Alexandra's Tattoo Asks "Whoooo ... Are ... You?"

I was walking through Penn Statiom in late August, when I stopped dead in my tracks after spotting this tattoo on the upper right section of Alexandra's back:


Tattoos are interesting to me, to begin with, but when they illustrate a work of literature, I am pleased to no end, even if the work in question is not necessarily one of my favorites.

One need not have read Lewis Carroll's classic Alice's Adventures in Wonderland to recognize that this tattoo is based on that seminal work.

Initially, Alexandra shared a bit with me. She just moved to New York from Orlando, and is a big fan of literature, in general. She is "infatuated" with the story of Alice, and the "trippy, unique" universe of Lewis Carroll.

The scene depicted is Alice's encounter with the caterpillar, from the Disney movie, Alice in Wonderland. The caterpillar asks Alice, "Whooo ... are ... you?" This could be an innocent question, but Alexandra notes that this is also a basic philosophical question about humans, in general. Thus, the "W" formed by the smoke from the caterpillar's hookah, represents that seminal question, "Who....?"



In the weeks since I met her, Alexandra has become a fan of Tattoosday, and has shared more, including some photos of the tattoo in progress. She also elaborated a bit more about the whole experience of getting this, her first tattoo.

She directed me to this link here, where she blogs about her tattoo. She added to this, by telling me, via e-mail:

"I was actually scheduled to go and get the tattoo with another popular artist in the [Orlando] area, and was with a group of friends, one whom wanted to get her tattoo touched up. The artist I was trying to work with gave me a bit of the brush off, so we were told to come back later. So we headed down the road and found Fine Ink Studios. Barnett, the owner, had literally set up shop just 5 days prior. While my friend Ashlie was asking about her Fleur de Lys tattoo, Barnett had asked what I was going to leave to get. I told him about the caterpillar, and as professional as possible he told me, "Just so you know, I'd reeeeeally love to do that for you." I went back to the other store, something went wrong, and I decided to leave and go back to Barnett! Happy days, it turns out Barnett had ALSO been employed by Disney and actually had worked on the animation for the film Aladdin. That really sold me, and it was such an amazing 2 and a half hours. I spent the entire time singing Disney songs as loud as I could to get through the pain :)"

Thanks much to Alexandra for sharing so much about the tattoo. Welcome to the Tattoosday family!

Mike's Amazing Back Piece

I had just exited from the subway station in Bay Ridge when I spotted an extremely-inked couple.

I talked with both of them, but Mike was gracious enough to share this phenomenal back piece:


Mike, a musician, has been on the receiving end of the tattoo machine for many years. He is currently lead singer/bassist for The F.T.W.'s, a New York-based rock band.

He even speaks nostalgically about the mid-90's, when tattooing was still illegal in New York City. He has a critical eye and like many people with a commitment to old school tattooing, is dismayed by the skyrocketing popularity of the art, and the subsequent deterioration of the overall quality of tattoos.

For every great tattoo you see here on Tattoosday, there are two dozen others that were inked because they are trendy, and not out of appreciation of the art.

We had a lengthy discussion about this and I worried he might not be so down with the site because I don't always feature top quality tattoos, and am oftentimes just as interested in the story behind an average tattoo as I am in a convention-quality piece.

As for Mike's back piece, he credits Miss D'Jo at the fabulous Lark Tattoo in Westbury, New York for the creation of this gigantic tribute.

See other work from Lark on Tattoosday here.

Mike spoke of a friend and tattoo artist, Chris Lewis, who committed suicide many years ago. Chris had given Mike a knife as a gift, and after his friend passed, Mike had this quasi-memorial back piece done. The knives in the tattoo are modeled after the blade in question.

The detail in this gigantic tattoo is simply phenomenal. Just take a look again at the handiwork on the knives:

Much thanks to Mike and his girlfriend Amanda for stopping and talking tattoo with me. Your contribution to Tattoosday is much appreciated!!