Wesley Shares Two Significant Blossoms

I met Wesley in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, earlier this month, and she shared these two tattoos from her forearms:

These two flowers are (pictured from left to right) a Cherokee Rose, which is the state flower of Georgia, and a Nile, or Egyptian Lotus.

Wesley explained that the Cherokee Rose is generally white in color, but white flowers don't generally translate well to white skin. Fortunately, they can occasionally grow pink, so that's the shade she chose for the tattoo.


Wesley explained the whole process of these tattoos in detail:

"I was born in Macon, Georgia and my dad's from Georgia and the whole myth is that when the Cherokees were driven out ... by the white people, they cried ... The Trail of Tears ...and the flowers that sprang up where their tears [fell] were the Cherokee Rose. And [the flower on the left arm] is a Nile Lotus ... an Egyptian lotus, you see it a a lot on the sarcophagi ... Egyptian tombs, and it's about death and rebirth.... I got them ... in 2005 ...in Seattle by a guy ... Ian at Lucky Devil Tattoo in Capitol Hill, Seattle ... it was a year almost since I had been diagnosed and treated for cancer and it was sort of my celebration of 'I'm okay'  and I had some whole elaborate - I was going to have insects on the inside of my wrist and flowers on the outside, and there was a possibility of a snake, there was a whole big thing and ... the great thing about this artist was that he was like, 'here, let me do a temporary version of what that would look like,' and I was like, 'that would look really cluttered and ridiculous' ... and I realized that I really wanted them to be something I could see and I was more attuned to the flowers ... I wanted something that was close to home from my past and then something that was from another culture from farther away - there's the birth thing and the death thing. Yeah."

Thanks to Wesley for sharing her beautiful tattoos 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.

Colleen Returns to Share Some Lovely Ink

I spotted a woman with some really great tattoos out on Penn Plaza and, after talking to her a brief moment, realized it was Colleen, who appeared on Tattoosday once before, back in 2009, as chronicled here.

Colleen shared two tattoos that grace her upper arms:

Colleen loves this tattoo and I can't say I blame her. As a Buddhist, she appreciates the symbolism of the lotus and the om on the skull. She explained:

"the lotus comes out of the mud at the bottom of the water and blooms out of that and that's ... birth. And the skull [represents] death."

The piece encompasses the cycle of life and death. She credits this wonderful work to Patrick Conlon at Graceland Brooklyn.

Colleen also has this work on her right arm:

Colleen explained that the dragon was there first, and then Patrick added the fire and pansies, to make it a much more beautiful tattoo.

Thanks to Colleen for sharing her tattoos with us (again) 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.

Tara's Stunning Tattoos Represent Clarity and Freedom

I was riding my bike along the water and the Belt Parkway in South Brooklyn last month, when a woman passed me on her roller skates, headed in the other direction.

I quickly reversed directions and caught up with her because I wanted to ask her about her half-sleeve:

It's really quite stunning, and I was interested in who was the artist responsible for this work. Tara credited Christian Masot at Silk City Tattoo in Hawthorne, New Jersey. I've seen a lot of cool stuff come out of the shop and Christian was responsible for the work on the last two people I've met having been inked there. Check out all the Silk City work that has appeared previously on Tattoosday here.

As for Tara, she's a Roller Derby Girl, who skates under the handle PMA, with the number 24/7,  because she has a Positive Mental Attitude, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

She explained, "I was going through a lot of stuff in my life a couple years ago and finally I had clarity ... so the lotus symbolizes ... clarity."

As for the butterfly, Tara told me that her butterflies "symbolize change and freedom."

Tara elaborated, saying that she brought three pictures in for reference [there's a monarch butterfly on her inner arm] and Christian "made it his own," in part by adding the design that represents the wind.

When I asked Tara how many tattoos she has, she said, "I lost count."

Thanks to Tara for sharing these stunning tattoos with us here on Tattoosday! Keep on skating with that positive mental attitude!

If you want to see more of Tara's ink, you can glimpse it on various videos on her YouTube channel here. She talks a lot about Vegan and Gluten-free recipes. I'm including one below that features her skating on the Shore Road promenade where I met her:

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.

James and His Colorful Sleeve

Last month, I had the pleasure of running into James, in Penn Station. He has an incredible sleeve, which he gladly took some time to share with us:

James is very interested in Japanese traditions, and this piece, by Christian Masot at Silk City Tattoo in Hawthorne, New Jersey, is a stunning colorful tribute. I mean, check out this detail:

Work from Silk City has appeared before on Tattoosday, check out these examples.

On the bottom of James' right arm is this incredible collage:

This burst of color includes a poison dart frog, a Jackson chameleon, a lotus, a mum, and a tulip.

Thanks to James for sharing his amazing work 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.