I kept wanting to defer to his better judgment. This wasn't going to be a tattoo with great, complicated meaning. It was, however, going to be my first tattoo inked by a friend.

He turned a page and showed me an eagle. His face lit up. Mine did as well. It was decided. We figured out the particulars and the placement, and when I came back a bit later, the stencil seemed to have grown. This was no little Sailor Jerry shark; this was a big piece going on the side of my calf.

When all was said and done, this was the final result, a traditional American Bald Eagle:

What better way to celebrate my upcoming birthday, on the eve of Independence Day, than with a traditional  piece of American flash?

I even captured a snippet of the convention chaos while getting tattooed:

And, after we were done, Phil and I went around showing our work off to fellow convention-goers. Despite his expression below, he was fairly pleased with the end result:

Self-Inflicted Photo with Phil Phlash

I still have lots more to report from the UTC, so stay tuned. This moment, however, was the high point of the show, for obvious reasons.

Thanks to Phil Phlash for this awesome new tattoo in my collection!

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.

Marianna Shares the First Rose of Spring

Today is the first day of spring! It's always a joyous time here at Tattoosday, as the temperatures rise and all the tattoos of my fellow New Yorkers come out of hibernation.

Last week we were experiencing a lovely end-of-winter day with warm temperatures and I encountered this lovely first rose of spring on the F train:

This rose, on the upper left arm of a woman named Marianna, was just popping off of her skin having been freshly inked the day before by the talented Eli Quinters at Smith Street Tattoo Parlour in Brooklyn. Eli's work has appeared previously on Tattoosday here and here.

Marianna had a lot of other interesting work in progress going on, so perhaps we shall see more from her in the future. In the mean time, however, we have this lovely rose which she offered up in celebration of the end of winter.

Thanks to Marianna for sharing her beautiful flower 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.

Work In Progress

This tattoo is gonna be awesome! I love the idea. Can't wait to see it shaded and colored!

Two for Tattoosday - Dave's Scalpflower and Bethany's Lonely Whale

A couple weeks back, I met Dave and Bethany outside of the Borders Penn Plaza in Manhattan. Both had amazing ink and shared some tattoos with us. Let's start with Dave's "scalpflower":

 

Dave explained that this floral tattoo on his scalp was inked by Mike Adams, who was doing a guest spot at Thicker Than Water in Manhattan.

Dave elaborated:

"We had talked about some ideas when I saw him [Mike Adams] at the Philadelphia Convention. We showed up [at Thicker than Water] and he just showed me some of the drawings of the tattoos he had recently done.

He had done another flower on someone else in the past week and I said 'Oh, let's do one of those.' He said, 'Yeah, that's awesome/ Let's do it.' "

Dave, who is approximately 70% covered in tattoos, had mostly been worked on by Tony Hundahl from Rock of Ages Tattoo in Austin, Texas. Hundahl has done both of Dave's sleeves (including the traditional segment pictured below), his chest, stomach, back, knees and one of his legs.

Dave added that, since moving to Washington D.C. recently, he started collecting work from other artists in the East.

Along with Dave, I met Bethany who, shared one of her more recent tattoos, this whale by Deno Jr.:

Deno Jr. works out of Circus Tattoo in Madrid, Spain, but had recently done a guest spot at Tattoo Paradise in D.C.

This tattoo is of this lonely whale, whose song is different from any other species, so it is an outcast, and she doesn't have a mate.

Thanks to Dave and Bethany for sharing their amazing tattoos 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.

Matthew Shares Two Tattoo, from Thailand and French Polynesia (by way of Biarritz, France)

I generally do not ask people about tribal designs because they are not particularly interesting to me. That is not to say they are not good, just that thy are not my cup of tea. But occasionally, an exception will come along, and I will be more than pleasantly surprised.

Take Matthew, for example. I spotted him sitting on Penn Plaza early last month, and something about his tribal piece on his left calf intrigued me:

Matthew, who is French, explained:

"I got it in Thailand in Ko Chang, which is an island at the frontier of Cambodia and Thailand ... it was done by a guy named 'Chung' - it was done in the old way of traditional Thai tattoo, which is with bamboo. So, basically, it lasts four hours and ... he put the bamboo in the ink ... between the thumb and the index [finger and] ... just tattooed ... three, four hours, all traditional.

I went there and I already had the symbol in my head. I wanted a little rooster face here (because I'm French, I like the rooster) ... then he first designed it with a pen and we agreed on the drawing ... then he began it and four hours later I had it and I don't regret it."

Then, Matthew totally blew me away when he raised his shirt to show me his other tattoo:

Matthew explained this amazing piece of tattoo craftsmanship:

"It was done in France just a few months ago by a guy who is from Wallis and Futuna, which is islands in French Polynesia l’Océanie polynésienne...  So, it's a symbol of a family, so here you see too little men [at center]:

that's my brother and my sister ... This is the symbol of the god ...

...which represents the man's strength. This is a ... lizard:

which, in the Polynesian culture, is a messenger of God, which looks behind you, in case of any danger."

Matthew also noted that the top section of the tattoo is in the shape of a silver fern, which is symbolic of New Zealand, and Maori tattoo traditions:

He also pointed out the traditional shark's teeth, which is a popular element in traditional Polynesian tattoo:

The Polynesian artist credited by Matthew for this tattoo is Soane Paninia, who works out of Polynesian Cultural in Biarritz, France.

Matthew also told me that "normally, the traditional Polynesian tattoo are much more thicker, but through the Western influence, they now are very thin ... I asked for a thinner one, because I preferred this way."

A very special "merci beaucoup" to Matthew for taking the time to show and explain his tattoos to me. I may have missed an element of two, but nonetheless, both pieces are spectacular in their own ways.

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.