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

The Good, the funny and the stinky!

Being an apprentice was pretty fun for me :c) I loved the crew, the environment, the only scary thing was really the boss man who lurked in the background of our minds but was never actually around.  Usually I only saw him at outings and heard his voice over the phone.  Until this day, if the phone at the shop rings more than twice I get anxious.  If this happened at the shop we would get majorly yelled at O.o

Simultaneously, I had found the man of my dreams and our relationship was flourishing.  I met him only a couple of weeks after starting my apprenticeship.  Truth is he was nothing like anyone I had dated before, not quite "my type".  I had decided to give up on these ideals I had built because it was not working.  Granted I was only 20 years old, but my longest relationship had been 3 months! LOL So after a bit of hesitation, and a mind expanding journey ;c) I had fallen in love. Very shortly after becoming official, I moved in with him <3  Fernando has been one of the strongest forces pushing me and supporting me throughout my entire career.  Every day he pushes me to be the best and expand my horizons <3 He is my hero ^.^

Being the apprentice of course meant that everyone could mess with me.  When I was stretching my septum, which is terribly painful, one of my co-workers Nicole would love to flick the tip of my nose O.O uuuuggghhh sooo painful but it never bothered me too much because it was expected.  Nicole loved to mess with me but she was never a dick about it.  I had one tattoo that I got at the shop one day and refused to disclose to anyone what it meant.  It was a mysterious set of 3 numbers on the inside of my finger LOL. She decided to fart on me every chance she got in an attempt to get me to tell her. I could never be bothered by Nicole though because she was just so hilariously silly about everything.  The only time I believe we ever had a problem was when she asked me to do paperwork for her while I was in the middle of watching J.D. do a piercing.  I was meant to be the piercing apprentice so my doing something for the tattoo artists when I was trying to learn was not my job.  Maytee got a little peeved with her so Nicole got a little peeved with me but we definitely got over it though, it was no big deal.  Of all people I think J.D. was the most upset by it.  He hated when I let people "take advantage of me" and I always did Nicole the favor because I usually was not busy.  This time I was though and it bit me in the butt and so he got defensive on my behalf. 

J.D. and Nicole were pretty close though, even kind of played the "cool kids" role and made fun of one of our other co-workers for being "cheesy" and bitched about hearing all his same "lame jokes".  They were a little cliquey sometimes but in the end we were all family.  They loved to put me in uncomfortable situations though.  Like making me have the awkward talks with customers and making me pierce those J.D. did not want to deal with.

There was one man who we are pretty sure was homeless.  He had a layer of grime on him, was a bit stinky, a little out there and awkward.  He had quite a few different piercings and every once in a wile came in for another.  One day we saw him walking up to the shop and Nicole and J.D. quite literally told me "this ones on you!" and ran out to Nicole's car to hide.  Oooooohhh man! I had done maybe 1-3 Navel piercings and it just so happened this is what he wanted to get pierced.  This was a much older man with a big pot belly btw.  Here is a picture they took as they laughed at my misery LOL

 

So now add to the normal stress of a piercing the fact that this man had Alligator skin!! I literally put all of my body weight into it and could NOT break his skin.  After many embarrassing attempts I had to bring over J.D.  Even he couldn't do it for a bit at first but eventually got it through.  It was quite terrible but it was part of the learning experience.   

There were also fun little rituals we had like watching Cheaters every day at 3 PM! This was a must for Nicole and myself, I still love this show haha!  My mentor Maytee and I also would watch Beavis and Butthead DVD's whenever we got bored <3 One of our favorite clips was from the episode Beavis and Butthead Take a Lap.  Beavis and Butthead run to the phone after being completely brain washed by this commercial and their faces and sounds just made Maytee and I laugh HYSTERICALLY! 

Overall I loved my apprenticeship <3  It had its ups and downs, the struggles of being broke, trying constantly to impress and make myself seem worthy of the knowledge I was receiving.  Many have had it much worse than myself but I was lucky.  It was still tough, don't get me wrong.  My apprenticeship lasted a whole year almost exactly and I finally became head piercer at the second location on February 13th, 2009.  It was Friday the 13th actually and boy was it a crazy welcoming on my first day. We continue the journey next time! ^.^

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! ^.^