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Friday, April 30, 2010
Female Tattoo Gallery
The Tattooed Poets Project: Cody Todd
Today we are being visited by an old friend, Cody Todd, whose tattoos appeared here last year.
This is his latest tattoo, four weeks old, inked at Purple Panther Tattoos off of Sunset in Los Angeles:
Cody provided this explanation:
Not too much of a story behind this. It is Marv and Goldie from the "The Hard Goodbye" of Frank Miller's Sin City. The artist who did this is from Tokyo, and her name is Koko Ainai. I admire the precision of her work in copying Miller's extremely elaborate sketching. As Marv and Goldie embrace, he is holding a gun he apparently took away from her and a bullet hole is smoldering in his right shoulder as he lifts her off the ground. That tattoo is the first of what is going to be a kind of sleeve in parts in which I take different scenes from noir films or works and decorate my whole left arm with. Upon seeing Farewell My Lovely with my girlfriend last week, I decided to get the front end of a 1934 or 1936 Buick as my next tattoo.
...I am doing my critical work for my PhD at USC on the "western noir," which is a term I sort of coined for a specific genre of film and literature concerned with elements that typically comprise classical film noir, except they take place in cities in the western part of the United States. As we see in the film, Sin City, it has a "Gothic City" feel to it, but it is most certainly somewhere out in western Nevada, or California. I think the motifs of lawlessness, street and vigilante justice, and the disillusionment with the American Dream are all at work in this kind of genre, and that it also borrows many elements from the Western as a genre as well. If anyone wants to read good literary western noir, I would direct them, promptly, to read Daniel Woodrell, who takes the noir theme and brings it to the Ozarks and southwest Missouri. If Chandler and Faulkner had a love-child, it most certainly would be Woodrell.
Head over to BillyBlog and read one of Cody's poems here.
Cody Todd is the author of the chapbook, To Frankenstein, My Father (2007, Proem Press). His poems have appeared in Hunger Mountain, Salt Hill and are forthcoming in Lake Effect, The Pinch, Specs Journal and Denver Quarterly. He received an MFA from Western Michigan University and is currently a Virginia Middleton Fellow in the PhD program in English-Literature/Creative Writing at the University of Southern California. He is the Managing Editor and co-creator of the poetry journal, The Offending Adam (www.theoffendingadam.com).
The Tattooed Poets Project: Jozi Tatham
Her tattoo is certainly amazing:
Jozi had this tattoo done by Steve Bossler, who owns Greenseed Studios in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. She had met him originally at Papes Blue Ribbon Tattoo in Milwaukee. Steve splits his time between the two locations.
Jozi explains the inspiration behind this tattoo:
I have wanted this back tattoo for years now. Where the Wild Things Are was my favorite book growing up. Because I have since become a writer, it's extremely important to me to remember the childhood imagination and creativity that we are all born with, but which we often "outgrow". I refuse to grow up and let my imagination slip away, and hopefully having the monsters of creativity tattooed on my body will keep that close to me.
Please check out one of Jozi's poems over on BillyBlog here.
Jozi Tatham is currently a poetry MFA student at George Mason University in Virginia. She hails from Milwaukee, WI where she received her BA and the place which serves as "the inspiration for most of my being thus far." She has been published in newspapers and small publications in the Milwaukee area for poetry and nonfiction.
Thanks to Jozi for sharing with us here at Tattoosday!
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Religious Tattoos
Religious Tattoos
However, religious symbols – Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Islam or otherwise – are actually quite common tattoo designs. It might surprise you that about 25% of all tattoos in America have a religious meaning
The Tattooed Poets Project: Phebe Szatmari
In the mean time, enjoy this amazing tattoo from Phebe Szatmari:
Phebe writes:
Driftwood, for me, symbolizes the worn, the weathered, the old, the beautiful—each piece takes on its own character. My wife and I have a large piece from Richardson Lake in Maine that resembles a leaping elk. Its movement and energy are striking.Be sure to check out one of Phebe's poems here.
I was also inspired by artist Deborah Butterfield who is known for her sculptures of horses (initially created from driftwood before being cast in bronze).
When I found tattoo artist Jason Tyler Grace, I knew that he had the artistic ability to render a realistic image that would also work with the contours of my body. I decided to get my tattoo in order to initiate a new dialog with myself—and because tattoos are hot.
Phebe Szatmari was working full-time in an office in Manhattan when she learned there was a shortage of poets. She immediately dropped everything and is currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing and Literature at Stony Brook Southampton.
In her spare time, Phebe freelance edits, teaches writing, volunteers at LIGALY (Long Island Gay and Lesbian Youth Center), serves as a judge for teen poetry slams, and practices parkour. Her poems will be published in the forthcoming Writing Outside the Lines 2010 anthology.
Thanks to Phebe for sharing her lovely tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Bird Tattoo Designs
Why Tribal Tattoos?
Natural Tribal Tattoos
Tribal Tattoos are extremely popular and can add a distinct 'je ne sais quoi' to a person's character. The real beauty of tribal tattoos is that they don't have to be loud and obnoxious useless you want them to be, but rather subtle and stylish. It is a style that typically capitalizes on solid black lines and coloring (with some exceptions of course) and it is also composed of pointed and curved elements. It's bold and eye catching. In short, it's a pretty wicked looking style!
Tribal Tattoo, tattoo ideas
Tribal arm Tattoo ideas
Later on, tattoos were used to create scenes on the body depicting battles the tribe member took place in. They were also used as memorials for loved ones who had passed away, their memory honored in the form of a soaring eagle.
Tattoos were certainly not limited to Native Americans, however. The Yokuts of California used body modification to call attention to the location of a person's supernatural power; the indigenous tribes of New Zealand, Africa, Central America and Hawaii also practiced the art of tattooing.
Black Tribal Dragon Tattoos
When you are looking at black tribal dragon tattoos, make sure that you find a design that really speaks to you. In your mind, what is your dragon tattoo doing? Black tribal dragon tattoos are wonderful choices for any tattoo fan, so take a look at the tattoo art designs that are available and find the one that suits you the best!
Black Tribal Dragon Tattoos
The Tattooed Poets Project: Steele Campbell
Steele tells us how he came to choose this tattoo:
"I debated back and forth about exactly what tattoo to get and where, but this one seemed to come from within. It should.
This is the Campbell Coat of Arms with the Campbell Motto underneath with Claymore swords behind the shield, as it was the Campbell Clan that started the Black Watch. What can I say; we are known for being ruthless. And because the
Campbell blood courses through these veins, and even spills from them on occasion, I could not find a better representation of myself. It was done in Auburn, Alabama at Shenanigan’s Tattoo Parlour by Ember Reign, a hard-yet-sweet roller-derby-girl tattoo-artist (among other things) as a celebration of permanence. But as nothing gold can stay, only this tattoo and my blood have remained. As they will."
Check out one of Steele's poems here on BillyBlog.
Steele Campbell is currently living (and I mean that robustly). He is essentially transient, but has paused his peregrination at Auburn University to complete a Master’s Degree on the fiction of Marilynne Robinson. He is the recipient of the Robert Hughes Mount Jr. Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets two years running and has been published in Decompression, The Boston Literary Review, Rope and Wire and Touchstones. He is the student poetry editor of the Southern Humanities Review. You can visit him at www.steelecampbell.net.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Butterfly tattoos Gallery
Nice Lower Back Tattoo Ideas With Butterfly Tattoo Designs With Image Lower Back Butterfly Tattoos For Female Tattoo Gallery
The Tattooed Poets Project: Lisa Gill
Lisa tells us:
"Last September, I got a rattlesnake in my living room. (I live rural outside the small town Moriarty, NM). I spent over two hours in close proximity to the snake, and ultimately ended up calling the sheriff's department and getting a deputy to help me catch it and release it off my property. After the encounter I spent months and months writing direct address poems to the snake and ended up with a play where the snake speaks back. The Relenting is both "true story" and archetypal and imagined journey, paralleling the transformation the snake sparked. The encounter, and the writing where I tried to process the encounter, changed my life, and because my life had changed (and is still changing), I wanted a tattoo to symbolize the transformation.
The only tattoo image I considered was the Minoan Snake Goddess.
I understood her intuitively in a way I'm still working to express with words. I worked with tattoo artist Serena Lander. I knew Serena's work on visual artist Suzanne Sbarge, who regularly helps bring Serena to New Mexico from Seattle. I trusted Suzanne and was right to. I had a great experience with Serena, the right kind of energy and contemplative exchange. I wanted line work, one color, kind of ruddy toned. She took images I sent her from archeological digs at the Palace of Knossos and transformed them into the image now on my arm.
I consider the image both a prayer and a mark of a turning point in my life. (I have three earlier tattoos, two black, one white, all smaller, from a decade prior, sparked by a different significant recognition.) The subtext for the new one is this: right before the encounter with the rattler, I'd just made it out of a wheelchair I'd been in for five months due to multiple sclerosis. Arms are not something I take for granted any longer... and the tattoo in that respect is simply about gratitude and facing disability with resilience, as much as I can muster..."
Please venture on over to BillyBlog to read an excerpt from the aforementioned The Relenting here.New Mexico poet Lisa Gill is the recipient of a 2007 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry, a 2010 New Mexico Literary Arts Gratitude Award, and just earned her MFA from the University of New Mexico this April. She is a literary arts activist, currently booking poets for "Church of Beethoven," and the author of three books of poetry, Red as a Lotus, Mortar & Pestle, and Dark Enough. A fourth book, The Relenting, is forthcoming with New Rivers Press (June 2010) and can be considered either a play or a poem scripted for two voices, rattler and woman. She'll be touring the play in the upcoming year, starting with a staged reading with Tricklock's Kevin Elder at 516 Arts in Albuquerque in June and then onward to Minnesota, LA, hopefully even to NY.
Thanks to Lisa for sharing her amazing tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!