Andrew's Traditional Sleeve by Horisei

Every once in a while, it's nice to appreciate a tattoo for its own sake. This is especially rewarding for me when I am familiar with the artist, and I know people who have been tattooed by him or her, which has allowed me to appreciate their craft over time.

Two of my friends have been fortunate enough to have been tattooed by the wonderful Horisei (their work appeared here and here). Horisei works out of Chelsea Tattoo Company, former location of Rising Dragon.

So, when I spotted Andrew, coming out of Penn Station last month, I was more than thrilled to take shots of his Horisei-crafted sleeve.

Andrew estimates that this took about twenty hours of work, over a two to three month period.

His traditional Japanese sleeve consists of a tiger, two koi, and peonies, in addition to the water background.

Thanks to Andrew for sharing his awesome sleeve with us here on Tattoosday!

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Joe's Blue Koi (and a Honu, too!)

Joe has this amazing koi on his upper left arm, part of a 3/4 sleeve:


Initially, our discussion was brief. He is a fan of traditional tattoos and loves the Japanese style. He had this inked in 2001 by Civ at Lotus Tattoo in Sayville, New York. Work from Civ appeared previously here on Tattoosday.

I certainly thought it was unusual to see a blue koi. It's certainly not the most traditional color for a koi tattoo. When I asked Joe about it, he replied, "...there is no significance and I believe it was suggested by Civ...I thought it would certainly be unique, since I had yet to see a blue koi. It was strictly an aesthetic decision."

It was only later, when I was looking at the photo at home, that I noticed a fine detail I hadn't picked up before:


Having grown up in Hawai'i, that certainly looked like a honu design, or traditional Hawaiian sea turtle. I had remembered that Joe had a Polynesian-style tribal arm band on his right forearm, so I shot him an e-mail.

He replied:

The story behind the Polynesian sea turtle is ... I was on my honeymoon in Hawaii, 2001. I had wanted to get tattooed while there and found a shop in Waikiki, Skin Deep. Walked in, shot the shit with one of the guys for half an hour, had an idea of what I wanted to do, a Polynesian band around my forearm being that we were in Hawaii. It seemed fitting as far as a "souvenir" tattoo. Since the band I decided on did not work in a perfect circle around my arm, I decided on the turtle to make it work. We did the tattoo in about an hour and I still love it...

Thanks to Joe for sharing his koi tattoo. I am looking forward to featuring more of his work in the future.

Jason's Koi and Flower

While wandering aimlessly at work, I ran into Tom (see his tattoo here) with a couple of contractors. One of them had a cool tattoo and when I mentioned it to Tom, he told me to go get my camera. And so I did.

Tom introduced me and summarized my Tattoosday project.

The guy, Jason, actually had two pieces that formed a quarter-sleeve that covered pretty much the entire upper arm.

The inner arm/bicep has a flower on it which he referred to as a pantisse.




I checked an encyclopedia and found no such name. I could spend a long time trying to figure it out, but am not willing to do so.

He got it at Fly Rite Studio in Brooklyn. The artist is Elio Espana.

The outer arm hosted the koi tattoo, which was the one I first noticed.



Jason is a Pisces, and the koi represents good luck.

This piece was inked by Damien Bart at Bruce Bart Tattooing in Ft. Lauderdale.


Thanks to Jason for contributing to Tattoosday!

3rd Avenue Festival, Bay Ridge

On Sunday, September 30, the community of Bay Ridge held its annual Third Avenue Festival. Every Fall, there's a street fair on 3rd and every Spring, one on 5th Avenue.

The weather was beautiful and there was a plethora of tattoos, as I had anticipated. I had kids in tow, however, and despite their appreciation of body art, I have found myself less inclined to approach people when they are around.

Nonetheless, as people familiar with New York street fairs know, the kids love the big, inflatable bouncy rides. You know, when they jump around with a bunch of other kids on a huge inflatable pad, surrounded by netting and inflatable walls.

Thanks to their love of such attractions and the leniency of the operator, the kids had unlimited fun in the hour or two we spent at the festival, and I got to talk tattoo.

I am proud to report that I met and spoke with seven different folks who agreed to let me photograph their ink and get a little history of the work gracing their flesh.

In fact, until post-street fair, when I asked a guy in Foodtown about his shoulder piece, and was rebuffed, I was batting a thousand, 7 for 7.

So, thanks to all my inked volunteers. Due to space constraints and time as well, I'm going to roll them out gradually, a day at a time. Unless, I find more cool tattoos this week and start to further backlog. Oh, to have such problems!

Enough of the talk, here we go.....


The first piece is a classic koi tattoo, done on the front of the calf. There is a dragon on the back of the leg but it is not finished yet, as color still needs to be added.

The host, John, is from the Bay Ridge area and had his koi inked at Body Art Studios on 3rd Avenue. We know the artist, Peter Cavorsi, who also runs the shop, because he is responsible for one of mine and three of my wife's pieces. I strongly recommend his shop if you live in southwest Brooklyn. His shop is clean and he does very nice work, as you can see from John's koi.

Koi are a traditional part of Japanese tattoo, and are very common subjects n body art because they represent good fortune. Despite their being regular subjects, they seldom are ever one in the same. Like snowflakes, they tend to differ from body to body, and unlike tribal pieces, I don't think I could ever get bored of koi tattoos.

John estimated that this large leg piece, including the dragon on the back of the leg, not pictured and not yet colored, took 13 hours so far. A lot of people don't realize how much time goes into elaborate pieces like these. On shows like Miami Ink, a ten-hour project can be compressed to five minutes of screen time.

Thanks to John for getting me off to a great start at the Third Avenue Festival! Tune back throughout the week to see the tattoos on Tracy, another guy named John, Jaimie, Helen, Chris and Lolita Ford.

Happy October!