Chris Ludacris Bridges is an American rapper and actor, best known for albums including Back for the First Time, Word of Mouf and The Red Light District.
Ludacris has be spotted with a few tattoos, one being a cross with a portrait on his right arm, along with praying hands on his left shoulder.
The rapper also has another tattoo design on his left shoulder, however we're not quite clear on the design. Any ideas?
On the night of September 23, I was returning from Manhattan to Brooklyn on the R train after a poetry reading, when Erin sat down next to me. She had this tattoo on her left forearm:
Even Erin would concede this isn't a high-grade, professional tattoo. It was inked by a friend's girlfriend and is an image of the Lone Ranger, based on a printmaking project she did in college in which she envisioned a series of "American Hero Snacks". This was her design for the Lone Ranger Candy Bar. It's an image that resonates with her.
Thanks to Erin for a) talking to this stranger on the subway at night, and b) sharing your tattoo with us here on Tattoosday! Hi-yo, Silver, away!
As an afterthought, today marks the 30th anniversary of the death of John Lennon, I would point to this post to remember her fondly.
I met Laura in October after I spotted this tattoo on her foot:
This is a leopard frog, which reminds her of growing up, when she spent time in Shawmere, near Lyndhurst, in Eastern Ontario, Canada. She nostalgically recollects her summers as a young girl, fishing and catching frogs.
Laura has a second tattoo, just above her waistline, which she generously shared with us, as well:
This floral tattoo depicts a bouquet with geraniums and the white edelweiss flowers. The edelweiss is the unofficial national flower of Switzerland and this tattoo commemorates not only the month she spent there as a visitor, but because she loves the Swiss culture and it is her favorite country.
Both tattoos were done by Patrick Dean at Tattooville, in Neptune, New Jersey. Work from Tattooville has appeared previously on our site here.
Thanks to Laura for sharing these two cool tattoos on Tattoosday!
Anja was visiting New York City from Denmark earlier this fall, when she ran into me in Penn Station. Of course, I was thrilled when she agreed to share this tattoo with us here on Tattoosday:
This tattoo on Anja's calf is based on the cover art from Es ist soweit, a 1990 album from a German band called Böhse Onkelz.
This record has significant meaning for Anja because it helped bring her and her brother together. She explained that they lived apart and didn't talk much, growing up in separate households. She was living with her grandmother, and came to visit her father and she was walking past her brother's room and heard him listening to this record.
The music brought them together, as she stopped to talk to him about it, learned that he had been listening to Böhse Onkelz longer than her, and this common ground broke the ice. Whereas before they had very little to talk about, Anja credits the band and this album with helping establish ties with her brother.
The top of the tattoo starts a lyric
and ends with
The lyric in question, "Let's forever be that Rebel Monster" is actually from a song by Volbeat, a Danish rock band, on their first album The Strength/The Sound/The Songs. The date below, "29-07-19--" is her brother's birth date.
This cool, meaningful tattoo was inked in Denmark by an artist named Dennis Wehler. I love how the words seem to be carved in her flesh.
Thanks to Anja for sharing this wonderful tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!
As a bonus, here's a little "Rebel Monster" from Volbeat:
Here it is December and I have all these loose ends, tattoos I photographed in the summer and, for some reason or other, never wrote about.
One such example belongs to Robbie, who is originally from Seattle. I stopped to talk to him at the corner of 34th Street and 7th Avenue, and he was kind enough to share this tattoo on his upper right arm:
Robbie explained that the red balloon is a family reminder about his grandmother, and that in addition to his own tattoo, his mother, brother, cousin and aunt all have tattoos that contain a red balloon, as a nod to the family matriarch.
The skyline depicted is punctuated by the Space Needle, Seattle's most recognizable landmark. Robbie is from Washington State, and the addition of this famous structure to a metropolitan cluster of buildings, which includes a scaled-down replica of the Empire State Building to its right, is a nod to his home town, while also recognizing New York City, his current home.
Robbie credited the tattoo to Liz at Addiction NYC, although he noted she tattoos somewhere out on Long Island now.
Thanks to Robbie for sharing his tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!
Yesterday we enjoyed seeing the neck tattoo of a Missouri-based artist nicknamed "Dirtbird," as well as a piece he had inked on his friend Shawn.
In addition to meeting both Shawn and Dirtbird across the street from where I work, I also met Katie, who half-jokingly referred to herself as "Mrs. Dirtbird". She shared this tattoo with us:
Katie explained that this is a wedding tattoo. The piece depicts a heart, comprised of a male and female bird, sewn together. Since she married Dirtbird, this seems like and appropriate expression of their matrimony.
