Small solid black ampersand tattoo in a lettering style on the upper forearm of a person wearing a grey vest top, against white bedding.

Small black ampersand on a forearm

Lettering · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A small, bold black ampersand sits on the upper forearm, shown in close crop against a white bed sheet. The ink is solid black with smooth, even edges and no shading or fine detail. The soft, neutral lighting and grey top keep the focus on the mark itself.

Lettering Forearm Ampersand Symbol Lettering

Find an artist for this

Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Sit down, sit down, the fiddler's only pretending to tune. You want the one about Bea Thorne and the three Saturdays she stood against the radiator with nobody to dance with. Mind, I'll tell it the way Mrs Ogden told it to me, and she was never once wrong about a man's feet.

Keep reading

The Gilded Crescent in Hebden Pier kept its pairings on a slate by the door. Walter Pell, who called the dances, chalked two names on every line with a little hook between them, the way a clerk joins two bills of lading. Walter & Ida. Stan & Florence. Bea's name stood alone at the bottom of the slate, rubbed grey by the sleeves of everyone who brushed past it. She told herself she didn't mind. She minded the radiator, which was warm on one side and cold on the other, and she minded the hook she kept not getting.

On the third Saturday, Mrs Ogden came up from the cloakroom in her carpet slippers, took the chalk right out of Walter's fingers, and wrote Bea's name beside her own. Then she drew the hook. Bea said she was too old for such nonsense and Mrs Ogden said she was eighty-one and had buried a husband, a brother and a good coat, so she'd decide what was nonsense. They danced a waltz so slow the fiddler had to wait for them to finish turning.

Afterwards Walter wiped the slate with his cuff and left the hook where it was. He said chalk held better on a line that had been joined once. Bea still goes on Saturdays. She says the ampersand is only a loop with a tail, a little catch for the next word. That's all it ever was: something to hold on to while you turn.