A Beacon for Marci on Buddy's Arm

I met Buddy a while back while riding the subway. He had 13 or 14 tattoos and shared this piece, from his left forearm:

Buddy explained that this old gas-lit street light serves a memorial piece for Marci, his French bulldog, who passed away at the age of 14. Marci was his "light in the dark" for a dozen years,

The tattoo was inked at The End is Near in Brooklyn. He couldn't remember the artist's name, but based on his description (and my rudimentary knowledge of the artists there), I believe the tattooist was Joey Wilson, who has moved on to Asylum Studios in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Two from Samanatha, Including a Tattoo for Bubbie

I met Samanatha last month in Penn Station and asked her about her many tattoos. She's 26, and has been getting inked since she was 18, and appears to be going at a steady clip, because she has a lot of great work.

She was kind enough to share two of her tattoos, both from her right arm. The first piece is this hamsa:

Samantha explained that she got this tattoo in memory of her grandmother, or "bubbie," as they're known among many Jewish grandchildren. Samanthha's bubbie passed away a few months ago. I asked her what she thought of her tattoos and she replied, "Well, being a Jewish bubbie, I don't think she was too excited about them, but I always asked her if, as long as she still loved me, then it was okay; and she always said, "ach, yeah."

This hamsa, a symbol often associated with luck and warding off the "evil eye," was inked by Josh Schlageter at Hand of Doom Tattoo in Buffalo.

Samantha also offered up this dragon tattoo:

She got this from Steve Boltz at Smith Street Tattoo Parlour in Brooklyn, explaining:

"It's called a  spaulding dragon - it's old sailor flash ... I just wanted to go to one of the guys that could do one really, really well. Everybody in the tattoo community up in Buffalo that I know said, 'you gotta go to Steve Boltz', so I traveled down here to got see him."

Thanks to Samantha for sharing these cool tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

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Ryan's Tattoo Commemorates the Life of Dolly

Earlier this month I met Ryan, who has a whole host of tattoos. We were working on a project together, so we spent a bit of time chewing the fat, and he wanted to share this particular tattoo, which is on his right forearm:

Ryan explained how he was raised by his grandmother, whose name was Dolly, but he just called Mom. She lived a full life, well into her nineties, and was pretty much the only mother he really knew. After she passed, he wanted something to memorialize her and got this tattoo which not only has her name, but a black rose, a skull, a sparrow, and a derringer. He elaborated about his grandmother's life:

"Back in the day, when she was 19 or 20 years old, she was in the Irish mob and she made whiskey and hooch and she would basically run it back and forth across state lines and that's how she made her money. That's how she supported her family. That's what the derringer is for, because she would always keep a derringer in her bra, just in case something happened ... the black rose ... is symbolic of her life and her passing, which is the skull ... the bird - she's free - you know, God always keeps his eye on the sparrow ... it's a montage of her very interesting life."

Ryan had this tattoo done in Mobile, Alabama, buy an artist he only knows as 'Link,' a tattooist who spent a lot of time in Philadelphia and who also owns a shop in Pensacola, Florida.

Thanks to Ryan for sharing this tattoo, along with Dolly's story, 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.