Emperor Tattoos: cherry blossoms

Showing posts with label cherry blossoms. Show all posts

Saturday, April 21, 2012

The Tattooed Poets Project: Michael Henry Lee

Beginning in the second year of the Tattooed Poets Project, we experienced the thrill of having poets from previous years return to share more ink.

This year is no exception, and the first of two repeat contributors is Michael Henry Lee.

Last year, he contributed "work inspired by his spiritual convictions, with work spanning three decades by three artists in three very distinct parts of the country."

"This year" he informs us, "reveals a more earthy side; with work again spanning three decades by two artists from the heart of America and the sunshine state."

Photo by Chris Bodor

Michael Henry Lee explains:

"The piece began with the oh so typical heart and initials by [his] then girlfriend and now wife of over thirty years. Gradually several butterflies, stars, comets, clouds, and lightning were all added by a Kansas City Missouri artist named John. Fast forward to Saint Augustine, Florida, and a great shop called Tattoo Garden, owned and operated by a super artist Tattoo Mike. He re-colored and revitalized the original piece on [my] last birthday and soon after the kanji for poet and the cherry blossoms were added."

Mr. Lee got the kanji to remind him "of the gift he has been given to pursue and ... the cherry blossoms celebrate the beauty and brevity of the life in which he has to pursue it."

Mr. Lee provided us with the following poems, which originally appeared in Haiku News in response to various news stories. They are the sole property of Mr. Lee and may not be used without his explicit permission.

~ ~ ~

sobriety checkpoint
the nation’s oldest city
comes of age

buyer’s market-
the realtor kept insisting
till the bitter end
in less time than it took
to say we’re sorry
you were gone

consulting the stars
all the laws of probability
contained on a pinhead

parent teacher day-
the class turtle
fends for itself

mother’s day
something inside us
can’t let go

~ ~ ~

Thanks to Michael Henry Lee for contributing again to the Tattooed Poets Project! Be sure to check out his contribution from last year, as well, in case you missed it.

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.

The Tattooed Poets Project: Michael Henry Lee

Photo by Chris Bodor

Michael Henry Lee explains:

"The piece began with the oh so typical heart and initials by [his] then girlfriend and now wife of over thirty years. Gradually several butterflies, stars, comets, clouds, and lightning were all added by a Kansas City Missouri artist named John. Fast forward to Saint Augustine, Florida, and a great shop called Tattoo Garden, owned and operated by a super artist Tattoo Mike. He re-colored and revitalized the original piece on [my] last birthday and soon after the kanji for poet and the cherry blossoms were added."

~ ~ ~

sobriety checkpoint
the nation’s oldest city
comes of age

buyer’s market-
the realtor kept insisting
till the bitter end

in less time than it took
to say we’re sorry
you were gone

consulting the stars
all the laws of probability
contained on a pinhead

parent teacher day-
the class turtle
fends for itself

mother’s day
something inside us
can’t let go

~ ~ ~

Michael lives in the nation's oldest city with his wife, two cats ,and numerous bonsai trees. His work has appeared in The Heron's Nest, Icebox. Berry Blue Haiku, The Mainichi Daily News, and Haiku News. His most recent award was a first place in the traditional category and runner up in the contemporary category for the 2012 Haiku Now National Haiku Foundation contest.

Thanks to Michael Henry Lee for contributing again to the Tattooed Poets Project! Be sure to check out his contribution from last year, as well, in case you missed it.

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Frank's Koi Blends Traditional and Modern

Back on the first of July, I met Frank as I was headed home through Penn Station. He shared this tattoo on his lower leg:

Frank explained that the tattoo artist was Gus, who works out of John's Tattoos in Islip, New York. He elaborated, telling me, "I originally wanted a koi fish ... not too traditional, but a little bit different. Some modern twist on it ... Gus put the traditional with the modern and there it is."

Thanks to Frank for sharing his koi fish and cherry blossoms with us here on Tattoosday!

Frank's Koi Blends Traditional and Modern

Back on the first of July, I met Frank as I was headed home through Penn Station. He shared this tattoo on his lower leg:

Thanks to Frank for sharing his koi fish and cherry blossoms with us here on Tattoosday!

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Leigh's Skull with a Mouthful of Blossoms

Last month, I ran into Leigh, getting off the C train at 34th Street in Manhattan. She estimates she has 40% of her corporeal canvas covered, and she offered me this tattoo on her left forearm:

We've had a lot of sugar skulls here on Tattoosday, but everyone is different and unique. This one, inked by Myles Karr at Three Kings Tattoo in Brooklyn, stands out from the bow at the top of the skull, and the open jaw full of cherry blossoms, both items not generally associated with the traditional sugar skull design.

"I'm always talking," Leigh told me, "and it's always positive, so I wanted something that would keep the mouth open." She collaborated with Myles on the piece, saying she wanted a skull, but didn't want a "cliche," and pointed out it's also "kind of a take on the Suicidal Tendencies skull."

Thanks to Leigh for sharing this great tatoo with us here on 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 can contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

Leigh's Skull with a Mouthful of Blossoms

Last month, I ran into Leigh, getting off the C train at 34th Street in Manhattan. She estimates she has 40% of her corporeal canvas covered, and she offered me this tattoo on her left forearm:

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 can contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Don't Sit Under the Cherry Tree with Anyone Else but Me

I spotted Christina one Friday afternoon in Penn Station, sporting this awesome cherry blossom tattoo:

She took some photos in to Jason Loui, then at Redemption Tattoo in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He sketched out a design, and the rest is history. Mr. Loui now works out of Good Faith Tattooing, in Brookline, Massachusetts.

Thanks to Christina for sharing her cherry blossom tree with us here on Tattoosday!

Don't Sit Under the Cherry Tree with Anyone Else but Me

I spotted Christina one Friday afternoon in Penn Station, sporting this awesome cherry blossom tattoo:

Sunday, April 3, 2011

The Tattooed Poets Project: Alicia Adams

Alicia Adams is today's tattooed poet. She contacted me back in February and told me she was moving out to Brooklyn from Southern California in March. So, last week we met in a large Union Square flagship bookstore and I snapped a photo of her stunning tattoo:

I'll let Alicia explain the story behind this beautiful piece:

This tattoo was done by an artist named Shay Bredimus at Outer Limits Tattoo and Body Piercing in Long Beach, California, the city where I was raised and educated. I had always known I wanted a tattoo, but I could never settle on exactly what I wanted. When I went in to Outer Limits, I still didn’t know. I decided flowers were pretty and timeless and could mean whatever I wanted them to mean. I decided on a peony because I had just seen my first one and fallen in love with it. I didn’t know what peonies symbolized, and I didn’t want to know. I decided I had a lifetime to figure out what it meant to me.
I was getting my MFA in fiction writing, and when I met Shay he told me he had his MFA in painting. For hours we talked about art and literature and grad school and our lives. It was the best tattooing experience I could have hoped for, and I fell in love with the finished product immediately. As I was leaving he invited me to his gallery. I went when he wasn’t there. His pieces were huge, each one taking up the better part of a wall, and they were exquisite and done in black tattoo ink only. I wrote him an email telling him how amazing I thought his art was, and he asked me to come back in for touch ups, and that’s when he added the cherry blossoms.

I buy cherry blossom shampoo now and cherry blossom soap. It’s a silly thing maybe, but it makes me feel pretty and reminds me that I am part of a work of art.

In addition to this tattoo, Alicia is sharing the following poem, "Red Room," which was originally published in The Mas Tequila Review:

Red Room

By Alicia Adams

You wish you had been born from your father’s head.

Like Athena. When you picture Athena in the womb

of Zeus’s skull, you picture her in a hollow red room

with no corners. You picture her curled in a ball

and growing larger, fully clothed with battle gear, spear

stuck behind her father’s eye, a migraine pulsing. When you

picture your own father’s head, you picture it crowded.

But you could have curled around the deep-set grooves

of gray matter, your tiny hands pressed against his frontal

cortex and into his dreams. And when you were ready,

you could have stood on your shoed feet and pushed

up and hard with rhythmic contractions until your father,

unable to take it any longer, found a way to open

himself and let you out. You think about this often.

In the back of your own mind, dark and polluted, you can feel

a tumor growing. One that will ripen and mutate,

killing you slowly, and with little effort.

~~~

Alicia Adams graduated from California State University: Long Beach’s Fiction MFA program in 2010. She co-hosted Prose and Cons Radio and is the co-founder of After the Carnival (Literary Events). Her work has been published in several magazines and anthologies, including most recently How Dirty Girls Get Clean and Beside the City of Angels.

Thanks so much to Alicia for sharing her tattoo and poem with us here on Tattoosday's Tattooed Poets Project!

This entry is ©2011 Tattoosday. The poem is reprinted here with the permission of the author.

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.

The Tattooed Poets Project: Alicia Adams

I'll let Alicia explain the story behind this beautiful piece:

This tattoo was done by an artist named Shay Bredimus at Outer Limits Tattoo and Body Piercing in Long Beach, California, the city where I was raised and educated. I had always known I wanted a tattoo, but I could never settle on exactly what I wanted. When I went in to Outer Limits, I still didn’t know. I decided flowers were pretty and timeless and could mean whatever I wanted them to mean. I decided on a peony because I had just seen my first one and fallen in love with it. I didn’t know what peonies symbolized, and I didn’t want to know. I decided I had a lifetime to figure out what it meant to me.
I was getting my MFA in fiction writing, and when I met Shay he told me he had his MFA in painting. For hours we talked about art and literature and grad school and our lives. It was the best tattooing experience I could have hoped for, and I fell in love with the finished product immediately. As I was leaving he invited me to his gallery. I went when he wasn’t there. His pieces were huge, each one taking up the better part of a wall, and they were exquisite and done in black tattoo ink only. I wrote him an email telling him how amazing I thought his art was, and he asked me to come back in for touch ups, and that’s when he added the cherry blossoms.

I buy cherry blossom shampoo now and cherry blossom soap. It’s a silly thing maybe, but it makes me feel pretty and reminds me that I am part of a work of art.

In addition to this tattoo, Alicia is sharing the following poem, "Red Room," which was originally published in The Mas Tequila Review:

Red Room

By Alicia Adams

You wish you had been born from your father’s head.

Like Athena. When you picture Athena in the womb

of Zeus’s skull, you picture her in a hollow red room

with no corners. You picture her curled in a ball

and growing larger, fully clothed with battle gear, spear

stuck behind her father’s eye, a migraine pulsing. When you

picture your own father’s head, you picture it crowded.

But you could have curled around the deep-set grooves

of gray matter, your tiny hands pressed against his frontal

cortex and into his dreams. And when you were ready,

you could have stood on your shoed feet and pushed

up and hard with rhythmic contractions until your father,

unable to take it any longer, found a way to open

himself and let you out. You think about this often.

In the back of your own mind, dark and polluted, you can feel

a tumor growing. One that will ripen and mutate,

killing you slowly, and with little effort.

~~~

Thanks so much to Alicia for sharing her tattoo and poem with us here on Tattoosday's Tattooed Poets Project!

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Chris's Cherry Blossoms Grace His Forearm

On Friday afternoon, I ran into Chris near the 34th Street subway station near the Manhattan Mall.

He had this wonderful tattoo on his left forearm:

Chris explained that this tree resembles a cherry blossom tree that he played on with his cousin when he was a kid. His cousin has passed, so this is, in essence, a memorial, "without being over the top".

I found it interesting and quite poignant that I spotted this piece on the day of the earthquake in Japan, when the plight of the residents in the northern part of that country was on so many minds. The cherry blossom, as many know, is often associated with the temporary, fleeting nature of life.

I particularly like the shadowy effect in the background of the tattoo:

Chris credited Ryan at ArtCore Tattoos in Naples, Florida with this tattoo.

Thanks to Chris for sharing his tattoo 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.

Chris's Cherry Blossoms Grace His Forearm

On Friday afternoon, I ran into Chris near the 34th Street subway station near the Manhattan Mall.

He had this wonderful tattoo on his left forearm:

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Darya's Bi-Coastal Peacock and Cherry Blossoms

I met Darya coming out of the subway in Bay Ridge and asked if I could take a picture of her tattoo. She kindly allowed me to do so and share it here with everyone on Tattoosday:

Darya explained that she always wanted a peacock tattoo, and she has fourteen tattoos in all (not all peacocks). Joe Maggs at Brooklyn Ink tattooed the peacock.

The cherry blossoms, symbols of regeneration, were added by Illya at Studio City Tattoos in California.

Thanks to Darya for sharing her tattoos from both coasts here on Tattoosday!