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The photo above is a tattoo from the back of Sara's left calf.

I spotted her on the West 4th Street platform back in August.

This zombie girl was inked in Pittsburgh. Sara just loved the design and added it to her body's canvas. She estimates that she is about 10-15% covered in ink.

Thanks to Sara for sharing this tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

Imagine me in Penn Station. I see a woman with a small letter tattooed on her. Interesting. Then I notice that she has them everywhere, in no apparent order, on her legs, on her arms, on the back of her neck. Not something you see every day. I had to ask her about them, and Elizabeth was kind to indulge my curiosity.

Elizabeth is a typographer, by profession, and she works with letters as part of her trade. Over the course of three years, she had the entire alphabet tattooed, two or three letters at a time, all over her body.

Here's the one photo I took that captured two letters in one frame:


I asked her if she went in alphabetical order and she told me she hadn't. Whatever letters she was working on at the time, she would have inked. In other words, she'd head into New York Adorned for her appointment with Stephanie Tamez, and whatever was at the forefront of her consciousness, that's what she had tattooed.

I was familiar with Stephanie Tamez for, most recently, this tattoo on the writer Eileen Myles. So I sent Stephanie an email and asked her to comment on this particular twenty-six part tattoo.

Stephanie wrote:

"I...remember the alphabet on Elizabeth, she is sweet and lovely as well. As you may or may not know I have had a reputation for tattooing many a letter, many a word, many a sentence and many a paragraph. I bet I have in all filled a few novels. Ha. Anyway from what I can recall with Elizabeth, it was very simple and fun and straight forward. I have done several alphabets throughout the years on mostly graphic designers who are captivated by fonts. I have done words on graphic designers from France to Mexico and done many a word on many a writer. I wish I could remember them all and had been logging all their tales..."

Elizabeth had also mentioned to me that she was meeting with Ina Saltz, an art director, designer, writer, photographer and professor at City College of New York. Unbeknownst to me at the time, Ms. Saltz had written a book called Body Type, which is a study of typographic tattoos.

Having since read the book (highly recommended to all), I related to Ms. Saltz's quest, that began with a chance spotting of a word tattoo on a crosstown bus several years ago. Of course, I have featured numerous word tattoos over the past couple of years, but Body Type's chronicling of the vast array of typographic tattoos is certainly entertaining to anyone who appreciates the art. In fact, Ms. Saltz goes out of her way to acknowledge Stephanie Tamez as one of the premier word tattooists. In all fairness to Ms. Tamez, one look at her website will reveal that, although she is acknowledged as a skilled tattooer of words, her skills and artistry go far beyond the inking of letters!

Anyway, back to Elizabeth, who followed up our encounter with an e-mail discussing the font she used for her tattoos, but also with (per my request) an alphabetical catalog of all her letters:

My tattoos are in Garamond (for the real font nerds out there, it's a few different cuts, mostly Garamond 3 and Stempel Garamond, a couple are in Adobe Garamond). I'm a typographer and I've always loved Garamond — the first Roman font to be used on Gutenberg's press. The typeface has been in existence since 1530, and still embodies so much of what we perceive as 'perfect' in letterforms today. Yes, they're all in lower case. No plans for capitals, or punctuation...no plans for any more tattoos, in fact.

Below is the catalog of letters. although I will say I didn't get them in alphabetical order, and I got them slowly over a few years. It was usually whatever letters I was drawing a lot at the time, or thinking about.

a: front-facing left shoulder
b: left thigh
c: inside left arm
d: right upper right arm/bicep
e: sternum
f: right calf
g: inside right wrist
h: inside right calf
i: inside left thigh, just above knee
j: inside left wrist
k: left upper left arm/bicep
l: left forearm
m: right forearm
n: collarbone
o: inside right bicep
p: inside right thigh
q: nape of neck [pictured]
r: top of right shoulder
s: top of right foot
t: left shin
u: back
v: back
w: back
x: shoulder blade
y: left calf
z: behind left ear [pictured]

Thanks to Elizabeth for her cooperation and participation here on Tattoosday. Also, much thanks to Stephanie Tamez (see her official website here) for her chiming in on the experience.

Do look into Body Type, as well. It's a lovely book indeed.

I met Barb just outside of Penn Station and she shared this lovely half-sleeve:


She has eight tattoos in all, but this one is most visible. The piece features colorful lotus flowers.


She loves not only the beauty of the lotus, but the symbolism as well. "It's a pretty flower that grows in shitty water," she told me, implying that beauty can be found in less than ideal places.


The artist was Shane O'Neill who did this in Delaware. He works out of his shop Trademark Tattoo.

Barb estimated that the whole piece took about five hours in two sittings and that three of the five hours were spent coloring the flowers.

Thank you to Barb for sharing her work with us on Tattoosday!

Dave Bryant

Generally speaking, New Yorkers tend to avoid speaking to one another on the subway, or the subway platforms. As one would imagine, you see a lot of great ink on the trains, and I've become less and less concerned when it comes to breaking the "don't talk to strangers on the subway" rule.

I met Alyssa on the subway platform at Court Street in Brooklyn and she shared two very interesting tattoos with me.

She first offered up this very interesting piece on the inner part of her upper left arm:


For the full effect, this is what the edges look like as they wrap around the arm:


This design is actually a replica of a bracelet she used to wear, a piece that was designed by her maternal grandfather. He was a jewelery designer by trade. The bracelet was constructed of sandcastle silver and inspired by Zuni art. The Zuni of the American Southwest are known for their skill in silversmithing.

I asked Alyssa why she chose a bracelet to be tattooed on her and she informed me, "I was coming back to who I was as a person" and that she wanted to put something artistic on herself. Incorporating an object that was an artistic creation of her grandfather made sense to her.

I was pleased when I asked her about this tattoo as well, and she kindly allowed me to take the picture:


This tattoo is on the back side of her upper right arm, and I was fascinated by its unusual design. She explained that a good friend of hers is an American Sign Language (ASL) translator, and that the figure is demonstrating the sign for "Soul". The way motion is depicted in the tattoo is completely brilliant, in my opinion.


Both tattoos were inked by Daniel Santoro at New York Adorned. He's now at Smith Street Tattoo Parlour in Brooklyn.

Thanks to Alyssa for sharing these lovely tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

I met Georgiana, owner of twenty-two tattoos, and she offered up these two pieces from her inner forearms:



Both tattoos were done by her husband, who is a tattoo artist (MySpace page here).

The first piece is a tattoo dedicated to them as a couple (Pete and Gia). The second is a memorial, for their son Blake, who passed away at five weeks old, a victim of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).

Thanks to Georgiana for sharing these two very personal tattoos with us here on Tattoosday.