Black and grey tribal tattoo of spiral curls and chevron bands across the upper back.

Tribal curl design across the upper back

Back · Black and grey · Photo

A photograph of a large tribal-style tattoo on the upper back, with bold curling spirals and tapering flowing bands. The design is built from fine black outlines filled with dense chevron and hatched patterns, with the skin left pale between the sections. The tattoo is shown in black and grey and fills most of the frame against a soft, neutral background.

Back Tribal Spiral Curl Wave Chevron Pattern Swirl

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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

Tom, the tide has come up under the chandlery window and I can't sleep for the knocking of the hulls, so I'm writing by the lamp with Dad's old gouge on the bench beside me. The tiller for the Marguerite is finished except for the polish. I cut the curl at the head three times before it would close the way it should, because a spiral that stops short looks like a question, and nobody wants a boat that asks where it's going.

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The bands down the shaft were the slow part. I packed each pale stretch with chevrons, tiny teeth like a saw's edge, and every one had to be the same depth or the grain would tear when the wood took the weather. Haskins came in on Monday and watched me for a long while. He said a wave is only a curl that forgot where it started. I told him that was the sort of thing men say after a pint, and he laughed so hard he had to sit on the cask.

The owner wanted a brass plate with his name on it. I told him the wood would say who made it, if he was patient. So the tiller goes unvarnished. When you take the helm on Thursday, put your palm flat over the largest spiral and feel the cuts under your skin. If the swell gets up past the breakwater, hold on to the curl and let it pull you round. It's been true for every boat Dad ever built.

The lamp is guttering, so I'll stop. Come home before the frost and see for yourself how the sea looks from the shore when someone you love is out in it. Your loving sister, Nell. P.S. Haskins says the chevrons are wasted on a trawler. Tell him he's wrong.