Christopher's Tattoo Bridges Generations

Last Friday I met Christopher on Penn Plaza. He estimated that he had tattoos numbering in the mid-fifties.Again, I am sometimes intimidated by folks with a lot of ink, and will usually not trouble them, but not this time.
And, of all those tattoos, Christopher lifted up his shirt to reveal one of his most meaningful pieces:


The cross with angel wings behind it is graced by a banner that reads "In Loving Memory ... Grandpa Al".


This tribute tattoo was inked at Good Times Tattoo Studio in East Islip, New York by Bill. Christopher is a tattoo artist there as well.Grandpa Al was a tattoo artist himself, at Ace Tattoo in San Diego, one of the oldest shops in the city (founded around 1947). I acknolwedged that Al must have been busy working in San Diego, with several military bases nearby.
Christopher always knew he wanted to be an artist, and has been tattooing about 14 years.
"What about your Dad," I asked him, "is he an artist?"
Christopher shook his head and said he wasn't. "And he doesn't have a single tattoo. Not one!"
"Really?" I asked.
He shook his head and laughed "I just don't understand it."
So the ink-lination to tattoo skipped a generation in his family, but you could tell he was proud of his grandfather's legacy, and he bore it like a badge of honor.
Thanks so much to Christopher for sharing his tribute to Grandpa Al here on Tattoos day!

Cross Symbolic Tattoos

Tattoos are becoming a craze among the youngsters nowadays. Tattoos might be permanent tattoos made by piercing and ingraining a non-removable dye or by raising scars or temporary tattoos made out of the herb called henna. The word tattoo is the derivative of the Tahitian term Tauta which means to mark. Cross tattoos are among the different types of tattoos.

Cross tattoos indicate different meanings. Even though these tattoos symbolizes the religion of Christianity, it is widely been used for several reasons.

Many Catholics and Christians use this tattoos in the belief that using cross tattoos would be the perfect way to express their faith in their religion. Catholic and Christian tattoo designs normally have the Latin cross, which has four spokes; with three spokes of equal length facing each other, and one long spoke pointing down. Some Catholic Christian crosses have a symbol representing the crucified Jesus Christ.

The Celtic tattoo is the combination of symbols like a circle and a Latin cross. The circle exists in the center, where the two lines in the Latin cross meet each other. The circle in the Celtic tattoos is refers the life circle view that life and death are a never-ending and cyclical process.
The Tattoos of Maltese has a cross shape like four v-shaped arms having the end facing inside and the eight corner points indicate honesty, glory, faithfulness, courageousness, helpfulness, piousness, disdain of death and respect for the church.

Gothic tattoos are heavily adorned and these tattoos normally have an iron texture. These crosses are normally combines with imaginary like barbed wire and daggers. These tattoos are used to express the anger and pain.

Iron cross tattoos are connected with German military. The symbol has four equal spikes that burn out at each end and was first used by the German military in the year 1870. In later years the symbol of iron cross was used as a decoration by the military during the times of wars.

Cross tattoos are also combines with the designs of other elements, which add personal meaning. Some images used in combination with theses tattoos are flowers, butterflies, stripes and stars, texts, verses from Bible, etc.

Memorial cross tattoos are becoming popular nowadays and these tattoos are used as a remembrance of some person who has left the world. This type of cross tattoos has a stone texture combined with the name and date of death of the person in remembrance of whom the tattoo is being used.