Black and white photo of a forearm with a solid black band tattoo containing a white ampersand, in a blackwork style on the forearm.

Ampersand in a solid black band on a forearm

Blackwork · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A close photograph of a forearm and hand with a wide solid black band tattooed around the forearm. A large white ampersand sits inside the band, formed by the bare skin showing through the black ink. The image is monochrome, with a plain light background and dark clothing on the left.

Blackwork Lettering Forearm Ampersand Symbol

Find an artist for this

Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The mule would not take the last switchback until Ivo had sung to it, so we were late reaching the Col Anzio, and by then the cloud had come down over the pass like wet wool. Ivo wanted to turn back to the hut. I did not. In my coat was a letter from my sister in Bergen saying the mill was sold, the money was split, and she had waited long enough for me to argue about it in person.

Keep reading

At the summit stood a boundary stone, grey and lichened, the height of a child. Someone had cut a single ampersand into its face and then filled the band around it with black pitch, a dark collar the weather had never managed to lift. The white letter stood where the stone had been left bare. Ivo laughed and said the mountain was only telling us the two valleys were one thing and we should stop pretending otherwise. He meant the shepherds' feud over the water meadows, not us, but I heard it differently.

We rested with our backs against the stone, sharing bread and the last of the grappa. The wind pulled the cloud apart for a moment, and the far valley showed itself, lit gold, with the mill's chimney small and certain beside the river. I took out the letter and wrote on the back of it in pencil that kept breaking: Coming down. Ivo says the pass is joined. I am inclined to agree.

We left the mule to sing itself down the far side. I pinned the note under a flat stone at the foot of the boundary marker, letter side out, so whoever climbed next would find a sentence still unfinished.