The Tattooed Poets Project: Jackie Sheeler's Swirling Tribal Tattoos

Today's tattooed poet is <a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.getangrywithme.com">Jackie Sheeler</a>. The photos she sent me were taken by one of her friend's daughters, who utilized Jackie as one of her subjects in a photography project about tattooed New Yorkers.<br /><br />Jackie explains:<br /><br /><blockquote>"I have just two pieces, if by “piece” you mean connected & thematic. I didn’t get them all at once, though.<br /><br />The big one on my left shoulder was done all at once by an artist named Carlos Alfonso at the 23rd street tattoo shop [<a href="http://www.risingdragon.com/">Rising Dragon Tattoos</a>]. I told him I wanted a “wing”, and pointed out about half a dozen pieces of flash that were kinda-sorta but not quite what I wanted. he told me to come back in a week, and he had created the amazing design that you see.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0vspB0r4g78INBSF8AkDy2_ksRFys4Da7e1iEPP3dPieJCNfd708oA7XM-6dlXjg9II9FZGZ010Sip_dIf3mGirxxGHy8OqMnxXYGJ1m_AXTARcIxho0S20CnVT1t44DwKspVkukHJfpe/s1600-h/DSC_0520.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5310779827015843394" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0vspB0r4g78INBSF8AkDy2_ksRFys4Da7e1iEPP3dPieJCNfd708oA7XM-6dlXjg9II9FZGZ010Sip_dIf3mGirxxGHy8OqMnxXYGJ1m_AXTARcIxho0S20CnVT1t44DwKspVkukHJfpe/s400/DSC_0520.JPG" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 268px; height: 400px;" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNxcjjbO71mq5AjiAd6-pBtA4YpWfLonR2dRy40hXMp1X9kEykPyNQhDacTQsNUDBpbQ_gNIDv98YMaTbmBXKV0b75QYZmMs9P0QTxwlTfYVHeqkYGY3IKLlzMPeLb5PgW1llvkVHnTfje/s1600-h/jackie+closeup.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5310779200525481058" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNxcjjbO71mq5AjiAd6-pBtA4YpWfLonR2dRy40hXMp1X9kEykPyNQhDacTQsNUDBpbQ_gNIDv98YMaTbmBXKV0b75QYZmMs9P0QTxwlTfYVHeqkYGY3IKLlzMPeLb5PgW1llvkVHnTfje/s400/jackie+closeup.jpg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 394px; height: 400px;" /></a><br />The tattoo on the right has come about in stages.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_Jvvk-ZJmA-0ylstOKBfSwwqio5DTgXlNTXTTI7YOzAUcGsyCxtmk1_CDJzMrw2-LNpLjHm35UdLXuNK0uwzBwXM9BYu6-ipg98GEjM9UQ1HOCpvgm8Y8jPXpMX6mEBPa6jQq3NrhaeBK/s1600-h/DSC_0505.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5310779637033494754" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_Jvvk-ZJmA-0ylstOKBfSwwqio5DTgXlNTXTTI7YOzAUcGsyCxtmk1_CDJzMrw2-LNpLjHm35UdLXuNK0uwzBwXM9BYu6-ipg98GEjM9UQ1HOCpvgm8Y8jPXpMX6mEBPa6jQq3NrhaeBK/s400/DSC_0505.JPG" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 268px;" /></a><br />The first bit is the somewhat intricate tribal abstraction on the top back of the shoulder. I got that one around 1993, when tribal was just starting to become popular, and it’s a funny story.<br /><br />I went to an illegal flash parlor in Brooklyn [tattooing in New York City was illegal until 1997], a basement filled with all guys except for me, and just one artist, a big old guy named Tony, who looked like somebody you’d meet on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavalcade_of_Stars" style="font-style: italic;">The Jackie Gleason Show</a>. I had a copy of a tribal piece that I’d Xeroxed out of a tattoo magazine, and I told him I wanted that only bigger. He seemed pretty shocked – “you want THAT?” – and said sure he’d do it for $60, which was a lot cheaper than I’d expected. He ran it through that mimeo machine or whatever it is that they use, enlarged it and stenciled it onto me...<br /><br />...But then I had to wait. Why? Because a drug dealer came in with his falling-down drunk girlfriend, gold teeth, handfuls of cash, and a gun pretty obviously stuck in his waistband, and needed immediate service. His girlfriend was getting a tattoo “for him." He picked out the flash – a big, ugly bulldog, snarling and all – and had Tony put it on the girl’s abdomen. It was pretty horrible. She was gorgeous, and I knew how she was going to feel when she woke up with a hangover and THAT on her belly. Anyway, my turn was next and tony got the piece done in like half an hour.<br /><br />I didn’t get another tattoo for 9 years, which is when I got the big one that Carlos did on my left shoulder.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibe3gIvUIypvVG9qlxmgo910dkB0a-OR-8S1M-XSpkv38qSFDEBagolNmrAoDhq_tdy0CaeqjqPZTLdtsqRsBZcrD9j_sBCI3Hx4IRAGrdmHbeEJArCAC-LXtFyXhDeJ6TdB-w-8H2DkmQ/s1600-h/DSC_0499.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5310779411760395682" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibe3gIvUIypvVG9qlxmgo910dkB0a-OR-8S1M-XSpkv38qSFDEBagolNmrAoDhq_tdy0CaeqjqPZTLdtsqRsBZcrD9j_sBCI3Hx4IRAGrdmHbeEJArCAC-LXtFyXhDeJ6TdB-w-8H2DkmQ/s400/DSC_0499.JPG" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 268px; height: 400px;" /></a><br />I went back to Carlos (by then he was working at <a href="http://www.yelp.com/biz/macdougal-st-tattoo-company-new-york">MacDougal Street Tattoo Company</a> [since closed] ... in 2004 and got my “wing and a prayer” tattoo, which is the feathery wing with a peace sign emerging from it that’s just above the crook of my arm. I actually got this piece on July 6, which is George Fucking Bush’s birthday, and I got it in honor of him being about to be thrown out of the White House. (<a href="http://www.myspace.com/jackiesheeler">My band</a> also released a single related to that, so it was a big thing for me – though obviously things didn’t turn out the way we’d hoped!) That piece was a standalone for a while, then I went back and asked Carlos to do a few more curlicues up my arm to attach it to the tribal on my shoulder, which he did.<br /><br />Two years after that, I went back to MacDougal tattoo to get the curlicues extended down to my left wrist, and asked for Carlos. They said he was “no longer practicing” but it was a very strange moment, and the two people at the counter had these looks on their faces. By that time I’d gotten to know Carlos a bit. He was always having girlfriend problems and talking about moving back to Florida, so I asked if he had done that. So sad. No, he had committed suicide a couple months before. He was only 31.<br /><br />It was very strange for me, all of a sudden my art seemed different. I felt like I was wearing his suicide note, in a way. But that (rather absurd) feeling passed, and I went back to MacDougal in a couple of weeks and had Carlos’ friend, <a href="http://www.patrickconlon.net/PatrickConlonOnline.swf">Patrick Conlon</a>, put on the curlicues in Carlos’ style. That session was like in honor and memory of Carlos, and we talked fondly about him while Patrick worked."<br /><br /></blockquote>Thanks to Jackie Sheeler for sharing her detailed recollections of her tattoo stories.<br /><br />Please be sure to head over to BillyBlog to read one of her poems <a href="http://oxypoet.blogspot.com/2009/04/tattooed-poets-series-day-10-jackie.html">here</a>.<br /><br />You can also read her blog, <a href="http://getangrywithme.com/">Get Angry With Me</a>, <a href="http://getangrywithme.com/">here</a>, or visit her band, <a href="http://www.myspace.com/talkengine">Talk Engine</a>, on MySpace Music <a href="http://www.myspace.com/talkengine">here</a>.

The Tattooed Poets Project: Jackie Sheeler's Swirling Tribal Tattoos

Today's tattooed poet is Jackie Sheeler . The photos she sent me were taken by one of her friend's daughters, who utilized Jackie as...

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