3 last works that I did while guestspoting at Mansarda Tattoo in Olsztyn
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Barred For Life: An Encounter and A Tattoosday Book Review
As a Gen-X child, the Black Flag bars are familiar to me. I’ll be honest, I was never a huge fan, but I had friends that were, coming of age in the 1980’s.
I remember first seeing Black Flag on film in the groundbreaking The Decline of Western Civilization, screened at the University of Hawaii Physical Science Auditorium, whose film series had a cult following among teens in Honolulu in the early 80’s. It was there that I saw Rocky Horror (many times), Ralph Bakshi’s Wizards, Russ Meyer's Up!, The Song Remains the Same, and the Black Sabbath/Blue Oyster Cult concert film, Black and Blue.
And, Decline.
The film didn’t shake my core like it did many of my friends, but my middle-aged memory cites it as my first encounter with Black Flag. Their emblematic bars found their way onto my notebooks, sharing the doodling of metal band names and logos. The bars remind me of adolescence and rebellion.
Other people’s rebellion, not mine, mind you.
I won’t claim to be someone I’m not, or someone I wasn’t.
I don’t have any Black Flag tattoos on me, and I never will.
This past summer, on my way to a job interview, I was in lower Manhattan in a suit on a sweltering day when I met Harley, a woman with a lot of ink. I had a few minutes before my interview and asked her about her work. She showed me her back:
Running into Harley and having her share this tattoo seemed fortuitous, as I had just received a copy of Barred for Life in the mail. Subtitled “How Black Flag’s Signature Logo Became Punk Rock’s Secret Handshake,” this book was on my list of titles to review, and there had just been several events in New York celebrating its release.
I envisioned a big post, combining Harley’s tattoo and the review. This is that post (obviously), but just fashionably late to the party.
A word first about Harley’s tattoo, which she credited to Troy Denning at Invisible NYC. Harley told me, when I asked her why she got the "Rise Above" tattoo, simply, “to rise above.” She added later, “And to … let nothing keep you down...”
As for Barred for Life, I can’t think of a more compelling gift for someone who is either a 1) punk/hardcore fan; or 2) a fan of simple tattoos that mean a whole lot. So, if you know someone looking to use a bookstore gift card this holiday season, tell them to special order this book.
Let’s face it, the Bars are fairly rudimentary – four rectangular blocks offset in equidistant parallel orientation. Barred for Life unveils a wide array of variations on the tattoo, which anchors album art and other punk sentiment. The really compelling aspect of each tattoo is that of the interview that accompanies it.
We get an inside view into the minds of people who have been “barred for life,” including the fan’s relationship with the band, the story behind the tattoo (right up our alley!), and the favorite singer/song/album trifecta. We’re also treated to interviews with current and former band members, with Henry Rollins noticeably absent.
The scope of this volume is magnificent. The number of people who are “barred for life” is staggering, just based on this sampling alone. Think of the thousands of others who have been similarly branded – where a tattoo of a band logo goes above and beyond one’s appreciation of the group itself.
That said, this is more than just a tattoo book – it’s a chronicle of a mindset, a visual exploration of a family that united around a symbol that inserted itself as a logo of a punk band, and evolved into a cultural icon.
Thanks to Harley for sharing her Black Flag tattoo with us here on Tattoosday, and to Stewart Dean Ebersole for putting together such a great chronicle of bars tattoos.
More info on the book here.
This entry is ©2013 Tattoosday.
If you are seeing this on another website 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.
Thanksgiving Re-Post: A Holiday Tattoo from 2010
Every year at Thanksgiving, I am thankful for many things, with my lovely wife and two amazing daughters at the top of the list. My new job cracks the top five this year, although it might appear as though my intense love of this blog is suffering as a result. As I've said before, you, the readers out there in the world, are also people for whom I am thankful. Mahalo, as they say in my childhood home, for visiting often.
Posts have been few and far between, I realize, this fall. Nonetheless, I wanted to celebrate the holiday with this post from Thanksgiving 2010, slightly edited, which appeared here.
Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving!
In honor of the holiday, I am sharing this, my newest tattoo, located above my knee on my right thigh:
This was done at Hand of Glory in Brooklyn yesterday as part of the shop's $75 Thanksgiving Tattoo Special ...
For those of you just tuning in, check the pre-post here, which includes all the Thanksgiving flash designed for the occasion. I asked readers to vote on which tattoo to get, and this one sneaked out a narrow victory over the traditional Native American profile.
I like this design because it combines a lot of traditional tattoo elements and delivers an image with a sociopolitical subtext. We have the traditional American flag and handshake designs, but the added element of crossed fingers serves as a reminder that, despite apparent good intentions, there was subsequently a historical betrayal of that initial good will.
But that's just one perspective, of course, and the Thanksgiving holiday focuses on the positive in our society. The mere existence of the tattoo reminds me to be thankful, which I alluded to in my original post.
I was fortunate enough to have BJ as my artist again. He had inked my Friday the 13th tattoo last August, and I appreciate that he works quickly and concisely.
It was nice, also, that this design was one of his contributions to the flash sheet, as he was kind enough to embellish slightly on the original design, and it always seems better when an artist is tattooing his or her own design. As for the idea behind it, he was trying to represent graphically a broken treaty. I'm extremely pleased with the end result.
...
I want to thank all of the readers who voted for designs, and for everyone who reads and supports the site.
And thanks again to ... BJ at Hand of Glory, and to my family, at home in Brooklyn and across the U.S., for their support
Posts have been few and far between, I realize, this fall. Nonetheless, I wanted to celebrate the holiday with this post from Thanksgiving 2010, slightly edited, which appeared here.
Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving!
In honor of the holiday, I am sharing this, my newest tattoo, located above my knee on my right thigh:
This was done at Hand of Glory in Brooklyn yesterday as part of the shop's $75 Thanksgiving Tattoo Special ...
For those of you just tuning in, check the pre-post here, which includes all the Thanksgiving flash designed for the occasion. I asked readers to vote on which tattoo to get, and this one sneaked out a narrow victory over the traditional Native American profile.
I like this design because it combines a lot of traditional tattoo elements and delivers an image with a sociopolitical subtext. We have the traditional American flag and handshake designs, but the added element of crossed fingers serves as a reminder that, despite apparent good intentions, there was subsequently a historical betrayal of that initial good will.
But that's just one perspective, of course, and the Thanksgiving holiday focuses on the positive in our society. The mere existence of the tattoo reminds me to be thankful, which I alluded to in my original post.
I was fortunate enough to have BJ as my artist again. He had inked my Friday the 13th tattoo last August, and I appreciate that he works quickly and concisely.
 |
| BJ at Work |
...
I want to thank all of the readers who voted for designs, and for everyone who reads and supports the site.
And thanks again to ... BJ at Hand of Glory, and to my family, at home in Brooklyn and across the U.S., for their support
This entry is ©2013, 2011, 2010 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.
Jeff Shares Some Amazing Work by Caesar Tattoo
Last Sunday, I met a guy named Jeff at my local laundromat, where I happen to meet a lot of the contributors to Tattoosday, it seems.
Jeff has a ton of work, including neck tattoos and some amazing black and gray sleeves. Turns out tattoos were created by Caesar, an amazing artist who works out of New York City.
He allowed me to grab a few samples of his work:
And this spine running down the length of his arm:
Unfortunately, these photos really don't do the work justice, but I was able to find some of the work on his Facebook page here.
You can check out more of this amazing artist's portfolio at Caesar Tattoo in Manhattan's East Village. Our friends at Needles & Sins ran a short profile of Caesar here. Jeff even told me that some of his work has ended up in one of Marisa Kakoulas' black and gray tattoo compendia.
You can see an even more extensive collection of Caesar's work on his Facebook page here.
Thanks to Jeff for sharing his work with us here on Tattoosday!
Jeff has a ton of work, including neck tattoos and some amazing black and gray sleeves. Turns out tattoos were created by Caesar, an amazing artist who works out of New York City.
He allowed me to grab a few samples of his work:
And this spine running down the length of his arm:
Unfortunately, these photos really don't do the work justice, but I was able to find some of the work on his Facebook page here.
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| Photo Courtesy of Caesar Tattoo, ©2010 Caesar Tattoo |
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| Photo Courtesy of Caesar Tattoo, ©2010 Caesar Tattoo |
 |
| Photo Courtesy of Caesar Tattoo, ©2010 Caesar Tattoo |
You can check out more of this amazing artist's portfolio at Caesar Tattoo in Manhattan's East Village. Our friends at Needles & Sins ran a short profile of Caesar here. Jeff even told me that some of his work has ended up in one of Marisa Kakoulas' black and gray tattoo compendia.
You can see an even more extensive collection of Caesar's work on his Facebook page here.
Thanks to Jeff for sharing his work with us here on Tattoosday!
This entry is ©2013 Tattoosday.
If you are seeing this on another website 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.
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