For half the year JC Ortiz, 29, works on a fishing boat in Alaska. He spends the other half in Williamsburg, playing the banjo in his band, The Keeps.
Ortiz got his first tattoo three years ago in Chico, CA. He wanted a design that encompassed music as well as fishing. So he drew an anchor on a napkin with the rope in the shape of a treble clef.
When he took the napkin to a tattoo artist, he wasn’t expecting him to copy it straight from his drawing.
As a result, he says it’s a “bad tattoo.” Still he likes it because it reminds him of a “special time” in his life.
Ortiz’s got his most recent tattoo three months ago and it follows the same musical-nautical theme.
Spending as much time as he does at sea, he has a particular affinity with boats. They’re his home for long stretches of time. He had his tattooed ship’s sails decorated with symbols central in his life: the treble clef, the New Mexican Zia sun and a heart. Ortiz left two sails blank and called it his “heart vessel.”
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