My first ever piece of piercing art

I have always been hesitant to jump into the next step in my career.  I always feel like I haven't earned it or I'm not ready.  It took me a year of researching and practicing on friends before I started doing surface anchors.  Before I even took that step I desperately wanted to venture into doing play piercing.  I tried to get my mentor J.D. to do some pieces with me so I could have back up but he was never really interested.  Finally my hubby Fernando gave me a huge push! In fact it was a push for myself and two of my closest friends at the time to get our art out there.  We planned to put together an art show <3 Originally I was just supposed to do a live performance but I didn't feel comfortable having the first play piercing piece I did be in front of an audience.  I then decided to do a series and have photographs of them as part of the actual exhibit.  I love corset piercing which are the usual first step for most but I thought they would be too predictable.  My goal became to create pieces that adorned the body so beautifully that they almost make you forget there are 8+ piercing holding everything in place.  

My first model was the lovely Jennifer Pierre who was the manager at the shop where I worked at the time.  She is actually the female voice of an amazing band called Askultura which you should definitely check out.  Inspired by the lovely beehive she made with her knee-length dreads I wanted to do something that looked classic.  I decided to make her a very unique set of pearl necklaces <3 I also made the feather hair piece and added to pearls to match.  I am forever thankful for her trusting me to do this for my first time on her.  I sterilized everything I would need at the shop and brought it all home so I could take my time.  

Running on cuban time she showed up quite late in the night.  My "photographer" also was unable to acquire any kind of proper camera so we ended up using my little digital kodak camera.  I covered all of my work space in saran wrap to make sure nothing would get contaminated and laid my bibs on top.  I had made a stencil for this because I was so nervous about it being perfect.  The piercing process actually went super smoothly, her skin was nice and stretchy so it was not too bad for her either.  She was a total trooper!  After all the rings were in place it came time to close them up.  I went to close the first ring and after a little bit of pressure "click" it came out of place.  This had never happened to me I had no idea what was going on.  I looked at the groove inside the ring closing plier and realized I brought the wrong one home O.O The one I brought home was made for very small rings and the ones I put in Jen were 1/2".  I felt like the biggest dummy ever! Closing up these rings then became a very looooong process.  I had to hold the rings with my fingers and little by little try to close them up so I wouldn't hurt Jen.  My "photographer" ended up going home because she had completely fallen asleep on the couch waiting for me to finish.  She took a couple of pictures of the process but it took hours to get all the rings closed up.  I ended up not even using the balls that were meant for the rings and using some of the pearls I had instead so I could leave them a bit more open.  This actually ended up looking really nice ^.^ 

When all was said and done I was extremely proud.  I even took all the pictures of the piece myself way before I had any kind of photography training and I was very happy with the outcome.  This ended up being the first piece I ever had featured on ModBlog.  It is also the piece that had the nicest and longest blurb attached with the photos <3 All in all, despite things not going ideally, I love this piece.  Check out the feature on ModBlog titled The Surface of a Pearl ^.^

Absolutely love this photo of Jen and her big beautiful smile <3 <3 <3

It was time to step it up!

After a while of doing research and laying low I decided I wanted to do things right.  When I was about 15 I hacked into my older brother's E-bay account and started looking for supplies.  I finally ordered my first boxes of sterile needles! I also ordered a single sponge clamp which I later realized is very limiting.  Because I did not know any better I ended up ordering a box of 14g and 18g... 18g were useless for most of the piercings I wanted LOL.  In fact I still have the nearly completely full box til this day.  The 14g were useful though and I did many piercings with them up until the second day of my apprenticeship when I was 20. 

• I did two piercings on the angle to each side of my navel piercing; these did not heal well at all.  When I was in band camp (yes, band camp, I was in Color Guard and I still love it! haha) they both began to bleed sporadically so I decided to just take them out.  
• I also shortly sported a labret for which I donned a regular earring because I was trying to emulate my favorite Color Guard instructor.  I knew the jewelry was wrong though and my instructor scorned me so I took it off the next day.
• I also did the side of my lip which came out fine, I had ordered some rings and labret studs for it.  The only problem with this one is that I had to constantly take it out for football games and pep rallies so it developed a bit of scar tissue.  I still have the tiny indent/partial hole from where it used to be.  I think I finally gave up on it after I left it out for too long and it closed.  
• At one point I also did a second tongue piercing which was pretty cool.  It was too close to the original one though so it never really healed very well and was a bit of a pain.  

Now for sooooome reason, I think I may have lost my 14g needles, I did my septum completely differently.  I was 17 and I purchased a sewing needle that was about a 12g!  I had some sort of concern about being able to make the jewelry transfer and wanting to pierce it at a much bigger size.  The jewelry was only a 16g so I am only guessing I lost my 14g needles. This was probably the slowest and MOST painful of my piercings.  I remember having to chant to myself in my head about how badly I wanted it.

 (LOL at the duck face and photoshop effects, twas the age of silliness 

but I looked mad cute if I do say so myself <3)

After this I was pretty much set.  Nobody had their septum pierced, I was definitely the baddest beesh LOL.  I was kind of done for a while after this and didn't do many more piercings until I became an apprentice.  I was satisfied with my look and I loved it! You may be wondering what happened with my Mom.  She gave up! LOL She realized they were only temporary and I wasn't a bad kid, I didn't do drugs or drink, I had good grades and all I wanted were some extra holes <3 Next time we finally get to how I finally scored my apprenticeship! ^.^