Large colour phoenix tattoo with spread wings in red, orange and yellow across a woman's back, shown from behind.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Phoenix across a woman's back

Traditional · Back · Colour · Photo

A large phoenix with spread wings and a flared tail covers most of the upper and mid back, facing right with its head turned toward the viewer's right. The feathers are shaded in red, orange and yellow with dark outlines and fine highlights, and the tail feathers trail down toward the waistband. The photograph is taken from behind against a plain light background, with the subject's head and face out of frame.

Traditional Back Phoenix Bird Wing Feather Tail feather

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Marjorie,

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The kiln has been running since Tuesday and I have not slept more than four hours together. Gordon from the day shift says I look like something the cat dragged in, which is rich coming from a man who has never once seen the sun before ten. Still, the old Cromer kiln is behaving, and I am writing this at the bench by the firebox with my boots steaming.

You will remember the commission from the Hallam family, the great copper phoenix for their conservatory. Mr Hallam wanted it glazed in oxblood and gold, and every firing so far has come out muddy or cracked straight down the spine. Tonight I finally opened the door at four and found the thing whole. Not perfect. There is a hairline crack along one wing where the clay was too thick. But the fire had taken the copper and turned it the colour of a sunset over the salt marsh, and the tail feathers had run down in streaks as if they were still moving.

I sat on an upturned bucket for a good quarter of an hour looking at it. Nobody else was in. The extractor fan ticked. I thought about Dad telling us that the old potters at Stoke would never fire a piece they had not first burned their own hands on, and I laughed out loud at the empty shed.

Tomorrow I will tell Mr Hallam the crack can be lacquered and that he should count himself lucky. But I wanted you to know, before the grey light comes through the high windows, that something came out of the fire tonight and it looked very like it was about to fly.

Love, Tom