Woman seen from behind with a large Japanese-style back tattoo of a butterfly and peonies in black and grey, with coloured sleeves on both arms.

Butterfly and peony back piece with arm sleeves

Japanese · Back · Mixed · Photo

A woman with her back to the camera has her arms raised and hands in her hair, showing a large back piece. The design includes a butterfly near the shoulders, peonies and chrysanthemums with outlined petals, and leaves set within an ornate panel, mostly in black and grey with stippled shading. Both arms carry sleeve work, with red peony detail on the upper arm and forearm.

Japanese Botanical Back Upper arm Forearm Butterfly Peony Chrysanthemum Flower Leaves Ornament Sleeve

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The mule has stopped again at the second switchback, and Aunt Ruth is counting the bells on its harness out loud, so I am writing this with the lamp balanced on the saddlebag and the paper against my knee. The pass shut behind us this morning. Two drovers came over the top with frost in their beards and said the peonies would not be out in the valley until June. I took it for a joke until I saw the snow.

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You asked what I am carrying up to the monastery at Sela. It is not the ink, which I bought from the man in Leh who grinds soot with glue and swears it lasts longer than sin. It is the panel. Master Hosoda drew it on rice paper over three winters: a peony the size of a cartwheel, chrysanthemums in rows like the stitches of a good coat, and at the top a butterfly with its wings held open as if it had only just landed. Every petal is outlined and then left empty, so the light has to do the rest.

The abbot wants the shading done by hand, dot by dot, so the whole field looks like rain on a dark window. I managed the first hundred squares in the workshop and my fingers bled into the paper. Last night at the inn the landlord's girl held the lamp while I worked, and she asked whether the butterfly was going somewhere. I told her every butterfly on a mountain is going somewhere. She said that was the stupidest thing she had ever heard and went to bed.

I will post this from the lower village if the mule allows. Tell Mother the panel is nearly finished. The leaves on the left still need their veins, and I have decided to leave the last petal open, because the butterfly is only resting there. It ought to look as though it could leave whenever it likes. Your sister, Maren.