Memorial Day Post: Brandon's Leg Says It All

I met Brandon briefly while passing through Penn Station one day back in March.

I was drawn to the script on his leg and it seemed to be appropriate for this Memorial Day weekend:

The tattoo reads "I'd rather die on my feet / Than live life on my knees."

This holiday weekend is all about honoring those men and women in our armed services that have made the ultimate sacrifice as defenders of our freedom and way of life.

Not many people know that the quote originates from Emiliano Zapata, who fought to overthrow the dictatorship during the Mexican Revolution in the early part of the twentieth century. Its meaning can be interpreted with many nuances, but I understand it to mean that it is better to die fighting for freedom than to live in servitude to others.

I didn't speak to Brandon for very long - it was a passing encounter, but I appreciate his service and sacrifice, and I encourage everyone to take a moment and reflect on the true meaning of this holiday, if you haven't already.

I'd also encourage people to check out this post from my friend Tracy, whose tattoo honors one of our fallen soldiers.

Thanks to Brandon and all of our armed forces for their service to our country.

This entry is ©2012 Tattoosday.

If you are reading 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.

Anja's Ink: Not Your Type-ical Tattoos

One of my favorite tattoo encounters in 2011 has yet to see the light of these Tattoosday pages.

How can this be? You’d think I’d be rushing to post wonderful tattoos but, in some cases, I have what can only be described as blogger’s block. I can go around this encounter and “save it for a rainy day,” but those days turn into weeks, which become monrths, until I see an anniversary approaching on the horizon.

Such was the case with Anja, a native New Zealander who I chanced upon last July in front of K-Mart in the Penn Station concourse.

What stopped me dead in my tracks when I spotted her was that she was covered in text:

She had words inked on her flesh, all different fonts, but not just scrawled, but arranged artistically in a type-setter’s fashion. It was like she was wearing a collection of Ina Saltz’s greatest hits.

And here’s the rub: I think that the complexity of the tattooed words running across her body gave me pause. How would I explain this coherently?

So let me try.

Anja’s clusters of words are poetry, but not poems; they are love letters to family members, and they are deeply personal. The photo above was deliberately framed in a way so that the reader could not necessarily see each entire piece. In this way, Anja maintains ownership of the tattoos and their sentiments.

She has these words assigned in different fonts to members of her family, her mother and her sisters. For example, her tattoo for one sister is in a “Loki Cola” font that resembles the Coca-Cola script and reads

“Under/Flesh/Within/Breast/This/Heart/Holds/Heidi”

Here’s a complete piece for her sister Saskia, using the Konspiracy Theory font:

The verse reads “Saskia/Skin/Belly/Laugh/The/Very/Inside”.

Each piece is a work of beauty.

Anja came to New York specifically to be tattooed by Stephanie Tamez, an accomplished artist outright, but whose reputation as a master of inking type is unsurpassed. Stephanie is based out of Saved Tattoo in Brooklyn.

Anja also shared this tattoo on her left hand:

She explained,

“This is my newest one [as on July 2011]. It’s an egret, or heron. Kotuku in New Zealand … me and my sister got one of these together. [The artist, Gypsy Nation] actually tattooed it on himself as well. He’s Native American and has the heron in his family.”

Gypsy Nation did the tattoo at Fineline Tattoo on the Lower East Side of New York, but has since moved on.

Thanks to Anja for sharing these wonderful tattoos with us here on Tattoosday, and for waiting so patiently for me to post them.

This entry is ©2012 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.