A Selection of Jorge's Tattoos

I met Jorge last week at the top of the escalators leading from Penn Station to 7th Avenue.

He has quite a few, and I took photos of the front and back of his left forearm.

The inner part of his arm has this koi design:


A friend of his did this for him, which he got for luck before going overseas with the U.S. Army to Iraq in 2008. He proudly served with the Third Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, 187th Infantry Regiment, also known as The Rakkasans.

Jorge loves what he calls his "good luck koi fish" and says "We deployed for 15 months....every time I was tired for walking for 2 or 3 days nonstop, I would look at my tattoo and smile and keep walking...".

After returning, he got this tattoo in Nashville:


This piece was just a very cool design.

Bridging these two very different tattoos are two cherry blossoms:


Jorge wanted to make sure they didn't get omitted from the post, as these flowers represent his mother and sister.

That would have been it for this post from Jorge, except the day after meeting him, he sent me this shot of a tattoo on the upper left side of his back:

He hadn't mentioned this when I met him, so I was pleased to include it in the post.

Jorge got this piece at Coyote's Tattoo in Lima, Peru.

He says this is a tribute to his mother and his Peruvian heritage. It is based on a pure gold artifact found next to a mummy in Peru which he saw on display in the American Museum of Natural History.

Thanks again to Jorge for sharing so many of his tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

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.