My first live piercing performance in a while!

So this past Saturday was the grand opening of my friend Boris Bianchi's new tattoo shop, Nue Tattoo Studio in the Midtown area of Miami, FL.  I must admit I did not plan too much ahead of time, I was pretty comfortable with going with the flow until the day came.  I knew what I was going to do but was unable to meet with my good friend and model Tyger Lily until an hour and a half before I was supposed to be there.  Luckily my experience in piercing art and body piercing gives me enough skills to have been able to do it beautifully (if I do say so myself).  I was definitely super nervous though!

Tyger Lily is an amazing artist in her own right, so she painted bones on her arms and leggings and did some amazing face paint as her creative mind always does.  She had an awesome fur vest which created a very interesting clash of animals with the feathers I was about to decorate her with.  I honestly thought the event was not going to be as successful as it was.  No offense to Boris, he had just started promoting the event pretty last minute.  Thankfully it was a huge turn out which only added to my butterflies.  Everyone thought I was being silly because this was my 4th live performance but I always get nervous.

The musical performances of the night were especially awesome.  When we first walked in we were welcomed by the soothing sounds of Amigo the Devil.  It was just him and his music was soothing yet dark and cynical which I very much appreciated.  He was also a looker ;c) haha I was too nervous to notice that until I was done much later in the night because I walked in and immediately focused on prepping Tyger Lily.  I took her straight to the back and began cleaning her and marking her.  She came up with the idea of doing the piece as the next musical act played and I was ecstatic that we did.  After several nervous cigarette breaks and going back and forth cleaning up and adding marks to her chest, the next musical act was going on which meant it was time to begin.

The musical performance was that of Diablo Dimes an awesomely mustachioed man (I love the mustaches) wearing a hat, suspender and slacks.  His music was an amazing mix of blues, ragtime and honky tonk; I have a fond love for this type of good time music.  The second I began piercing Lily all my nerves went away.  I began stomping my foot as I went to grab the next needle and the piercing process actually was done by the second song if I remember correctly.  The longest part of the process was actually attaching all the feathers that either didn't want to fit in the caps of the thin hypodermic needles or would keep falling out.  Honestly, I had so much fun with this piece.  People kept coming up and telling me how amazing it was going to be and how nuts it was and I loved it.  The best part was working with Tyger Lily, who I turned into a bat live once before.  She gets nervous too but ends up enjoying it so much and appreciates the art of it so much that it is just always an amazing experience.  Here are some of the photos!!!

Amazingly just today, or well yesterday since its almost 2AM now lol, the piece came out on ModBlog!! My third feature now on Modblog Check it out and leave some comments!

"Birds of a Feather"

Present time updates of awesomeness!!!

So first off I have been slacking because my favorite time of year just passed.  Not only was it Halloween but my birthday is only two days afterwards on the Day of the Dead!  I went to the Fetish Ball for my first time to celebrate Halloween this year and designed a play piercing piece for me to rock to the event.  My co-worker Tarra very nervously did the piercings for me and did an awesome job! Not bad at all for a once apprenticed shop manager who has not pierced in a LONG time lol <3  Was really interesting to be on the other side of the play piercing after poking so many beautiful ladies who trusted me so fully.  Didn't think I could have even MORE respect for them but I definitely do ^.^

Also I came out in a magazine!! Pain Magazine which I collect because my Hero Elayne Angel writes an amazing article for them each month.  It was only in the Art Gallery section but the magazine definitely gets seen by many many many people.  Super Exciting! Check it out!

My most personal post yet

This was the crew... this was the family I wanted to be a part of. 

You will notice I never mention the name of the shop because I no longer associate with it.  The most important person, Maytee Bringas, now owns Sunset Tattoo Parlour which is the only one I will endorse.  She took most of the crew with her anyway <3

My apprenticeship began pretty laid back.  Maytee only worked 3 days a week so I only worked 3 days a week.  Maytee was an excellent piercer despite the fact that she only did it part-time and was mostly a tattoo artist.  Over time, the main piercer, we'll call him J.D., became my unofficial Mentor.  He was always tight lipped and rarely answered my questions.  It was my job to watch his every move though, learn with my eyes. He would always tell me to research and join forums to seek out knowledge.  I was a bit spoiled by Maytee because we had an instantaneous bond.  Thus, J.D. made me work even harder to learn from him. 

One example is the fact that I HATED wearing shoes.  I would wear flip flops constantly and it is not healthy in a shop environment.  I really felt like I had claustrophobic feet though so Maytee let it slide for a while.  J.D. told me once, "if you were my apprentice you would be wearing shoes".  I really wanted to be his apprentice though, so I finally bought myself some real shoes. (I believe I only wore them constantly once Maytee said I had to though, yes I know I was a bit of a brat) Now don't get me wrong, I loved Maytee as my mentor, and her practices are really the ones that have stuck with me the most, but J.D. had a higher range of skills when it came to more difficult piercings.  Also he was so mysterious I felt like I needed to crack him, I wanted him to let me in!

 Little picture I made for Maytee <3

One time, and I get teary eyed thinking about it, J.D. got stoned enough to tell me practically his whole life story.  He had followed Phish around the country for a couple of years and took me through the journey he had.  I had always been fascinated by that communal lifestyle and the adventure it would be.  I felt, honestly, honored that he had let me in enough to spend so much time telling me about it.  At the end of the story, he told me he would now have to kill me LOL jokingly of course.

I always watched him work intensely, always asked questions, was always curious.  Often times he would just answer my questions with a question or a shrug.  I would not give up though, I would think it over, and start suggesting answers to my own questions.  I always assumed this was his brilliant teaching technique, forcing me to work out the answers on my own.  Sometimes I wondered if he just didn't care to be bothered by me.  

Honestly, it really saddens me to even talk about him these days.  He was my hero, and for some reason he turned on me.  He cultivated some idea of me and seemed to have falsely understood a statement I made and told me I was a two-faced P.O.S.  He never understood just how much respect I have for him, til this day.  One of his clients even asked me to apprentice him and I told him to go to him first out of respect, despite it being a year after he cut me out of his life.  The sad thing is, I was always so submissive to him as a student, I never even bothered defending myself.  I have yet to bother contacting him.  The pain of the initial rejection was so hard for me that I am too fearful to feel any more of it. 

It's interesting how this post ended up being all about him, but truly its hard to discuss my apprenticeship without feeling all these feelings again.  Maytee was always there for me, was a huge support, always encouraged and pushed me to keep striving.  She was even at my side, dabbing the sweat off my forehead at my first live play piercing performance, even though it was long after I had to leave the shop to work elsewhere.

J.D. was not though, he did not even come out, and that always hurt me.  I went to 5 different elementary schools so I guess I have issues with making sure everyone likes me.  I had to constantly make new friends or end up being the lonely new kid. Because of this if I have to really work for your attention you definitely have mine, and he definitely did. I truly looked up to him, and I feel like he threw me away. 

I'm finding it hard to focus on my apprenticeship and all the other great and funny things that would happen so I will save all the positive stuff for next time.  I guess I just had to get this stuff out of my system.  I only hope one day J.D. and I can be friendly again </3

ModBlog and story time!

So! Before I get back to my crazy teen adventures in self-piercing I would like to share some exciting news! My piercing art was featured on ModBlog for the second time! It's amazing that once upon a time I could only fantasize about all the things I saw on BME and now I am being featured in their blog ^.^

Here is the link! Chain Gang and also the link to my first appearance  

The Surface of a Pearl <3

Now back to the odyssey of how I came to be the body piercer I am today.  Every weekend my friends and I would go to Sunset place in South Miami to well, just hang out.  Not much else for 13 year olds to do really :cP  There was a Hot Topic there and I fell in love with this tongue ring that had an acrylic blue die on the top of it.  Pretty much exactly like this one:

The only problem of course was that I did not have my tongue pierced.  It was a couple of weeks before my 14th birthday and I wanted it bad! I decided to buy the barbell and when everyone went to bed that night I would do the piercing.  This time I was at home, which was with my Aunt and grandmother since they lived closer to the schools my friends went to :c) My grandmother was a seamstress all her life so there were definitely plenty of needles in her arsenal.  Again I burned the needle and dropped it in alcohol and figured this was "sterile".  I think the only reason I did not get an infection is because the mouth is amazingly great at killing the tons of bacteria it deals with on a regular basis. 

As always I went to school and showed it off, thought I was little miss bad ass.  I had it for about 2 weeks in which I meticulously made sure no one would notice it.  The bellybutton is one thing, but a piercing in my tongue was made CLEAR to me was not acceptable under my families roof.  One day I was fooling around and got cocky and for whatever reason opened my mouth nice and wide right in front of my mom as I was speaking.  My mother straight SLAPPED me across my face.  Mind you I had never been hit by my mother before.... she was FURIOUS!

I was made to take this one out immediately.  Of course my mother refused to believe I had done it on myself and continually interrogated me about who had done it for me so she could call the cops on them.  Oddly enough, the worst and probably first actual punishment I received in my life came from my brother with who I stayed on the weekends.  He grounded me!.... I had never been grounded in my life! On top of that I was grounded for my birthday!   The craziest part about it was that my own mother and grandmother were trying to sneak me out of the house to no avail O.o  (I won't deny I am a bit of a brat but I still hold a tiny grudge til this day)

Now this was actually the last time I did things this terribly unhygienic.  I laid off piercing myself for a bit and by the time I got back into it I was becoming much more professional.  Well anything better than what I was doing is more professional LOL.

Now remember everyone! There is a big difference between self-piercing (which can lead to some nasty consequences in itself) and letting some scratcher pierce you who pierces people for $10 out of their house.  When you add others into the equation you never know what you can catch! Hepatitis B can live on a DRY surface for up to 8 days! Respect your bodies, keep yourselves safe and if you decide on getting a body piercing or tattoo make sure you GO TO A PROFESSIONAL! You spend hundreds on your shoes, clothes and phones; treat your bodies with the same amount of respect. :c)

 Don't be this person!