Mike & Norma Share Some of Their Ink

I met Mike and Norma at a local drugstore in Brooklyn in early April and they both had amazing work they were willing to share.

Their post was preempted by the Tattooed Poets Project, so I thank them in advance for their patience.

Mike shared this enormous black panther tattoo that covered a huge section of his left calf:


Mike, who estimates he has about 15% coverage, also told me that this was a cover-up. "What did you cover?" I asked. "A dolphin with a tribal design," he replied. Norma indicated that covering that tattoo had been an excellent aesthetic choice.

Mike credits Chad Smith at Screamin Mimi Tattoo in Amarillo, Texas with this piece.

I then turned to Norma, who was gracious enough to share this incredibly beautiful geisha tattoo on her left calf:


Roxxy, an artist at Elite Tattoo Gallery in Fort Worth, Texas, free-handed the design. The Japanese characters form a haiku, the meaning of which Norma didn't have with her. Regardless, it's a stunning work of art.

Thanks to Mike and Norma for sharing a little bit of their extensive ink with us here on Tattoosday!

The Tattooed Poets Project: Rebecca Wolff

Like Brendan Constantine yesterday, Rebecca Wolff was a carryover poet from last year. That is, we couldn't quite coordinate getting a post together for the Tattooed Poets Project in 2009. Fortunately, we were able to get everything lined up this year.

Good things come to those who wait.

Rebecca sent us two tattoos. We'll let her describe them for us:

"I have seven tattoos, and the ankle is number 4. I got it in 1990, in a dock-side sailor-type tattoo parlor in Glasgow, Scotland, when I was about 22.


The artist was kind of a big lug, and none too bright, and at a certain point in the tattoo (I had my eyes closed) he said, "Uh, did you want the Z and the A to meet?" and I was like, "Yeah," and he was like, "Uh oh," so if you look closely at the latter end of the alphabet (right around the STUV) you'll notice it kind of gets all squinched up, and then the WXYZ is kind of all spread out so as to make it all the way around.

The wild rose on my side is what I still believe to be my final tattoo, though I find myself craving sleeves often.


I got it when I was about 31, in about 1999, and it's the only really super figurative tattoo I have. The others are all kind of ironic symbols of symbolism. So the idea was to jump into full-color symbolism and then leave it at that, and that's what I've done.


This one was done at a place on Canal Street in NYC by a young Japanese artists whose name I never really caught."

Be sure to head over to BillyBlog to read a poem Rebecca selected just for us!

Rebecca Wolff is the author of three books of poems: Manderley, Figment, and The King. Her novel The Beginners is coming out in 2011 from Riverhead Books. She is the editor and publisher of Fence and Fence Books, and publisher of The Constant Critic. She lives in Athens, New York, with Ira Sher and Asher Wolff and Margot Sher.

Thanks to Rebecca for sharing her tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

Two Small Tattoos from Samantha

I met Samantha in Penn Station when I was passing through the New Jersey Transit waiting area earlier this week.

This simple rose is just above her left ankle:


Samantha got matching tattoos with her mother when she was sixteen. I joked with her that I shouldn't post that, since I've told my daughters that they have to wait until they're eighteen before getting inked.

She pointed out that this happened in Canada, so perhaps we could use that as an excuse.

Samantha, however, was more proud of her other tattoo, which I admit, is nicer. She peeled off the sock on her right foot to reveal this:


As a Canadian, she wanted to get this maple leaf to honor her homeland to the north. The tattoo was done at Blue Devil Tattoo and Piercing Studio in Tampa, Florida.

Thanks to Samantha for sharing her tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

Angela's Ambivalence About a Rose

Angela, a video editor, wanted a rose tattoo that would match her eyes and serve as a "permanent necklace". This was the result:


Looks pretty good, right? Not so fast. It is not often that I get someone sharing a tattoo with which they're not completely happy. This is one of those cases.

Angela had an issue with the artist, Jon Comstock at Skin City Tattoos, in New Windsor, New York, and felt that his vision, ultimately, differed from hers. Too much neon-like color, less realism in matching her eyes, Angela said. The end result, a fairly visible tattoo that has an ambivalent host. "I wouldn't go back to him," Angela said.

I have decided to include his credit, however, as I don't think it's so bad. Of course, I don't have to live with the end result, Angela does. In a slight reversal, however, when I showed her one of the pictures I took,


she admitted it looked better than she remembered.

Despite the mixed feelings about the piece, I would like to thank Angela for sharing her tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!