I
never thought of it as something to make
into a
career, instead it was something I did to
myself and
for my friends. My goal was to actually
get a degree
in Physics, and in Fine Art- not making
people shiny
as it was. In college, biology, anatomy,
and fine arts classes gave me a deeper
appreciation for the
human body ( as well as the research I´d
done in
the local library on ancient cultures,
primarily the
Sumerians and the Polynesian Islanders),
I sought
new places to put metal in my body. Fun
things
done reading from a nursing manual
(college) /
Anatomy text book (High School) at my
home,
experimenting with nostril, nipple, and
lip piercings
- even poking some ink into my skin in
the fashion
of the Polynesians (you must understand
there wasno information available on
piercing in my area, or for that matter
in the state. Piercing was not
something anyone knew about, anyone who
had
piercings were inclined to keep them
hidden.)
In 1990 a year after graduating High
School, I
moved to San Francisco with some of my
friends for
college. There I started meeting ( and
these people
were rare) with assorted body adornments.
This
fascinated me, and I wanted to know more.
My job
would not allow for these adornments,
even though
I tried, so that idea was out. Here I saw
the first
piercings done with clamps and corks, no
to
mention the first modern body jewelry. (
Interesting
how they stole a "Tiffany´s"
keychain design for
barbells, but used an ancient design for
the captive
ring.) When the whole college thing
turned sour,
and that is another story altogether, I
moved back to
my home town for a coalescing of
resources. There
I got together with someone I´d
admired from afar
for years René Arnold. We decided
to go back to
college, loaded up the car and moved to
Flagstaff
Arizona, these schools were not what they
seemed,
then again moving onto another school in
another
city- Phoenix Arizona. There I planned to
get a
vocation under my belt, something I´d
done with the
family business for years, machining, and
automotive repair. Although the Financial
Aid folks
didn't think that this was such a good
idea, another
short lived plan. While in PHX I sought
out any
piercing or tattoo studios where I could
find part
time employment, but the demand was low-
to say
the least. This is when I met Steve
Hayworth, right
after he had opened the first piercing
studio in the
Phoenix area, if not the state.
When the Phoenix thing didn´t pan
out, we moved
back to Kingman Arizona, to run René `s
grandfather's company while he was ill.
As fun as
this was (yikes), we decided to open our
own
business. This is the time our first
daughter was born, Fiona ( not named
after the singer by the way) .
With the promotion of body piercing by
MTV, and the morning talk shows, there
was now a
supply and demand for body piercing, we
intended
to fill this void.
This we did with Chaos ltd, carrying
jewelry crafted
from Niobium with Stainless or Hematite
beads. We
made our own jewelry, my machining skills
along
with René´s jewelry smithing
expertise made this
very easy work. Feverishly we sought out
new and
pertinent information on body piercing.
In early `94
we were told of the APP ( the Association
of
Professional Piercers) a California (San
Francisco )
based organization, mostly a group of
piercers
trying to effect a change at the time.
We grew weary of the small town scene,(
and
rightly so- we had at the time of moving
pierced
over 3000 people, hell that was over ten
percent of
the city!) and set our sites on the
glittery city of Las
Vegas Nevada. There were no piercing
studios in
Las Vegas at the time, and only one
tattoo studio
really did body piercing, this is where
we met Anna
Howell ( rev. Mad Jack´s [RIP] ex)
an extremely
experienced piercer and one of my friends
to this
date. Las Vegas didn´t seem so
nice after living
there for a while, with a temperature of
120°
average in the spring, we had a hard
time just going
outside. When the offer to go out to
Tennessee
came up, we packed up the studio and off
we went.
Upon arriving in Nashville we found that
the studio
had previously hired just about anyone to
pierce,
who thought they could push a needle. For
an
entire year we fought to build up a
clientele base,
and build up a reputation ( As well as
fixing some of the wackiest messed up
piercings we'd ever seen)
In May of `96 we flew out to the APP´s
first open meeting in Las Vegas ( the
irony of it being in LV was not lost on
us,) intending
to join the organization and meet some of
the
piercers who were attending this event.
We hoped
to glean valuable information from these
seasoned
professionals from all over the world. We
joined the
APP that day, and met some of the most
influential
people in the piercing industry today.
One of these
people being Brian Skellie, an
intellectual striving
after knowledge and advancement in the
piercing
industry. Another being Steve Joyner, an
advanced
piercer who had brought all of the
piercers from the
studio he worked at out to LV to gain the
same
information we all sought. And after two
years this
reputation in Nashville had come to pass,
at this point we were
no longer needed at this location, the
owner of the
tattoo business decided. Fortunately an
opportunity
arose to leave Nashville, and head out to
Texas in
the form of Steve Joiner. Whom was
opening a
studio in Arlington Texas, in conjunction
with an
existing studio in Dallas, but we had to
wait for our
second daughter Candrah to be born before
moving. Seven days after the cesarean
section, we
had everything packed and off we went, by
far the
slowest move of all time. It took three
days.
Ritual body in Arlington was all that we
hoped for,
the pay rate would get us by and allow
for research,
the studio was open for change (they
allowed for
the use of sterile gloves for all
procedures,) not to
say the standards were not already high,
most
piercing studios still cannot hold a
flame to Ritual
Body Arlington. One thing that made it
not so good,
very few clients. No clients no pay. Well
luckily
Obscurities in Dallas needed someone to
fill in for a
piercer they had lost, Steve and Myself
worked
alternately at Obscurities for month or
so, until the
owner Allen Falkner ( no "u")
came back from
vacationing in Australia. I was asked to
come over
to Obscurities full time. This is when
the second
annual APP meeting was held this time in
Florida,
there I was elected onto the Board of
Directors as
the Outreach Coordinator. Eventually the
other
Obscurities had to close it´s
doors due to a conflict
of interest with the tattoo artists who
worked in the
same building (sound familiar?).. So they
needed to
let someone go, and Brian Skellie at
Piercing
Experience had offered to hire someone
from the
staff. He was in dire need of some help
in Atlanta.
Everyone went out to Atlanta to test the
waters,
when the last came back, and no one had
chosen to stay I was up for the transfer.
Instead of coming out to evaluate the
studio, we sold what we thought we could
and moved out to Atlanta. Here I am, at
Piercing Experience, for some time to
come...October
99 we said goodbye to Jeff & René...
It was excellent working with them as
colleagues! All my best towards their Xipe
Project
~||| Brian
Studio History
1992-1994
Chaos ltd
Kingman, AZ
1994-1994
Rights of Ascension
Las Vegas, NV
1994-1997
Rites of Ascension/ Ascension Body
Piercing
Nashville, TN
1997-1998
Obscurities / Ritual Body
Dallas, TX
1998- ?( ¥)
|
