Black and grey blackwork sleeves with paisley and lace-like patterns and floral shoulder pieces, shown on a person with hands pressed together in front of the face.

Blackwork sleeves with floral shoulder pieces

Blackwork · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

The photograph shows a torso with full arm sleeves of dense black ornamental linework, including paisley and mandala-style curves, scrollwork and fern-like leaf motifs. Floral clusters sit on each shoulder, and the solid black fills and fine lines are set against pale skin on a dark background. The image is monochrome, and the tattoos fill the frame on either side of the centre with the hands resting together at the top.

Blackwork Botanical Upper arm Forearm Shoulder Paisley Mandala Flower Lace pattern Sleeve Ornament Leaf Scrollwork

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Brother Osric, the abbess has given me the psalter you began before your eyes gave out, and I have spent three weeks on the margin of the first page alone. Every time I draw a curl of acanthus it wants to turn into a teardrop, and every teardrop wants a leaf folded inside it, and the leaves want to lock together like the lace the novices make at Candlemas. Sister Hild says I am being vain. She may be right. I sleep badly now, and the ink dries in my pen before I reach the end of a line.

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Yesterday I went down to the lavender beds to clear my head and found the old garden wall patterned with lichen, grey and black, every spiral doubling back on itself. I stood there until the bell rang for None. I thought of the sentence you wrote inside the cover of the book, that ornament is a prayer which has forgotten how to end. I did not understand it then. I think I do now.

So I am changing the plan. I will stop holding the border inside its ruled lines and let it run off the vellum onto the boards, then onto the oak of the chest where the book is kept. The brothers will say it is unfinished. I have decided it is only unlocked.

Tomorrow I begin the paisley at the lower corner, where the margin is widest. If the ink holds, I will send you a page. If it does not, you will know I finally took your advice and went outside. Yours in ink and patience, Sister Wynne.