Sunday, March 10, 2013

Tattoosday Goes to L.A.: Alisonna Shares a Little Hawai'i at LAX

Despite the fact that my flight was boarding, I was at the next gate over, talking to Alisonna.

My trip to Los Angeles was pretty much over, but I spotted Alisonna's foot and couldn't resist one last interview. Having been raised in Honolulu, this tattoo was an added bonus:


Despite my initial guess that this was a gecko, Alisonna clarified:
"Have you ever heard of ʻaumākua? It's a family guardian. Hawaiians believe in family guardians ... there's multiples, like geckos, sharks, turtles ... Gecko is mine, and so I decided to put it on my foot, on me left side, actually because in Hawaiian culture, your left side is your man side and your right side is your woman side ... the two orchids are for my ... parents, and this right here, the lauhala [the curved fragment above the two orchids] is for the family."
She credited the work to an artist called "Nae" who had worked at 808 Tattoo Studio in Kāneʻohe, Hawai'i.

A warm mahalo to Alisonna for sharing her guardian tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

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.

Friday, March 8, 2013

That time Wendy and Matthew moved to Berlin to work at Conspiracy Inc.

Ok, so now that we've gotten the boring waiting list stuff out of the way (thanks for all the fun requests we've received already, btw), we can move on to more fun things!
Like the reason we've decided that the shop needs to be finished the 26th of this month, and excuse me while i have a panic attack, cause AAAAHHHH, not possible!
Uhm, sorry, back to the point: the reason we want the shop to be done-done, is because our Aussie buddies Wendy Pham and Matthew Gordon are arriving in Berlin and will be working at the shop starting April 1st.
And yes, you can book with them already!
Just send them an email with all your spectacularly interesting ideas, and they'll get back to you when they're ready to start booking.
They'll probably be here for about a year, or at a minimum 6 months, so you can book larger stuff too, not just puny one shots.

We're really looking forward to working with these guys again, and showing them Berlin (or you know, the coffee shop, cause really, when do we have time to see Berlin?), and we hope y'all have some fun tattoos for them to do.

Here are their emails, go go go: matthewgordon@live.com.au and wendy_p@live.com.au


 Tattoo by Matthew

Painting by Matthew

 Tattoo by Matthew

Painting by Matthew 

 Painting by Wendy

Tattoo by Wendy

Painting by Wendy

Tattoo by Wendy

See more of Wendy's work here and more of Matthew's work here.

Congrats to Our freestyleXtreme.com Winners!

As promised, we drew two winners from those of you who entered the giveaway we were running with freestyleXtreme.com!

Congrats to Linda B. and Gina!


Linda chose this shirt:


and Gina chose this one:


Thanks to the good people at freestyleXtreme.com for partnering with us in this promotion!

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.

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Opening the waiting list

Ok, i'm about to open the waiting list again, so for all those interested in getting tattooed by Uncle Allan in the probably-not-so-near-future, please take the time to read all of the following carefully.

Ready?
First of all, as it says further down, there will be no time frame given when you sign up.
We'll try to get to everybody, but that takes time, so if you only have the patience to wait a couple of weeks or months, or expect weekly updates on your place on the list, please don't write us.
This could take years.
I've had a bit of trouble in the past with people who sign up, and when i write them to set a date after about two years, they decline because they have no money. That's just silly. When you sign up to get tattooed, you should either have the money to get tattooed, or start saving. If that's not something you're able to do, don't write us.
I've also experienced people being rather rude when i'm finally able to offer them an appointment.
That's not acceptable. We're not making you wait for fun, and short of cloning Uncle Allan, there's really no way to get people in faster. The people who don't reply at all are bad enough, so just don't be a dick.
Alright! Now that's out of the way, please continue reading, and if you feel like you still wanna come visit us in Berlin and get tattooed when you get to the end, go ahead and email us.

To get tattooed by Allan, you'll need to send a request pr email to his waiting list.
The waiting list is a separate email account just for new pieces, so if you already have a piece in progress that you'd like to continue on, just go through the usual channels.
However, if you're a new client wanting a new tattoo, please read the rest of this entry carefully. Twice.

To get on the waiting list, send an email to: 
uncleswaitinglist@gmail.com.

Include this information in your email:
-Name and contact information
-Approximate size and placement of tattoo
-All of your design ideas and any reference you think is important
-Try to think of something fun that you can imagine Allan might like to do
-If the tattoo is going between existing tattoos, you might wanna include a picture
-If you're a foreign client wanting a bigger piece, please let us know how often you can make it to Berlin

If you don't include the above information in your mail, your email will be deleted and you will not be added to the waiting list.

When you have sent us the mail, you will get an auto reply in return, and when we have openings, we will contact you.

Important: 
-We will not reply to you again from that email account until it's time to book your appointment, so don't write any questions in your mail
 -We cannot give you any idea of how long the waiting list is and when you'll be hearing from us regarding an appointment, so if that's not something you're ok with, please don't submit your name to the list
-The list is for appointments in Berlin only, not Copenhagen, conventions or possible future guest spots
-We only book two to three month ahead, so if you need something like a years notice to plan, you'll have to send an email to the Conspiracy email account first
-The list is not for cancellations. There is no cancellation list. However, you can follow us on Twitter where we often put up short notice cancellations, if you wanna try and grab one of those

Again; we are not going to give you a time frame, at all, so please don't write us asking how long the waiting list is. It could be several years, so if you're only available in, say, August 2013, don't write us.

This is not an email-back-and-forth type deal, so if you get impatient and decide to write and ask when it's your turn, you won't get a reply.
Please do not write to the waiting list email more than once.
Please do not request neck tattoos, Allan hates doing them.
You can have your name removed from the list any time by sending us an email saying with the words "delete me" in the subject space, and we'll take you off the list immediately.
If your idea is not something Uncle Allan is interested in doing, we will of course let you know.

If you have any questions, feel free to write us at: conspiracyinctattoo@gmail.com.

If you're still here, thank for your patience, we hope to hear from you!

Ps. If you got tired of waiting and got the tattoo done elsewhere, and you don't want to get tattooed by Uncle Allan anymore, please have the courtesy of letting us know so we can remove you from the waiting list.

Sunday, March 3, 2013

Tattoosday Giveaway! Win a Free T-Shirt from freestyleXtreme.com

Occasionally we like to partner with vendors and have a little fun, giving our readers a chance to win some cool prizes.

This week you have a chance to win a t-shirt of your choice, from among thousands of different quality styles and designs.

I recently got a couple of great shirts from freestyleXtreme.com that are way cool. They have a lot of different designs, including Sullen Clothing, Metal Mulisha, Miami Ink, Hart & Huntington, and loads more.

For example, I got this sick Sullen "Caleb Badge" shirt:


as well as this sweet tee from Metal Mulisha:


They also sell a lot of other great accessories, like this cool New Era cap by Sullen:


So, here's how to win a t-shirt from freestyleXtreme:

1) Head over to their website and browse through their seemingly endless supply of apparel.
2) Find the t-shirt you want - you can search by brand name or design styles pretty easily
3) Leave a comment on this post, on the Tattoosday Facebook wall, or e-mail TattoosdayContests@gmail.com, saying which t-shirt design you want (no caps, sorry).
4) On Friday morning, we will select two random winners and they will get a free shirt.

This is easy folks! It doesn't cost you anything but your time, and you can get a really cool t-shirt out of the deal.

Good luck and have fun browsing!

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.

Saturday, March 2, 2013

The February Links Go Marching On ...

Now some links for your weekend consumption:

Friend Brian Grosz appeared on Fox 411 on Tuesday (February 12) here. As a contributor writer for Needles and Sins, Brian chimed in on the subject at hand, "Are Reality TV and Pro Sports Helping Tattoos Go Mainstream?"

Sure enough, Colin Kaepernick makes another appearance.....

[Note: I meant to post that two weekends ago when I was in Los Angeles, but it never went live. Better late than never....].

People who follow UFC should know who Ronda Rousey is. Last weekend she made history by defending her title as the first UFC Women's Bantamweight champion (as reported here, among many places). Why do I even care? We here at Tattoosday are fans, ever since meeting Ronda in Penn Station and interviewing her about her Olympic-inspired ink (here) back in 2009. Congrats Ronda!

One of my friends from college alerted me to this interview of Baba Austin, at Vintage Tattoo Art Parlor. The interviewer is senior at my alma mater, Occidental College, which is in close proximity to the Highland Park neighborhood where the shop is located.


Friday, March 1, 2013

Tattoosday Goes to L.A.: Stephanie's Southwestern Scene

Last week I was headed back to New York from L.A. when I met Stephanie out near my gate at LAX.

She estimates that she is about 70% covered with tattoos, and she shared this piece on her foot:


Stephanie is originally from Philadelphia, but she got this as a ten-year anniversary gift commemorating  a decade of living on the West Coast.

She credited this colorful Southwestern tattoo, complete with cacti and animal skull, to Cameron Chase at Tat-Fu Tattoo in Flagstaff, Arizona.

Thanks to Stephanie for sharing her colorful anniversary tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

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.