Ronda J. is a painter/musician from New York City who wears this beautiful tattoo on her left bicep.
This is the Hindu goddess Kali, who is often associated with death and destruction, although she more accurately represents change.
This tattoo is a traditional image of Kali, with one significant exception. Whereas she is usually pictured standing upon the deity Shiva, this incarnation has her standing on a city aflame. Ronda J. points out that the burning metropolis is New York City.
It should be noted, she points out, that the flames reach highest behind the two twin towers in the lower right section of the tattoo:
This is of course the World Trade Center, but the piece was completed in 1997, four years before 9/11. This makes the tattoo that much more haunting.
This remarkable work was inked by Elio Espana at Fly-Rite Studio in Brooklyn. Work from Elio and Fly-Rite has appeared on Tattoosday previously here and here.
Ronda J. is a self-described Kali-initiate. Hindu mysticism takes on many forms, and I got the distinct impression that her faith in Kali was multi-layered, and by proxy, her connection to this tattoo and its meaning was exceptionally complex.
Thanks to Ronda J. for sharing her tattoo here at Tattoosday!
Last week I saw this tattoo walking down 7th Avenue. I handed a flier to Kate, to whom this tattoo belongs. She e-mailed me later that day to say she liked the blog and expressed a willingness to share her tattoos here. We met the next day to talk about her ink.
Her first and second tattoos were actually inked on the same day last June. First was this piece on her left wrist:
"So," I asked Kate, "who's Ellen?"
"That's my sister Ellen's actual signature," Kate replied, "I got this a couple of days before her funeral."
Hold on a second.
"What?" I was shocked.
And then she told me what happened.
A year ago today (June 16, 2007), Ellen Aquino died tragically in North Carolina, from injuries sustained in a car accident. She was killed by another motorist who fell asleep at the wheel, crossed the center divider, and hit her head-on.
Two days before the funeral, Kate and two other friends went into Physical Graffiti Tattoo Studio in Rochester, New York, and each had the tattoo inked. Kate got it on her left wrist, one of her friends got it on the ankle, and the other got it on her foot.
The piece replicated Ellen's signature, along with a heart, and is a poignant memorial to Kate's sister.
But she did not stop there. At the same time that the signature was inked, Kate had four lines from "First Day of My Life" by Bright Eyes inscribed above her outer right ankle:
I've embedded the video here so one can hear the song:
"It's typically a love song," Kate says, but the lyrics are particularly resonant:
Yours is the first face that I saw I think I was blind before I met you...
as Ellen's face would have been the first one she saw in this world. Because, Kate explained, Ellen was her identical twin, born ten minutes before her.
If I was stunned when this young woman of twenty-six told me she had just buried her sister last year, I was even more shocked when she told me it was her twin. I can barely imagine the grief of losing a sibling, but an identical twin? It was unfathomable to me.
Yet here was a vibrant young woman, talking to me in Greeley Square, showing me these tattoos based in tragedy, yet I could sense the strength that they gave her.
Her third tattoo was the heart with wings (pictured at the top of the post). It was tattooed at Extreme Graphix Tattoo Ink in Rochester. People always told her that Ellen was her guardian angel, and this piece represents the manifestation of that ongoing relationship.
Kate had shown me three tattoos, but she had told me she had four. I was thinking it might be one that I couldn't photograph, as I didn't see any other visible ink. Then, another Tattoosday first, she unveiled her fourth tattoo:
I was certainly not expecting an inner-lip tattoo. Kate joked, "Yeah, it's pretty hard-core". Wow. "Did it hurt?" I asked. She shook her head, "Not at all". So what's the deal with the word "LIVE" tattooed inside her lower lip?
As if she hadn't made me think enough, she continued to give me chills. "I got this on my last birthday," and I knew immediately why it was significant. Kate and Ellen had celebrated twenty-five consecutive birthdays together. And this one was the first that she would spend without her twin, for the rest of her life. Again, I cannot begin to imagine the emotions she was experiencing on what is supposed to be a happy day.
This was done at Love Hate Tattoo, also in Rochester. "It's a reminder to myself that I'm still here," Kate explained.
Via a series of e-mails I gleaned some additional details.
First, Kate offered up a link to Ellen's online obituary here. I also came across this tribute at a camp for handicapped children where Ellen worked for many summers. Her short life showed an amazing commitment to kids with special needs and a selfless commitment to helping educate others.
I was curious to know what Kate's parents thought of her tattoos and she replied:
My parents like my tattoos, they think they're nice, but would never want any for themselves. The only thing they told me in the beginning, in the midst of their grief was "don't get anything on your face." My grandmother however (she's in her 70's) *loves* my tattoos, and cried the first time she read the one on my ankle. I actually took her to get her own memorial tattoo (her first & probably last tattoo) in October, and she's quite proud of it.
I must say that Kate was amazingly resilient a few days shy of such a tragic anniversary. I cannot even begin to imagine the difficulty she and her family have undergone over the past year.
I thank Kate for sharing her and Ellen's story here. Tattoos are transforming, therapeutic emblems that not only help one heal, but also help one live beyond the healing.
I hope that Kate continues to find strength in her ink, and I look forward to her checking back in with us here at Tattoosday. Our thoughts and prayers go out to her family. Please know that it is and will continue to be an honor to host Kate's tattoos (end Ellen's memory) here.
It only seems fitting that, on Father's Day, I repost a special tattoo for a father. I had several to choose from (here and here), but settled on this one, from December 4, 2007:
On a cold morning in the beginning of November, I spied a tattoo on the bare left calf of a guy at the corner of 31st and 7th in Manhattan. He crossed the street, walking the same direction I was headed and, lo and behold, headed into the Starbucks in my office building.
He was ahead of me in line and after he ordered, I expressed admiration for his tattoo:
Obviously, it's a memorial tattoo. The host's name is Jim and, as he explained, his father had passed away 3 years ago. I didn't notice until later when I uploaded the picture, the dates 1961-2005, making his father 43 or 44 when he died. The inscription reads "In Loving Memory James R. Frederickson".
Jim explained the tattoo for me. His father wanted to be cremated, so the tattoo is an ersatz grave site. He also added in the cheap, wooden cross, because his father always had been critical of people who spent a ton of money on grave markers.
Jim explained that the piece took him 2 1/2 years to design and get just right, so it must have been completed in the past year. It was inked at Lake Geneva Tattoo.
To be completely honest, it was Matthew's arm tattoo that I noticed first - the black and grey lotus flower with the word "HAUNTED" inked below it.
But, as Fate would have it, Matthew's most meaningful tattoo is the piece on his neck, and there is a compelling story behind it, so that is what we have above.
The tattoo was inked in Florida, at a now-defunct shop called Body Language. It is comprised of two elements, the name "Celestia" designed in Matthew's own handwriting. The other piece is the planet, which looks a lot like Saturn. This part of the tattoo was based on a sticker he had found, and the tattooist gave it a water-color look, which is why it appears slightly drained.
The story behind the tattoo is even more fascinating. Matthew has a belief system, in which he not only thinks aliens exist, but that they live among us. Matthew is also a huge supporter of the actress Ann Heche. Ann wrote a compelling biography several years back entitled Call Me Crazy: A Memoir, in which she publicly discussed her childhood, and the abuse she suffered.
Heche relates how she survived the trauma of her childhood by developing, or obtaining, depending on one's perspective, a split personality.
Her other self was named "Celestia" and this "alien self" helped her survive the destructive forces in her life.
Matthew admires Heche for her being an example of a woman who "could overcome abuse and live a normal lifestyle".
He, too, has suffered from abuse and trauma in his life, and he relates to Heche's belief system, and feels that he has survived by the grace of that part of him that's from another world.
This is a theme about which he feels very strongly and it manifested itself in this tattoo, which he carries with him and displays in a very visible location. It's not somewhere he can hide it, so he has it a constant reminder of his belief and his reason for survival.
Thanks to Matthew for sharing this very personal tattoo with us here at Tattoosday!
I was camera-less on Sunday when I breezed through day 2 of the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (MoCCA) 2008 Art Festival. The whole time I kept thinking wow, cool, awesome, as I beheld the expectedly fantastic body art on multitudes of comic artists, fans, and publishers.
As fate would have it, two days later I ran into Jenny, who was in attendance at the same event.
I spotted the above piece, and when we started talking, and she mentioned her comic, Too Negative, did I think to ask her if she was at the MoCCA event.
This tattoo was designed by Jenny and inked by Sophie Crumb (daughter of the legendary master of comixR. Crumb and Aline Kominsky-Crumb), when she was apprenticing at Suerte Studios, in Brooklyn. Sophie has moved on and Adam Suerte moved his shop (Brooklyn Tattoo) from State Street to Smith.
The yin and yang symbols, a staple in Chinese philosophy, are popular emblems for countless people, and Jenny's design infuses the recognizable art with her own dark spin.
The circles in the standard yin and yang have been replaced with X's, a nod to one of her main characters in her comic, whose eyebrows are represented with a set of X's, as Jenny elaborated, "like a Manson girl who got over-zealous".
The flames surrounding the symbol refer to the devils that populate her comic. The blood dripping down is a nice touch, as well, definitely heightening the tension between Jenny's vision and the popular interpretation of the yin and yang harmony.Jenny's work is dark and twisted, and her influence on a design often associated with peace and balance, is unsettling and perfectly tailored to her artistic style.
Be sure to check out Jenny's site here. Her work Too Negative appears in the Comix section.
Thanks to Jenny for pausing during lunch on a blisteringly hot day to share her ink here on Tattoosday.
This is of course the World Trade Center, but the piece was completed in 1997, four years before 9/11. This makes the tattoo that much more haunting.
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