Andy Honors Hercules

Today's post is noteworthy as it features the final photos taken by my old camera. A day after this encounter, the screen cracked, and that was that. I've been living on borrowed cameras ever since.

This tattoo, offered up by Andy, was spotted in Grand Central Station in a Hudson News shop:

Andy explained that he got this tattoo because the boat pictured, Hercules, is a "great old steam tug".

This historic boat, built in 1907, can be seen at the San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park.

This tugboat took Matt Adams at Sacred Tattoo about four and a half hours to complete. Work from Matt has appeared previously on Tattoosday here.

Thanks to Andy for sharing this great naval tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

Renee's Feathered Serpent

I was walking down 31st Street in Manhattan when a woman walked by with a hummingbird and flower on her left shoulder. I turned back to talk to her and I was stunned to see a bright colorful tattoo spanning the top of her back> I called after her and had a nice chat.

To my delight, Renee was my familiar with the site, as her artist, Joy Rumore, had just been featured on Tattoosday here. Taking a photo of the tattoo in question was not possible due to the presence of clothing covering sections of it, but I gave Renee my card and asked her to keep in touch. However, after a few messages on Twitter, not only did I have the link to photos of the tattoo from the artist's blog, I also had an open dialogue with Renee, who explained the tattoo for me.

As Joy says on her original post here, "All hail the mighty Kukulcan!":

I asked Renee to elaborate on why she got this incredible tattoo across her back. I'll let her words speak for themselves:

"I got this feathered serpent tattoo when I advanced to candicacy in my doctoral program where I study Aztec art. I think we did it over three or four 90-minute sessions ... The feathered serpent was an old Mesoamerican god, a version of which dates back to the Olmecs (about 400 BCE) and is seen at a number of Mexican sites like Teotihuacan, Chichen Itza, Tula, and the Templo Mayor in Mexico City. The Aztecs called him Quetzalcoatl which translates from Nahuatl (their spoken language) into bird-snake. Joy refers to him on her blog as Kukulcan, which is the version that is seen at Chichen Itza in the Yucat�n.

I wanted a tattoo of a feathered serpent because he so relevant to the Aztecs and they took great care in carving beautiful stone images of the animal.  I also knew of Joy's penchant for amazing feather work, and I knew this would be a good match.  I brought Joy a series of images, one from a mural at Teotihuacan, one from a Mixtec manuscript and another of an Aztec stone carving of a feathered serpent.  She used those and her knowledge of imagery from the Yucatan to create a more composite image of the god."

 A huge thanks to Renee and to Joy at Twelve 28 Tattoo for their cooperation in making this post possible!

Anthony's Tribal Tattoo, Inspired by Fiji

Last month I ran into Anthony in Penn Station with this interesting, yet unfinished, tattoo on his left arm:

A visitor from England, Anthony let me take the photo, but he was in a bit of a rush, so I didn't get too much information from him, other than this was a Polynesian-themed design, inspired by a trip he took to Fiji.

He credited Toni at Lycan Ink in Liverpool, England, with the work.

Thanks to Anthony for sharing with us here on Tattoosday.

Repost: Happy Independance Day!

Happy 4th of July. I am away for the weekend up in Woodstock, New York, so I'm reposting a patriotic tattoo that appeared here back in 2008. Have a safe and enjoyable holiday!


I ran into Rob in my neighborhood in late August and he gladly shared his patriotic tattoo.

Rob is a Revolutionary War buff and has a distinct interest in American history.

He wanted an "old school" tattoo back in 2000, and wanted something patriotic back "before it was fashionable". He's referring of course, to the explosion of post-9/11 red, white and blue ink. He wasn't disrespecting or being critical of patriotic tattoos done after 2001, he was merely clarifying for me that his piece was not a product of the huge wave of emotion that surged through the country after that day of infamy seven years ago.

Rob's "Land of the free, Home of the brave" banner with the original 13-star flag was inked by Darren Rosa at Rising Dragon in Manhattan. Work from Rising Dragon has appeared on Tattoosday previously here.

Thanks to Rob for sharing his red, white, and blue patriotic tattoo with us here on Tattoosday on this occasion.