Shaded tattoo of a dreamcatcher whose hoop is a sea turtle shell with flippers, with feathers hanging below, on the outer thigh.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Dreamcatcher and sea turtle on a thigh

Realism · Thigh · Mixed · Photo

A dreamcatcher with a sea turtle shell as its hoop, with turtle flippers extending to each side, is tattooed on the outer thigh. The linework is fine and the shading is soft and grey, giving the feathers and the turtle shell a three-dimensional look, with small blue beads and one red bead along the strands. The design fills the frame diagonally, with the feathers trailing down towards the lower left.

Realism Thigh Dreamcatcher Sea turtle Feather Bead Web

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Marnie,

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The tide took the last of the willow out of the boathouse yesterday, so I have been sitting on the step with my hands full of feathers instead of writing to you, which is typical of me and you'll say so. Your nephew came down with a bucket of gulls' feathers he'd found along the shingle at Sker Point and wanted to know if they were good enough. I told him anything the wind has carried a long way is worth keeping.

Dad's hoop is still hanging over the kitchen table. You remember the one he made the winter after Mum went, the willow bent into a ring and wrapped with sinew, the web inside knotted so tight a moth couldn't get through. He always said the centre was where the dreams sat down to rest. Last week the old turtle that comes into the bay every August turned up stranded on the slipway with a fishing line round one flipper, and Tomas and I cut her free and sat with her until the water came up over the stones. When she slid back out I found a shell scute in the wrack, cracked at one edge and brown as tea. I've wanted to hang something of hers over that table for years, and now I have.

I fixed it to the hoop this morning with waxed thread, feathers trailing off the bottom, and hung the whole thing in the window so the light comes through the gaps. It turns slowly whenever the door opens. It isn't pretty the way the shops in town mean pretty, but it is ours, and it will catch whatever needs sorting out of the night.

Come at Easter. Bring the boys. I'll show you how to knot the web.

Love, Ruth