Black and grey realism tattoos on two forearms show a smiling and a tearful face in clown-style makeup beside comedy and tragedy masks held by a hand.

Smiling and weeping faces with theatre masks

Realism · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

Two tattoos sit side by side, each showing a woman's face with clown-style eye makeup, one smiling broadly and the other with a tear running down her cheek. Both include a comedy and tragedy mask and a hand holding one of the masks. The work uses smooth, fine shading and strong contrast in greys and black, with the designs mirrored across the two arms.

Realism Forearm Woman Hand Tear Smile

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Rain had been coming off the Corn Exchange canopies since seven, and by eleven Mags Tolland had sold two pairs of gloves and a dented kettle. Across the aisle her brother Dev was laughing at the pie seller's joke, too loud and too early, the way he laughed at everything now. On the trestle between them sat the cardboard box of masks their mother had painted for the church panto years ago: one face grinning, one face weeping, both with the same sharp streak of black at the eyes, like a clown who had been out in the weather.

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A woman in a yellow mac stopped and lifted the comedy mask, turning it to the light. "Who did these?" "Our mum," Mags said. "She could make a face look like it was about to say something." The woman ran a thumb over the lacquer. The tear on the tragedy mask had smudged a little over the years, a blur Mags had never managed to fix, and she had always thought it made the thing more honest. The woman studied it for a long time, then put a ten-pound note on the trestle and asked for the pair.

Dev came back with two paper cups of tea and set one by the box. "Sold the kettle?" "Sold two masks." "Which ones?" "Both." He raised his eyebrows and she shrugged. "Somebody needed a smile and somebody needed a cry, and she wanted them to match." He grinned, and the grin went crooked the way it did when he was about to say something kind. "Mum would have said you gave them to the wrong people."

Mags wrapped each mask in yesterday's newspaper, pressing the corners flat with her palms. When the woman had gone, swallowed by the wet crowd at the bottom of the hill, Mags left the last mask face up on the trestle, grinning at the rain, because somebody still ought to be smiling at the customers.