Tattoo U

  

  

  

cfryling writes: “I would like to get a tattoo that is profoundly meaningful and minimalistically symbolic to me but admittedly silly and meaningless to others: A small black dot on my left wrist. Yes, that’s it.

I tried to do just that. I shyly walked into a tattoo parlor and described what I wanted. The guy at the counter and the tattoo artist waiting for a client were rude and dismissive. Clearly, I was insulting their intelligence and their art by asking for a stupid black dot. I tried to explain that it was symbolically important to me, but they merely talked about how the overhead of just getting set up was going to cost me more than the tattooing itself and that it’s a lot of work for a black dot, etc. By the time they were ready to charge me and get me started, I felt so dispirited that I declined and left.”

After a bit of a drought of inkspotting, I finally caught some new tattoos in Penn Station on Tuesday, along the L.I.R.R. corridor.

Tom has “19 or 20″ tattoos and is working to some day achieving a full sleeve on his left arm. He offered me these two tattoos (for Tat-Tuesday), whose close proximity on his forearm made them the natural choice.

On top is the trinacria of the flag of Sicily. This symbol contains the the (winged) head of Medusa and three bent legs, which supposed to represent good luck and prosperity.

It is a nod to his Italian heritage.

Below that is a New York Yankees tattoo which is very similar to my wife’s cousin’s stars and stripes-filled NY logo. Tom gave it a simple explanation: “I’m a huge Yankees fan”.

Say what you want about other cities, but I would venture to guess that the greater New York City area has a higher per capita count of hometown tattoos than any other metropolitan area.

Tom’s ink was done by Rob, owner of Skin Deep Tattoo in Levittown, New York. Work from the shop has appeared previously here.

Thanks to Tom for sharing his work with us here on Tattoosday!

Finding good tattoo designs is obviously very important if you are considering getting ink. This is going to be a permanent thing and not only do you want to ensure it is the best design possible for you, but also that it will last and hold up well throughout the years.

So where can you find good tattoo designs?

1. Check out magazines.

Tattoo magazines have some great ink on display. Not just separate designs, but dozens of photographs of tattoo wearers and their chosen designs. You’ll get a great idea of what a certain design will look like on skin and on specific areas of the body. Maybe you are a considering a tribal design but don’t know where to put it? Photographs from tattoo magazines can reveal different wearers and their unique placement choices which can help narrow down your own choices, or open up new ideas and possibilities.

Magazines provide mostly all high quality designs on display. Some designs will be provided with the specific artist who either created the tattoo or placed it on. This can help greatly in your research, finding which artist to use and which parlor to go to.

2. Check out Tattoo Galleries Online.

This is an excellent and very convenient way to find high quality tattoos which you can print out immediately, take to the parlor and get inked. Now there our free galleries and membership site galleries. The free galleries you will get the usual run of the mill generic designs which you see all the time. But with the membership tattoo galleries, there are literally thousands of designs to choose from in just about every category you can imagine (rose tattoos, small tattoos, cross tattoos, tribal, and so on).