A man tying a red-laced boot, showing script lettering and linework tattoos on his forearm and the back of his hand.

Script and linework tattoos on forearm and hand

Lettering · Forearm · Mixed · Photo

A person seated on a striped cushion ties a black leather boot with red laces, with the forearm and hand visible. The forearm carries partly visible lettering in a bold script, along with fine dark linework that appears to show a snake or ribbon form. The back of the hand has blue-grey tattoo elements in a looser linework style. The image is well lit and warm-toned, with the tattoos shown against the skin and the background softly out of focus.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ada,

Keep reading

The laces you sent came in the wrong red, the colour of a pillar box in the rain rather than the cherry you asked for, and I have kept them anyway. Your father would have sent them back. He had no patience for a shade that wasn't what the customer had paid for, but he is dead now and the shop is mine, along with his bench, his awls and the drawer of unclaimed boots that smell of wet leather and tobacco.

I took the snake of ribbon you drew in the margin of your last letter to the tannery on Brixton Road. The man there thought I was mad to ask for a stamp of a serpent on the heel of a boot, but he cut it in brass anyway, and I have pressed it into forty pairs since March. Each one carries a small curl of ribbon where the sole meets the welt, and the women who collect them say it looks like a signature.

The floral part I did myself, with a stylus, down the inside of the tongue where no one looks unless they are tying a lace. Violets, because you always said they were the only flower that would grow in our yard. I hope you will come and see them before the autumn rain takes the dye out.

Write soon, and bring the other half of the pattern book. I cannot read your father's handwriting on the last page and I am tired of guessing.

Love, Mags

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