Posts tagged Women in the Industry

Creative Innovator Award 2023 Queen Of The Ashes

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Queen of the Ashes award winning design “Kwaidan.” Picture by @connorfornow


At this year’s APP Conference, Queen of the Ashes won the Creative Innovators Award for their design “Kwaidan.” We had the opportunity to talk to Hika K, the owner of Queen of the Ashes, to discuss her award winning design and her company.

The Point Blog: Congratulations on your Innovative Award win, Hika! Your company, Queen of the Ashes, has been gaining a lot of popularity lately and your newest earring design was a hit at this years APP Conference. We also saw quite a few folks wearing other pieces from your company during this year’s Conference. How are you feeling?

Queen of the Ashes: Thank you so much! Honestly, I am still quite overwhelmed. Last years APP Conference went already well, but this years positive feedback, especially after winning the Innovators Award, still feels quite surreal. I am incredibly happy that people love my designs and it still makes me giddy every time I see somebody wearing my jewelry.

The Point Blog: Tell us more about your company and when you started designing such interesting pieces.

Queen of the Ashes: I started Queen of the Ashes in 2019, but the first design – The Scavenger Queen – had been on my mind since 2016, as well as a few other pieces. I found it quite hard to find any reputable jewelry company making ear weights representing my more crust-punky taste. The main push I needed was my significant other convincing me to just dive in and bring the punk aesthetics back into the piercing industry.

The Point Blog: Have you had to face many challenges in the industry with your new company right before the pandemic? Did you face other challenges being based in Germany?

Queen of the Ashes: Somewhat yes, somewhat no. I would say, the greatest challenge was starting off right before Covid hit and the world slowed down, so our customer base could not grow as fast as I would have wished. On the other hand, this gave me the opportunity to slow down and carefully perfect the designs I had in my mind. Of course, being located in Europe has been tricky, especially when travel was not an option, which made it impossible to show off my designs besides when being at a guest piercing guest spot; most German studios would not invest in a small, nearly unknown German brand for ear weights, as the top studios we have usually tend to rather invest into gold. And even after the world opened again, having a booth at APP for the first time was probably far more organizational work than it would be for a company from the States or from Canada. But of course I can’t compare how things would have been if I would have started my company in another country.

The Point Blog: Do you find your pieces to be more popular at home than in other parts of the world?

Queen of the Ashes: I definitely noticed that my designs tend to fare better on the US market, not only when it comes to wholesale clients, but also when it comes to orders on the retail side. This seems to be usual with ear weights in general though, as I hear often that ear weights don’t move much in German studios for example – so the pieces my wholesale customers prefer in Germany are those for traditional earrings.

The Point Blog: We’ve noticed that many of your pieces are limited and those limited pieces seem to be in high demand! Do you plan on continuing to keep things exclusive?

Queen of the Ashes: Yes, definitely! I love the idea of exclusivity and the collectability of jewelry, but since I prefer to keep an accessible price point I decided on achieving the first point through the limitation of designs. While I regularly make limited designs like the Hunters and the Aliens, with the former being sold out since this year’s APP Conference, I plan on keeping the amount of designs I offer small, so some pieces from the first year will eventually have to go too. At the same time we have a few one off pieces, as most of the stone combinations for the Feral Children for example will not be repeated.

The Point Blog: Tell us a bit about what gave you the idea to create your winning design.

Queen of the Ashes: I am honestly not sure. I had a loose idea of this design already 10 years ago, but I am pretty sure that the main inspiration had been the J-Horror-Movies I watched as a young teenager, as well as many other Japanese ghost stories I read over the years (and still am reading). I remember staying in a house in Japan years back, and on the ceiling of the closet a board was slid open so we got a glimpse into the attic. I couldn’t shake the idea of waking up in the night and the moonlight shining in, to illuminate hair hanging down through this opening. As I said, watching too many of those movies, and then that image lead to hair hanging on earrings. And of course traditional tatami flooring belonged into every Japanese ghost story in my eyes, which is why I chose that pattern for the brass part of our “Kwaidan” ear weights.

“Kwaidan” designed by Queen of the Ashes. Picture by @connorfornow


The Point Blog: Who knew that one moment in time would inspire the creation such a beautiful earring design! Do you feel that how you find inspiration for your pieces is what separates Queen of the Ashes from other competitors who may be offering comparable designs?

Queen of the Ashes: I would say the main difference would be that many of my designs are quite niche, with many of them being wearable art than designs which fit into a wider audience. I consider Queen of the Ashes my playground, so I don’t always think about what may be selling in big quantities but rather what I think may be cool. I don’t think of other jewelry designers as competitors though; I rather consider us all as fellow artists, many of whom I look up to and whose work I adore.

The Point Blog: Where else does your inspiration come from? Who inspires you?

Queen of the Ashes: I sometimes wonder that myself. Many of my ideas just visualize in front of me, as I tend to think in pictures. So some pieces just seem to have existed in me; some are homages to literature or movies which I love. Some pieces have been requested by customers, with me mainly giving them the shape to make the idea wearable. There is also a small handful of designs either developed by friends or my significant other which are even more fun to work with than the ones I develop alone, since we all share the creative input, we are sticking our heads together to perfect those ones.

The Point Blog: What can we expect to see next from Queen of the Ashes?

Queen of the Ashes: First of all, a new website bringing together the retail and wholesale shop with an easier user surface that hopefully we will launch in late autumn or winter. There are also a lot of new designs in production, most of them going more into the direction of mythology, obviously many more pieces with popcultural references, but, what I am mostly excited for, are new alternatives for wearing surfaces to combine with hanging designs. Similar to our Ties that Bind, I am playing around with fun new ways for my customers to make their own individual jewelry combinations.

Find Queen of the Ashes online!
Website: http://queenoftheashesjewelry.de
Instagram: @queenoftheashes_jewelry
Email: queenofashesjewelry@gmail.com

Hika, owner of Queen of the Ashes

What I wish I knew
about opening a
piercing shop.

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about opening a
piercing shop. read Business Practices, Lifestyle


By Lola Slider, Forest Piercing, Glasgow

They say sixty percent of new business fail in the first 3 years. As my
studio approaches it’s 3 year anniversary, I wanted to look back over this
time and compare it to the 9 years prior I spent working in someone
else’s business, and share some of what I’ve learned about that transition from
independent piercing contractor to business owner.

Going it Alone…

Are we ever really alone in our endeavours? Are we ever truly without help and
support? Opening your own business it can feel like nobody understands what
you’re trying to do but each year I look back at that time, I better appreciate
the support I did have. When I quit my old job, my colleagues from Blue Lotus
Body Piercing, Nici and Adam, were right there at my house the next day,
having made the 2 and a half hour drive from Newcastle to offer me a job while
I found my feet.

When licensing delays at my local council created a black hole in my finances,
another local business (that’s no longer operational) let me use their studio
space for a couple of weeks having literally never met me, but taking it on
good faith that I was “OK”. And in the absence of physical help, I had a few
colleagues around the world telling me not to give up. I appreciate now in a
way that I couldn’t back then that when I felt most isolated I wasn’t actually
alone.

First of all you don’t know shit…

For a lot of piercers who held roles like I did in my previous job, managing the
piercing side of a tattoo business, you think you know it all. Trust me because I
say this with love: you don’t know shit. Oh, we know piercing, inside and out.
We know stock management, we know how to work a budget, for those of us
who import stock we understand that process, we understand shipping and
delivery issues and we understand client care.

None of that can prepare you for what’s it’s like to deal with gas, water,
electric, internet, phone lines, council, landlord, surrounding neighbourhood
business issues, insurance and the list goes on.

The administrative side of running a business is massively downplayed,
particularly in a country as tied up in red tape as the UK, and it’s not
something most of us are trained to do, with many of us having no formal
education in business management. So we learn as we go, and learning as you
go is an expensive process.

One of the hardest lessons I learned after opening Forest was that you can’t
work harder than someone else’s incompetence. Business to business
providers are going to perform their services poorly and as a result your
business will suffer. Today alone I dealt with two separate shipping companies
and a clinical waste company, all three of whom have failed to meet their
contractual obligations to my business, none of whom could provide speedy
resolution…and it’s just an average Wednesday.

This is an unavoidable truth and one that’s tough to swallow, because as
piercers we hold ourselves to such a high standard. Our studios are the
biggest manifestations of who we are as professional piercers so when there
are elements we aren’t happy with, that we can’t control, it’s tough for us to
accept it and not see it as a deep personal failing.

Working with others…

Working with others and having someone work for you are very different
things. Possibly one of the hardest parts of that transition from co-worker to
employer is understanding that change. Socially, it’s incredibly difficult to
navigate, particularly seeing as so many of us come from less than perfect
beginnings in this minimally regulated industry.

We should all be working to shed the bad habits and unreasonable
expectations that where imposed on us. But despite our best efforts and
intentions, almost all of us will mess up. And that will be hard. Conversely,
there are times you need to set a standard for yourself that you’re not
prepared to move on. My advice is: give yourself some time to figure out the
direction you want to take. The first year I owned Forest, I felt like a stranger.
You have time.

You can’t compare your business to
other peoples.

Do you rent a room? Do you manage the property outright? Do you work with
other businesses in tow? Businesses face unique financial challenges and
what’s going on on the surface does not always reflect what’s going on in the
engine room. Being in a relationship with an American piercer who owns their
own business, something I’ve had to make peace with is that no matter how
hard I work, we will never be compensated in a comparable way. I will always
have to put in 150% to match their 100% not because of their superiority or
my inadequacy, but because of global economic differences that neither of us
can control.

Owning your own business, you are so much more exposed to sudden
economic hardship. In the 3 brief years I’ve owned Forest, there’s been a
global pandemic, PPE tripled in price, the prime minister tanked the value of
the pound (£) and the cost of living crisis has seen gas and electric bills
increase 400% (so far). When these things happen, business directors of
Limited Liability Companies take fewer dividends or if you’re a Sole Trader like
me, you go back to minimum wage. But at least you can’t get fired! So that’s
something.

You were wrong & You were right.

Owning your own business gives you the insight to appreciate the times in the
past that your demands couldn’t be met and why they couldn’t be met. You
also learn when they totally could have been met, but weren’t. Pulling back
that curtain opens up a world of opportunity but at a world of cost, and the
beauty of owning your own business is really getting the final say in where
money is spent, what precious little of it there is.
In the end though, you grow something that’s yours, and it might not be your
exact vision but it’s a version’s of that vision.

In summary, know this: you don’t have to do everything all at once. You don’t
have to offer everything all at once. Advice from others helps, but you’re the
only one walking in your shoes. There are far more people willing you to
succeed than wishing that you fail. Always pay your taxes, and lastly never
ever pick a fight with a jewellery company

Point 89: Covid & the Body Art Industry

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Perspectives

“… when I can finally go back to work, I am hoping that the balance I’ve learned during this time improves who I am at work and who I am as a piercer. I want to be a healthy and happy employee and practitioner who is focused and pleasant to be around.”

Megan Naito

APP Member, Piercer, Memento Mori Studos Inc. Abbotsford, BC Canada

Writing submitted April 26, 2020

Nobody knows exactly what to expect during a pandemic. However, when isolation began, I never imagined many of the outcomes of my industry-work life.

One of the most surprising results of the pandemic has been rediscovering an identity outside of piercing. Before COVID-19, I spent most of my days working and commuting long distances to and from work. I don’t have a partner or children. After work, I would spend time on industry related tasks such as networking, building a social media presence, and editing piercing photos. Sometimes people don’t even realize how hard it is for them to turn off work mode; I didn’t even realize it was happening.

Obviously, I wasn’t always a piercer. I used to pass the time with many activities that I had forgotten I enjoy. It had been a long time since I read   a book, and it has been refreshing to photograph something that is not a piercing. Sometimes it feels like engaging in activities that don’t directly benefit the industry is unproductive. I have been realizing that this is an unfortunate outlook to have. I think that realizing that I flourish better as an introvert, instead of forcing myself to be an extrovert, will allow me to maximize my potential when the pandemic subsides. I now have a better grasp on what is a healthy balance between industry and non-industry activities (for me). I want to be a well-rounded individual who can integrate with many different types of people.

It will be a long time before things return even remotely back to normal. I worry about what it will be like to source PPE, maintain a plausible amount of social distancing, and if there will be sufficient business. However, when I can finally go back to work, I am hoping that the balance I’ve learned during this time improves who I am at work and who I am as a piercer. I want to be a healthy and happy employee and practitioner who is focused and pleasant to be around.

Annie Patrick Buechlein

Tattoo Kaiju/Annie the Impaler Bloomington, Indiana USA Article submitted April 30, 2020

It was tax time in the piercing industry and all was well. Clients were spending lots of money and leaving big tips. Conference registration had opened up; piercers were buying flights and hotel rooms. Then it struck. Right in the middle of the busy season; Coronavirus (COVID-19) punched all body modification artists right in the face. Total knockout. Studios across the country were forced to close.

People waited for stimulus checks from the government and special business loans. The overwhelming amount of relief applications broke the unemployment website, because it couldn’t handle the traffic. A time of uncertainty, confusion, and stress joined the world together in sadness and fear as we tried to find a “new normal”. Everything was upside down.

As a piercer who has been off work for 45 days at the time of writing this article, how has this changed my life? Well let me tell you…

I am thankful that I procrastinated and didn’t register yet for Conference or my other cross country trip to Colorado. It seems that this flaw paid off for  once.

I am at my home with my husband, Neil, and my children, Jax (age 3) and Memphis (age 13). My older son spends time doing his schoolwork online and does conference calls with his class on Zoom. My toddler screams a lot and runs around like a stir crazy maniac. My husband just tries to hold it together, because he can see that I’m going even more crazy. Our three cats and our dog add their own unique energy.

My time of peace and quiet, and adult interaction that I normally have at my shop are over for now, and it’s very hard for me to accept. I am overwhelmed by the sibling bickering and loud noises without my refuge of work. I enjoy the time with my family, don’t get me wrong, but it is also very overwhelming. The stress of this situation has turned up everyone’s crazy level, especially mine. I miss my clients very much. I miss just being able to “shoot the breeze”, as my grandparents would call it, or just stand around and chit chat with people. I miss hugging people and shaking hands.

I am grateful that I have been able to have the internet to connect with people during this unprecedented time. I have taken several webinar classes and done some continuing education in order to be productive, but to be honest, it’s depressing for me because I know I can’t practice what I’m learning about. I have texted with clients and have been able to do some online jewelry sales, which has helped me continue to be able to pay my bills. I know I’m doing better than many, so maybe I shouldn’t complain, but at the same time, this is not a contest. Everyone in the world is affected by this virus and most have been hurting financially and mentally.

As a person who has always had mental health issues, the uncertainty right now has taken my anxiety to a new level. My career was really looking up. I moved studios and had been at my new location for about seven months. Everything was going great and my business was growing. New clients, better jewelry, more education, new skills, guest spots, traveling, finally being able to take care of my family and be successful in business. The sudden shutdown of that hit me hard with a sense of failure, that I had worked so hard for nothing and it was taken away so quickly.

Some states are beginning to open, but to be honest, I don’t feel that it’s a good idea. I don’t think it’s safe for me to put my fingers in another person’s nose or mouth at this time. I just don’t have enough information, or maybe I should saythat I have too much information. The information is all over the place and I don’t know what to believe. I am overwhelmed by it all. I do know that I’m not alone, which helps. Let me be clear: I don’t want anyone else to have to feel as bad and as stressed out as I feel, but having solidarity with other people and knowing we are all in this together does help. I try to make calls and texts a couple times a week and just check in on others. When I’m having a good day, I call and tell them that their bad day will pass, and good days will come; that their upset mood will also swing back and forth and surely tomorrow will be a better day.

I had a quarantine birthday. I turned 41 years old. I felt like an angry child, because I just wanted to have a party and I couldn’t. I wore a tiara with cat ears and fancy makeup to Walmart; it was pretty exciting. My friend who drives an ambulance rolled up in front of my house and ran the sirens, probably scaring the neighbors to death thinking we had “The ‘Rona”. A friend stood six feet away to watch me open my gift she brought over. I got takeout from my favorite restaurants for three days in a row. I went on an online shopping spree to a new, local plant store and fed my plant addiction. My family took me to a hidden spot at the lake and made me a bonfire. It ended up being a beautiful day and a great celebration regardless. I struggle with change and change is unavoidable right now.

I have had clients call with issues that I couldn’t fix because I couldn’t touch them, which broke my heart. I had a client, who is a CNA, with a fresh lip piercing, get kicked in the mouth by her resident. She needed her jewelry lengthened to accommodate the excessive swelling. I couldn’t get to her to help her because of the quarantine. The jewelry began to embed. I talked her through the painful process of removing the jewelry over the phone. She ended up figuring out how to remove it, but lost the piercing. It made me so upset that I couldn’t help more. I had another client who couldn’t get her jewelry back in after surgery. It should’ve been easy for me to taper the piercings open for her, but I couldn’t because of the virus and now three of her piercings are closed.

I am thankful that my family loves camping and the outdoors, so we already have many supplies for social distancing in nature and outdoor activities. Nature has been my savior during these times. When I really get overwhelmed, going for a walk in the woods or just sitting in the yard helps so much. We have spent quite a bit of time hiking and fishing. We are planning a cross country camping road trip in our family van as soon as we are able. We’re also working on the van and doing home improvement projects and crafts to pass the time.

As for the future, time will tell. The governor of Indiana will address our Stay-At-Home order on Friday, and may or may not open things up. I don’t know what will happen to our businesses on the other side. I do know that things will continue to change. New policies and procedures will need to happen for studios to maintain the safest environments possible. More information will continue to come out and opinions may change, and that’s okay. All I can do is try my best to go with the flow and allow for new beginnings. I look forward to a future of touching my clients again, going inside businesses, and gatherings with friends. I’m most looking forward to spending time with my Grandmother again. Until that day comes, I can’t hug people, but I can hug trees.

Shwayze

Piercer, Superfly Tattoos San Diego, California USA

Writing submitted April 29, 2020

The outbreak of COVID-19 has made me face my taxing mental health head on, as opposed to using work as a form of escape—or more so a pause on waves of self doubt. I finally worked up the courage to reach out to set up guest spot positions and heard back from a few beautiful shops. There were so many things to look forward to, but now our industry is slowed to a trickle.

What will our PPE situation look like upon re-opening? Will clients be able to pay for services since they’ve been displaced from work? What will be the new normal in our industry?

Luckily I’ve been able to attend a few zoom piercing courses offered by wonderful instructors. So it’s not entirely bad, but I CANNOT wait to go back to work. I’m hoping that shops with less than ideal standards see this as an eye opener and step up their safety protocols, and as a whole our industry comes out on top after all of this. Stay safe and wash your hands!

Samantha Jones

Piercer, A Thin Line Tattoo Plainfield, IL USA

Writing submitted April 26, 2020

This whole thing has opened my eyes to so much. I’m not sure when I’ll feel safe enough to go back, or when I do, how long PPE will last and how hard it’s going to be to get more.

I miss doing what I love, but I know it’s going to be months until I can pierce comfortably again. I could say so much more. I love our industry so much.

Marina Pecorino

APP Membership Administrator APP Member

Body Piercing by Bink Tallahassee, FL USA

Article submitted May 5, 2020

In February, during China’s original lockdown, I began watching the coronavirus situation evolve. I’m not generally one to be vigilant about news, but I started intentionally monitoring CDC and WHO updates, as well as a selection of reliable news outlets. Watching the progression of the virus, I grew evermore concerned about PPE supply chains, and the safety of my clients, community, and family. On March 2, I reached out to the managers at the studio where I work about setting up a plan for possible coronavirus closure; the idea seemed unlikely and otherworldly, but I figured the general plan could be revised for other closures, like hurricanes which my area experiences often. In hindsight, I think a plan for closures should become a studio standard, much like needlestick and exposure control plans1. That said, my original expectation was closures of two weeks to a month with selfless cooperation from the general public.

Less than two weeks later, the situation in Italy and Iran quickly went from emerging to dire. I live in north Florida, and Spring Break season at the studio was starting to ramp up. Around this time, the first confirmed cases were being reported in the United States. On a daily basis, I had clients visiting from all over; New York, Massachusetts, Washington, California, and even internationally. I watched the news as these places quickly became epicenters of infection. As I huddled over clients (well within six feet), they regularly told me that they were heading on a cruise vacation or had just returned from one. I watched the news as several cruise ships became breeding grounds for the new coronavirus. My fears started mounting.

On March 12, I woke up to a sick toddler and my mind went into overdrive. As a person with moderately controlled asthma, I’m prone to lung distress at the slightest hint of illness. I knew that even if I had not exposed my family to what would become known as COVID-19, I was next in line for whatever illness my toddler was experiencing. Inevitably, bronchitis would follow, putting me firmly in the at-risk category. My fear had come home.

In an act of self preservation and to protect my studio and community, my family unit (partner, toddler, and pets) began sheltering at home and practicing strict social distancing immediately. I’m pretty sure my partner, and most others around me thought I was acting rashly with a healthy dose of paranoia. At this time, only eight people in my county of nearly 300,000 residents had received testing and we had no confirmed cases as of yet; test eligibility was incredibly difficult to receive.

Our regular housemates are sheltering elsewhere; one is still being required to go to work at a daycare center and a country club. We’ve kept in touch with friends and family online only. I shudder to think how the 1918 pandemic must have felt so isolating without technology. Despite housing with others and being a lifelong introvert, I have felt increasingly lonely during this experience.

“… during these unprecedented and difficult times, I’ve found some of the most genuine comfort from my piercing tribe. I often think about how fortunate I am to have access to even my most geographically distant friends and family.”

Over the last two months, I have left the house only to vote early on March 15, drop a present on a doctor friend’s doorstep, and walk the neighborhood. My partner has done only necessary grocery runs. As numerous local grocery stores have reported COVID-positive employees over the last several weeks, I’ve become increasingly concerned that  grocery  shopping  may  become a main means of transmission. This week, we’ll start getting fresh food delivered to our door by  a local farm alliance, reducing our need to leave the house considerably.

The studio moved to online only services a few days after my self-imposed quarantine. I worked with my studio managers to set a plan for online client consultations and to develop an online store, in hopes of providing some amount of income for both the studio and its employees. Unfortunately, response has been sparse as our nation faces massive unemployment without adequate public support.

In many ways I’ve felt unfairly privileged during this experience. I am witnessing those around me struggle; many are drowning in unfrozen debt or facing the possibility of losing their businesses. Some are experiencing the illness and passing of loved ones from a distance, unable to be physically present during their final moments. During this time, I’ve experienced untold amounts of self-reproach for what should make me feel grateful. To counteract my feelings of survivor’s guilt, I have done what I’m able (within my own loss of wages and mental capacity) to be supportive and present to those around me. Sometimes, that comes in the form of a manufactured smile and comforting words. Other times, I’ve used my voice, wallet, or social media presence to support my favorite small businesses, performers, or makers.

Although I’m accustomed to—and have the privilege of—working from home, my home office has changed drastically. We have crammed a second desk for my partner’s workspace (and occasionally a tiny “desk” for my child) into my small office. Our normal schedule of caregivers has ceased, so my partner and I try to balance our independent workloads and full time childcare. This has required immense amounts of patience, understanding, and negotiation; it’s still a work in progress.

Corbin waits (sometimes patiently) for mom to play.

I am missing studio life to my core. Having left the studio for more than three years during an existential crisis, long absences from piercing are not foreign to me. That said, I’ve been back in the studio part-time for more than a year, and the studio environment grants me an escape from my daily mom-dom. I’ve definitely lost the urge to shower as often or change out of my rattiest jeans. An incessant loop of children’s songs runs through my head. As I’m sure is the case for many others, isolation life is taking a toll on my mental health, even with my existing toolbox of medication and coping mechanisms.

That said, during these unprecedented and difficult times, I’ve found some of the most genuine comfort from my piercing tribe. I often think about how fortunate I am to have access to even my most geographically distant friends and family. Checking in regularly through digital means has saved my sanity and encouraged me to take those elusive showers or step outside. I want to take this opportunity to encourage everyone to reach out to personal and professional friends. Possibly more importantly, reach out to trained mental health providers2 without hesitation; even those without a pre-existing mental condition are understandably experiencing some difficult emotions and thoughts.

Graph of Florida CDC data forecast

As of April 29, USAFacts.org3 and the Florida Department of Health reported more than 33,000 confirmed cases and  more  than  1,200  deaths  in Florida alone: showing a steady increase in cases, rather than decline. On the same day, despite evidence showing a lack of testing and containment5, Gov. DeSantis announced beginning “Phase One” of reopening Florida6 starting May 4.

Within this phase, restaurants and retailers are allowed to resume operations at 25% capacity. Many small business owners7 in my area have voiced hesitance and unease about reopening so soon, as confirmed cases and COVID-related deaths continue to climb in the state.

Based on the data I have access to, my family and I plan to continue sheltering at home for the foreseeable future. I don’t feel that our state (or country) has reached adequate benchmarks to ensure the safety of the public and health care professionals. I am eager for the day I feel safe interacting in person with my friends, family, colleagues, and clients, but unfortunately, that day feels farther away now than I could have ever imagined two months ago.

1“Online Courses Library,” Online Courses, Association of Professional Piercers, accessed May 5, 2020,

https://safepiercing.litmos.com/online-courses/.

2 “Stress and Coping,” Daily Life & Coping, Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, accessed May 5, 2020,

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/managing-stress-anxiety.html.

3 “Coronavirus Locations: COVID-19 Map by County and State,” Visualizations, USAFacts, accessed May 5, 2020,

https://usafacts.org/visualizations/coronavirus-covid-19-spread-map/

4 “2019 Novel Coronavirus Response,” COVID-19 Outbreak, Florida Health, Florida Department of Health, accessed May 1, 2020,

https://floridahealthcovid19.gov/.

5 “COVID-19 Forecases,” Cases, Data, & Surveillance, Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, accessed May 5, 2020, https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/forecasting-us.html.

6 “Governor Ron DeSantis Presentation – April 29, 2020,” COVID-19 Resources, COVID-19, Ron DeSantis: 46th Governor of Florida,

https://www.flgov.com/wp-content/uploads/covid19/Safe%20Smart%20Step_Templat4.29%20FINAL.pdf.

7 Robbie Gaffney and Ryan Dailey, “Some Tallahassee Businesses Don’t Feel Safe Reopening Monday,” WFSU Public Media, April 30, 2020,

https://news.wfsu.org/2020-04-30/some-tallahassee-businesses-dont-feel-safe-reopening-monday

“We constantly adapt and change. Both growth and leadership are painful, but now is the time to grow and lead!”

Nicole Slavich

APP Member

Ghosts of Grace Tattoo & Piercing Billings, Montana USA

Article submitted April 28, 2020

Experiencing the start of the American response to COVID-19 as a Piercer and fine jewelry purveyor has been awakening  for me. My career has been a consecutive 15 years of learning to navigate  my fellow townspeople, as well as honing my “Piercerly Ways.” The people around me are like the weather here: harsh and slow to warm. I am a liberal sundog on a hot summer day.

During the six weeks of quarantine I have endured thus far, I took a no-contact job delivering food. My fine jewelry stock is small; my concern about the supply chain and the timeline of quarantine were what cemented the decision to shut down my piercing business completely. For a while, I did offer unadvertised no-contact jewelry sales to help those who reached out to me.

Over the last five years I’ve done a ton of personal work. First, separating my identity from my work, and later developing my now rich and dynamic personality and interests outside of body modification. This year, with the help of a LCSW and a traditional SSRI treatment of my lifelong depression, I have been able to build a life I love in a place I have felt that I never fit into properly. A freak shaped peg in a conservative hole, if you will.

When the Association of Professional Piercers recommended studio closure regarding COVID-19, I felt terrified. I have had many side hustles through my piercing career, but my career is my first true love. From Saturday, March 14 at closing time to Monday night on March 16 my whole life changed. Of course, lives around the world have been changed unfathomably over the last several months!

The first week of the shutdown was almost fun. People here were just excited to have time off. I pretended to be a freshly widowed trophy wife, and lived it up alone! The next week, I got to start my delivery job. Learning a new job always presents caveats of difficulty, which serve as a distraction. Nevertheless, my heart broke when I went to the store to drain the autoclaves, unplug the electronics, and rescue the plants. I removed even the three tiny, fairly inexpensive items of jewelry I let live in the jewelry case at the studio, as hope and a calculated risk for loss. I struggled for about two weeks. I was gentle with myself while I struggled. I listened to the healers I adore. These powerful, intuitive, blest, fat, hairy, brown women and femmes reminded me this is not our first time. We constantly adapt and change. Both growth and leadership are painful, but now is the time to grow and lead!

I began to interface more with our piercing community. I remembered to take my own advice: drink the water, video call your support system, cry when you feel like it, exercise your body, find joy in simple hobbies, rejoice for every drop of gratitude that sprinkles your prickled back!

As my brain felt better in my body, my compassion grew for my townspeople. They still acted foolishly: going in public without face coverings, having house parties, and not understanding how far six feet is, thus violating physical distancing. I understood though that their actions are directly fear based. In conservative, religious cultures (my town fits this description), denial is a prominent coping mechanism. Without trying to control others, I have begun to dig my heels in. I wear my mask, stay home before and after shifts, and step away every time someone is within my 6’ radius.

Then, my state chose to allow some non-essential businesses to re-open. I live in Eastern Montana, in the biggest city in the state with a population of 150,000. I am the only APP Member for a minimum of 4 hours travel time in any direction. I work as the only piercer with two tattoo artists. My coworkers continue to be supportive of me and my heavily weighed choices regarding luxury business in pandemic times. They have made great strides in changing their business along state and local guidelines for health and safety.

After having such a low daily stress job for a while, the idea of managing clients safely and all my scary questions that loomed so closely ahead, were daunting. Lucky for me, the Association of Professional Piercers has their work on such tight lock! I received supportive, informational emails and the announcement of the “Reopening, What’s That Going to Look Like?”1 Zoom panel meeting before I could even work myself into feeling overwhelmed.

Now, I’m working both jobs, with the intention to begin limited new piercing services on May 12. I am ramping up advertising, devising simple communications and safety signage, physically preparing the store, making the change to nearly all online jewelry sales and client interactions, switching from “Appointments Preferred” to “Appointment Only,” and taking good care of myself as I look forward to life as a Piercer in new light!

This time has allowed me to learn in so many new ways. I have given myself permission to enact authority based on my deep experience and varied talents. It’s a full rainbow coming for this old Sundog! I genuinely recognize we are all in different boats through the same storm. Your best is enough. HOLD FAST my friends, my community!

1“Reopening: What’s That Going to Look Like?,” Online Educational Series, Association of Professional Piercers, recorded April 24, 2020,

22 degree halo with sundog, supralateral arc, upper tangent arc, and circumzenithal arc seen from the road above Mammoth Terraces in Yellowstone National Park. Photo by Diane Renkin, National Park Service, https://flic.kr/p/Pm39Uh

Leah Sarah Kent

APP Member, Studio Manager & Body Piercer Punctured Professional Body Piercing Boston, Massachusetts USA

Article submitted April 28, 2020

In a certain sense, I have always found that one thing seems to  separate  me  from my  industry peers: time. While the majority of my fellow piercers have been posting on social media during the COVID-19 pandemic that they haven’t been away from piercing for this long within the last 5, 10, 15, even 20 years, I do not share that experience. Around this time two years ago, I was actually re-entering the industry after recovering from a major car accident which kept me away from piercing for just over two months. My studio’s last day open was March 18, 2020, and the state of Massachusetts just extended our closure until at least May 18, officially marking the same two months.

On the night of February 10, 2018 I was driving casually along with a co-worker to Taco Bell in Holyoke, MA, where I was living at the time. As we drove through our green light, we were completely blindsided; hit by a drunk driver, without any headlights on, who ran a red light. I do not remember any of the accident itself, just waking up in a hospital bed screaming in pain. I broke five bones: my left ankle, my right shoulder, two ribs on my right side, and my right pelvis in two places. I had to wear a walking boot cast to support my ankle for three months, and used a walker (complete with grandma tennis balls on the feet) for about a month and a half.

At the time, my piercing career was only just beginning. I had fairly recently started working at a studio near Hartford, CT that made multiple false promises; the first being that they wanted me to assist in bringing the studio to APP standards, and the second being that my job would be waiting for me when I was able to work again. The doctors predicted about a three month full recovery time for me; I was “let go” from my job via text message just over a month after the reassurance. On that day, I threw my walker in the trunk of my (new) car and began the job hunt, with much higher standards this time around.

Flash forward to March of this year: I’m piercing five days a week and the studio manager at an amazing shop that I love, Punctured Professional Body Piercing, in the heart of Boston—my city, my home. I had just renewed my Association of Professional Piercers membership for a second year, and also just registered for my third APP Conference. The studio had seen significant growth over the past nearly two years since I started. In fact, I checked our numbers today and realized that on our last day of being fully open (Tuesday, March 17, 2020), we did more than double the amount in sales as on the corresponding Tuesday in March of 2019.

When we had to close due to COVID-19, I had just gotten to where I wanted to be in life. Though I know I look younger, I just turned 30 this past December. This is another way in which time seems to separate me from my peers; while most piercers around the same age as me (or even younger) are now quite established in their careers, I did not enter the industry until 2015, after spending five years getting my B.A. from Smith College and M.A. from Brandeis University in Women’s and Gender Studies. I proudly hang my diplomas in my piercing room mostly due to the fact that they always impress the parents of my minor clients.

Though I like to joke about being a piercer with a Master’s, the unfortunate truth, which ultimately circles back to COVID-19, is that I stepped away from the world of both academia and activism because I was simply burned out. I realized that, no, I was not going to change the world. So I became a piercer, because that is what I love. As someone who has also struggled with mental illness since my early teenage years, I decided that if I was going to continue on, I was going to do something that made me genuinely happy, not something that made me feel defeated, sad, and ultimately helpless.

COVID-19 makes me feel defeated, sad, and ultimately helpless. It’s not just about piercing and having to remain closed for so long. It’s about the systemic oppression and inequalities this virus so clearly exposes. It’s about the fact that these injustices are now so visible, yet we still have not taken any major collective action as a people to rise up and fight for a new society. I refuse to simply go back to the status quo. Yes, I want to go back to work, of course I do, because I get to be one of those lucky people who loves their job. But I do not want to go back to a society that values the economy over human lives. A society that calls its sacrifices for capitalism “essential workers” despite the fact that most of them get paid an already vastly under-inflated minimum wage. I want a socialist revolution. I want what I wanted when I decided to stop wanting it, stop working for it, and now there may not be anything left to want, for me, in life.

That is how COVID-19 has not only impacted my industry work life, but also my hopes (or now lack thereof) for the future.

Haley Grumbles

Apprentice Piercer Plano, Texas USA

Writing submitted April 27, 2020

I started my apprenticeship in August, so I was about seven months in when our shop had to close. I was finally feeling like I was on the right path and taking steps towards a career I’ve always wanted and felt passionate about. We have been shut down now for over a month and I feel like I have lost most of what I’ve learned.

I’m worried that when I go back I will be almost starting completely over.

As a positive, the online webinars have kept me busy and my mind fresh around piercing. Also, having a break from working 70+ hours a week at two jobs to make the apprenticeship even feasible financially has been a relief. It has also given me a lot to think about in terms of my future and the next steps I want to take for myself to be the best I can be when things open back up. I think I now have a clear five-year plan for my career. Which, in all this uncertainty, does have me feeling pretty good.

Point 87: Walk on the Wild Side with Annie Sprinkle

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by Paul King, Body Piercing Archive

On the cover of Piercing Fans International Quarterly (PFIQ)
Annie in the Mobilia Chair
Shopping for photo lights with Fakir Musafar in the early 1980s.

Having Dr. Annie Sprinkle speak at our conference has been a personal dream of mine for years. For those familiar with our community’s history, she needs no introduction or explanation for her importance, not to mention her greater celebrity within the performance art and adult entertainment worlds. She will be sharing her-story Wednesday May 16, 2019, at 12:30pm.

Don’t miss this unique opportunity to see an original lecture created just for the APP Conference:

Take a Walk on the Wild Side: an Exploration of Annie Sprinkle’s NYC Underground Piercing Scene.

Most often our piercing history has been told from a Westcoast male perspective. For the first time, Annie will take us deep inside the East Coast piercing scene: the parties, publications, films, and crazy personalities of the 1970s’ and 1980s’ New York.

Annie Sprinkle was a NYC prostitute and porn star for twenty-two years, then morphed into an artist and sexologist. She has passionately explored sexuality for over forty years, sharing her experiences through making her own unique brand of feminist sex films, writing books and articles, visual art making, creating theater performances, and teaching. Annie has consistently championed sex worker rights and health care and was one of the pivotal players of the Sex Positive Movement of the 1980’s. She got her BFA at School of Visual Arts in NYC was the first porn star to earn a Ph.D..

She’s a popular lecturer whose work is studied in many colleges and Universities. For the past seventeen years she has been collaborating on art projects with her partner, an artist and UCSC professor, Elizabeth Stephens. They are movers and shakers in the new “ecosex movement,” committed to making environmentalism more sexy, fun and diverse. In 2013, Sprinkle proudly received the Artist/Activist/ Scholar Award from Performance Studies International at Stanford and was awarded the Acker Award for Excellence in the Avant Garde. –Annie Sprinkle

Point 86: Building an Empire

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by Georgina Schiavelli

Black Diamond Body Piercing

Above, Melissa Willette, Brooke Bittens, Georgina
Schiavelli, Andie Saunders, & Kat Blair;
opposite page, Georgina Schiavelli

People often ask me what the secret of my success is. In an industry as multifaceted as professional piercing, that’s a very difficult question to answer, but I’m going to do my best to boil it down to some key points. Like everything else in life, hindsight is 20/20. Looking back is when many valuable lessons are learned. Over my 22 years in this industry I’ve learned things that have helped me find success and things that hindered my growth, both professionally and personally. I hope to share some of those lessons.

When I started my apprenticeship in 1997, piercing was barely considered its own industry. We were more of an addition to another industry, and because of this, there were a lot of tattoo artists who offered piercing; my old bosses being two of them. Fortunately for everyone, they got “too busy tattooing to deal with doing piercings” and hired an actual piercer. I became that piercers’ apprentice and that is where my story begins. Planning a career path in piercing wasn’t really on my mind at the time because I didn’t know if piercing would be there as a career down the road. The industry was so young, and we were all so hopeful, but also quite unsure of our futures and basically flying by the seat of our pants. Thankfully, I followed my heart, stuck with it, and built up a great clientele. I became known for my high standards, ethics, and a true passion for the job. I treated every client with respect and professionalism and like every piercing was the most important one I’d ever done. I did outreach at local colleges to promote safe standards and educate my peers. If the shop was open, I was working, and I did everything that I could to further the reputation of the shop that I worked in.

Even though I had always been a team player, and went above and beyond my job description daily, my bosses still had very little respect for me or for piercing. “They come here for us and stay for you, not the other way around, and don’t you forget it” was said to me so many times that I lost count. I knew in my heart that wasn’t true and that I was creating my own success. I could also see that the industry was changing and going amazing places. I knew that I wanted to be a part of that, so after almost 11 years at the same shop, I left. The running mental list of “if this was my place” I had made over the years made me realize immediately that it needed to be a piercing-only studio. I knew it was risky, but it just felt right. So, I cashed out the sad little retirement account that my dad made me start at 20, got a line of credit at the bank, got a small loan from my accountant who is a venture capitalist, and opened a new credit card with the highest limit they’d give me. It was the scariest thing I’ve ever done in my life. I had no idea how much harder it would get before it got better, but it was the right decision, and I knew with all of my heart that this was where I belonged. I found a great location, scraped together enough money for a security deposit, a few month’s rent, the renovations needed to build my shop to APP standards and a small stock of implant grade basics and simple gems to get me through a couple of months of piercing.

Georgina Schiavelli

It took a total of four months to build my shop. On top of my 50 hours a week piercing at the tattoo shop, I worked every morning, every night, and every Sunday doing anything I could do to get my shop ready for the opening. I had planned to open Labor Day weekend, but was found out by my old bosses (who were less than supportive) in early August, so my deadline became as soon as possible. Those last two weeks were an all-day, all-night marathon of painting and finishing touches. I opened my doors on August 19, 2008. I had made it, and thought I had it all figured out. Now I just needed to wait for the money to roll in, right? HA! I hope you laughed at that too.

There’s a saying that if you’d like to make the universe laugh, just tell it your plans. The universe  apparently had some hard lessons for me to learn, because on September 29, 2008, just six weeks after I opened my doors, the stock market crashed. I had originally expected to get back to a decent salary within a couple of years, but between everyone being scared to spend money and worried about the future, and my naivete in the reali ties of owning a business, I really had no money to pay myself, especially if I wanted to still grow the business, so I basically lived on my tips. Fortunately, I was married, and my husband was  supportive  enough to agree to cover the bills while I built back up to real paychecks. I worked at the shop completely by myself for two years, and every cent that came in went right back into Black Diamond. It was the hardest two years of my adult life.   I remember choosing groceries by what coupons I had and ate  meals at friends and families houses whenever  I could. I was 31 years old and living like I was 18 again, except now I was married and previously knew what it was like to not be broke all the time. That was a hard pill to swallow after making fairly-good money for so long, but I would do anything to make the shop succeed and I knew this was the only way to make that happen.

By 2010, I took on an apprentice. Thankfully, the time went by quickly and Brooke Bittens was a natural, so by 2011, I didn’t have to do every single piercing that came in and even got a day off a week! Since I was trying to grow our jewelry selection, I still needed to be very careful, but at that point I was finally able to get a steady, albeit tiny, paycheck! Thanks to living on as little money as possible, I paid off the last of my loans by Christmas 2013, just 5 years and a few months after I opened my doors. Unfortunately, I also ended my marriage during that year due to a few factors, but largely because of how much time I dedicated to my shop. It was always a cause for fights, and ultimately the love I have for my career and my determination to succeed very much overshadowed my relationship, so one of them had to give.

From 2010-2015, I had hired quite a few front-end people with the hopes of turning them into jewelry experts. I always favored having front end jewelry experts and not just “counter people”. It was clear to me that they were both very specific skills and if I wanted the shop to be able to handle more clients, it was a necessity. Thankfully, I found a couple of people that worked out well! Andie Saunders became my second apprentice and Melissa Willette became my shop manager. Around then, the physical reality of full-time, medium to high volume piercing was also starting to really emerge. By the end of 2015, when Andie was finishing up her apprenticeship, I had a full blown non-traumatic labral tear from 18 years of constant piercing. Overuse syndromes are sneaky because you deal with the symptoms for so long that they become normal. Suddenly, my hand started to go numb, I would wake up crying from the shooting pains in my shoulder and chest, and no matter how many massages I got, it never let up. I saw a few Doctors, and the consensus was, either get surgery (which may or may not actually fix the problem; cartilage is a funny thing) or work less, since it mostly was only unbearable when I pierced a lot. That Christmas, I also took my first real vacation of my entire adult life. While I was away, I did a lot of thinking and decided this was it, time to change roles. I had put in my time piercing, and my body was telling me to take a step back from it. I still loved to pierce, I just couldn’t handle the volume anymore, so I started working by appointment and spent the rest of my time either filling in up front showing jewelry when my manager was off or sitting in my office ordering jewelry/supplies and brainstorming my next move.

It was becoming obvious that two full-time piercers and one part time, by appointment, piercer just wasn’t going to be enough. Everyone was getting so burned out, we were getting busier by the day, and I couldn’t physically handle any more piercings than I was doing. Thankfully, I was still accustomed to my inexpensive life, so my paychecks stayed low throughout the years, and largely because of that the business finally had a pretty decent savings. That is when I asked my landlord if I could expand into a part of the other side of the building for an additional piercing room. The expansion only took a few months, and before I knew it, we were hosting guest piercers almost monthly. For a year and a half, we hosted guest piercers during our busiest months, sometimes for weeks at a time. From the guest spots, I was able to hire a great piercer to round out the crew, Rob Gold, who officially joined the team in March 2017. I also recently hired another jewelry expert, Lilly Young, as well as a part time jewelry-expert-in-training to help with front-end overflow. This has allowed us to grow into the potential that was already there and finally catch up to the needs of our clientele. In October 2018, just over 10 years after I opened, I was able to buy the building that my business is in, so now not only can I take over the rest of the first floor to allow for a larger waiting room and a new office for me, I also inherited 3 tenants for more income, thereby starting a whole new business, Black Sapphire Properties.

So, that brings us to 2019: my 22nd year as a piercer, my 11th year as a business owner, and my first year as a landlord. Now that I finally have a full staff that I trust, my main role at the shop is all the background stuff like finances, jewelry orders, and website updates, and I can still take appointments here and there. I now have plans to buy an apartment building down the street, hopefully within the next year, and plan to buy more investment properties over time. When I look back on everything, it now seems so obvious how I got here, but as I said in the beginning, hindsight is a great teacher. My journey has taught me some of the vital components to success:

  • Standards—As a Member of the Professional Piercers whose primary goal is promoting safe piercing, this one should be obvious, but it’s also worth mentioning. It is important to stay on top of what’s happening in the industry as far as jewelry standards, sterility practices, and aftercare. It’s easy to sell yourself to clients when you know you’re doing everything you can to give them the best experience and the safest piercing possible. Do not sell any jewelry you wouldn’t wear yourself and educate yourself on every aspect of the jewelry companies that you carry and their products.
  • Integrity—Be impeccable with your word: with clients, other piercers, other industry people— with absolutely everyone. Honestly, I believe this is true in every part of your life, but it’s essential in business and is the key to building a business that will stand the test of time. On the same note, be wary of people who belittle you and your vision. Walk away from toxic people and those that lack integrity, they will only bring you down.
  • Passion—Your clients can sense if you’re genuine or not and this industry is only truly rewarding if you love it more than anything. If you are in this industry for any other reason than your love of piercing and jewelry, do yourself a favor and don’t open a shop.
  • Image—To put it simply, be professional. Speak with confidence and be able to back it up with knowledge. Be careful who you represent yourself as, in person and especially online. No one wants to give their money to  a jerk, no matter how well you pierce or how nice your jewelry is. Period. There’s a saying in retail that applies well to piercers, “A happy client tells  a  few  friends. An unhappy client tells EVERYONE.” Whether you are opening a shop in a year or ten years, the internet never forgets and neither do salty clients. Also, be sure your shop physically reflects what you’re trying to project to the world. It’s hard to sell a $500 piece of jewelry if you look like you just rolled out of bed or your shop doesn’t look like a fine jewelry store.
  • Consistency—Be sure your staff is all on the same page and your front end is well trained. Have frequent meetings to quickly address problems or inconsistencies that arise. Having an employee handbook is also essential. You want all the things that are important to you in writing so that there’s never a question what should be done in any situation, whether you’re there or not. You want any client to walk in on any given day and have just as good of an experience as any other, no matter who is working. Part of this is also treating your employees well and paying them well to create an environment that encourages long term employment. When you have a staff that you trust, you have a lot of freedom too.
  • Sacrifice—When you own a business, you may be the most important person as far as image and decisions, but you’re the least important person when it comes to paychecks. It will pay off in the end, but building a shop from the ground up is not for the faint-of-heart or the weak-willed. The shop HAS TO come first, and your staff isn’t going to work for free. This will impact your life in every facet, and it may mean you make the least amount out of your whole staff at times, but if you stick to it and go all-in you will be rewarded in every way down the road. As far as start-up capital, however much you think you need to open a shop and make it successful, at least double it. You have no idea what can/will happen during your building years and you should be prepared for anything. Insurance may cover lost wages if your shop collapses or burns down, but it certainly won’t cover things like being slow because the economy tanked. If your plan is to open a shop someday, start putting away money now and don’t be frivolous. Make yourself a budget and stick to it; get used to being frugal. Think in years and decades, not weeks or months.
  • Limits—Remember, you are only human and just one person. You cannot do it all and still be healthy, either mentally or physically. Know when it’s time to take on other/more employees! And know when it’s time to take a step back too. On the same note, do not tolerate employees that do not share your vision. It’s very easy to be held hostage by talent and/or circumstance, but remember that it is your shop in the end and stick to your guns.
  • Preparation—The banks do not just hand out loans. Do your research and know the market in the area you want to open. Write a few practice business plans until you get it right and feel confident enough in your facts for a meeting with a loan officer. There’s plenty of information on the internet to lead you in the right direction. You can also look for a venture capitalist! The loan interest can be a little higher, but if a bank can’t help you, or can’t give you enough money, they are a great option. They are typically more adventurous than banks with what types of businesses they are willing to work with.
  • Confidence—Know your worth! Don’t compromise on pricing your services and/or jewelry thinking lower prices will bring people in, even in the beginning. It will come back to bite you and really limit your buying power when ordering new jewelry and growing your shop. If you do great work and sell great quality jewelry, the right people will happily pay you what you’re worth. Do not lower your prices, have piercing sales, or let people bully you into charging less. I promise, you don’t want those clients anyway; let the lesser shops have them. It will only make you look better in the end and win you more clients overall when those who were at first unwilling to pay your price come back to have you fix things. They’ll learn the difference first hand and you’ll now have a client for life who tells everyone they shouldn’t go anywhere else. Never apologize for having high standards.
  • Autonomy—Taking inspirations from other great shops is wonderful, but don’t concern yourself too much with what the other shops around you are doing. Just do your thing and believe in your vision! If you believe in what you’re doing, and you put the time and effort in, you’ll be amazed at what you can accomplish.

Point 85: APP Board Members & Officers History

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April 13, 1994—The first APP meeting participants (Listed as “founders” in The Point 1): (standing l-r) Irwin Kane (Gauntlet,Inc.), Raelyn Gallina, Vaughn (Body Manipulations), Michaela Grey and Jim Ward (Gauntlet, Inc.), Melisa Kaye (Body Manipulations), Richard White [Carter] (Primeval
Body), Joann Wyman (Body Manipulations), Elizabeth Brassil (Body Manipulations), Drew Ward (Gauntlet, Inc.) -(kneeling l-r) Blake Perlingieri (Nomad), Kristian White (Nomad) at Gauntlet corporate offices in San Francisco

2017–2020

  • Luis Garcia—International Liaison
  • Ryan Ouellette—Outreach
  • Brian Skellie—Medical Liaison
  • Kendra Jane—Vice President
  • Jef Saunders—President

2014–2017

  • Cody Vaughn—Vice President
  • Christopher Glunt—Medical Liaison
  • Steve Joyner—Legislation Liaison
  • Miro Hernandez—Public Relations Director
  • Jef Saunders—Membership Liaison
  • Aaron Pollack—Secretary (Board Appointed)

2013-2016

  • Brian Skellie—Global Media
    • Transitioned to President Q2 2014
  • Ashley Misako—Outreach

2011–2014

  • Elayne Angel—President
  • John Johnson—Vice President
  • Richard Frueh—Medical Liaison
  • Mike Martin—Legislation Liaison
    • Stepped down April 2013
  • Steve Joyner—Legislation Liaison
    • Appointed Legislative Chair June 2013
  • Sarvas Berry—Membership Liaison 2010–2013
  • Brian Skellie—International Liaison
  • Dana Dinius—Outreach Coordinator
    • Stepped down Q1 2012
  • Ashley Misako—Outreach
    • Appointed Q1 2012

2008–2011

  • James Weber—President
  • Didier Suarez—Vice-President
  • Elayne Angel—Medical Liaison
  • Eduardo Chavarria—Membership Liaison
  • Bethrah Szumski—Secretary
    • Stepped down Q2 2010
  • Paul King—Treasurer (Board Appointed Officer)

2007–2010

  • Danny Yerna—International Outreach Coordinator
  • Eric “Sque3z” Anderson—Outreach Coordinator

2005–2008

  • Alicia Cardenas—President
  • April Johnson—Vice President
  • James Weber—Medical Liaison
  • Luis Garcia—International Liaison

2005–2007

  • Christina Shull—Secretary
    • Stepped down Q3 2007

2005–2006

  • Jeffrey “Phish” Goldblatt—Outreach Coordinator
    • Stepped down Q2 2006
  • Schane Gross—Treasurer
    • Stepped down Q1 2006

2002–2005

  • Bethrah Szumski—President
  • Jason King—Vice-President
  • Crystal Sims—Secretary
  • Paul King—Treasurer
  • Elayne Angel—Medical Coordinator
  • Megg Mass—Outreach Coordinator
  • Alicia Cardenas—International Liaison

1999–2002 Second Election [The Point—Issue 15, May]

  • Patrick McCarthy—President
    • Elected to replace Gahdi Elias after he finished his Board term
  • April Williams-Warner—International Liaison
    • Elected to replace Al D. after he finished his Board term
  • Scott Brewer—Treasurer
    • Appointed by Pat McCarthy as interim Treasurer after Brian Skellie finished Board term June 1999. Later duly elected and stepped down Q1 2002

From The Point—Issue 16:

Many changes took place to the APP over the last year; one of the most important things was the election of a new Board. In September a new Vice President, Secretary, and Outreach Coordinator were elected. Then, in April a new President and International Liaison were introduced. During the meeting the new Board members were introduced to the membership.

APP Board Members as of October, 1999

  • Pat McCarthy—President
  • Steve Joyner—Vice President
  • Bethrah Szumski —Secretary
  • Scott Brewer—Treasurer
  • Elayne Angel —Outreach Coordinator
  • April Williams-Warner—International Liaison
  • Dr. Jack Ward—Medical Liaison

1999–2001 First APP Elected Board [The Point—Issue 14, April]

  • Steve Joyner—Vice President 1999
  • Bethrah Szumski—Secretary
  • Elayne Angel—Outreach Coordinator
  • Jeff Martin—Outreach Coordinator
    • Stepped down December 1999

From The Point—Issue 14:

The past year has seen Board member installment go from an appointment to an electoral process.

The first such election installed: Steve Joyner as Vice Chair, Elayne Angel as Outreach Coordinator, Bethrah Szumski as Secretary

As people come so do they go: Dave Vidra served as OSHA Liaison until Nov 1998, Derek Lowe served as Secretary until Nov 1998.

Jeff Martin served as Outreach Coordinator until Dec 1999.

1998 [The Point—Issue 13, Summer]

Stepped down:

  • David Vidra resigned November 1998 after multiple Board terms
  • Derek Lowe resigned November 1998

1998 Board of Directors [The Point—Issue 12, First Quarter]

  • Gahdi Elias (Mastodon)—Chair
    • Brian Skellie appointed to serve the duties of Chair while Gahdi traveled abroad
  • Kent Fazekas—Chair
    • Stepped down
  • Elizabeth Getschal—appointed Board Liaison under Chair

1997 Transitions [The Point—Issue 11, Fall]

  • David Vidra (BodyWork Productions)—OSHA /Legislative Liaison
    • Exchanged positions with Al D. Sowers
  • Al D. Sowers (Playspace Ltd./ Sin)—International Liaison
  • Michaela Grey finished her Board term and continued as a Business Member in good standing
  • Dr. John Ward—Medical Liaison

1997–1999 [The Point—Issue 10, June]

  • Kent Fazekas—Chair
    • Transitioned from Treasurer
  • Brian Skellie—Treasurer
  • Michaela Grey—International Liaison
    • Transitioned from Chair
  • Crystal Cross
    • Stepped down
  • Curt Warren (Koi)—Coordinator
  • Rob Petroff
    • Stepped down
  • Jeff Martin (Obscurities)—Outreach coordinator
  • Tracy Faraca
    • Stepped down
  • Derek Lowe (Steve’s Tattoo and Body Piercing)—Secretary
  • Allen Falkner
    • Stepped down

1996 Two new Board Members [The Point—Issue 8, August]

  • David Vidra (BodyWork Productions)—Medical Liaison
  • Al D. Sowers (Playspace Ltd./ Sin)—OSHA /Legislative Liaison
  • Crystal Cross (Primeval Body)—New Title: International Liaison
  • Blake Perlingieri and Maria Tashjian finish their Board terms and continue as Business Members in good standing
  • Rev. Drew Lewis started APP archives [Not Board Member (Media Committee)]

1995 Initial Appointed Board [The Point—Issue 6, November]

  • Crystal Cross & Richard White (Primeval Body)
  • Ahna Edwards (Attitudes, Inc.)—Outreach Coordinator
  • Position taken over by Tracy Faraca (Attitudes, Inc.)
  • Kent Fazekas (Body Accents)—Treasurer
  • Gahdi (Mastodon)—Vice Chair
  • Michaela Grey (Gauntlet, Inc.)—Chair
  • Blake Perlingieri & Kristian White (Nomad)
  • Rob Petroff (Insane Creations)—Coordinating Board Member
  • Maria Tashjian (Venus Modern Body Arts)
  • Allen Falkner (Obscurities)—Secretary

Point 82: Elayne Angel

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Thank you for celebrating the women of the piercing industry with us. We know that there are many more influential women that have greatly shaped our role in the industry. We hope that you will join us in Issue 85: Our History and Where We Came From. (winter, 2018) where we will look at some more of the most influential pioneers of our industry, such as Elayne Angel, Jim Ward, and Fakir

Point 82: Christiane Løfblad

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By Alicia Cardenas, Sol Tribe Custom Tattoo & Body Piercing

When I was asked to write about the women in the industry, I always think of the same small group of badass women that I have seen at Conference time and time again. The sometimes quiet, but fierce warriors; small business owners who paved the path for all those who came after. When I think about the world of female practitioners, there are still only a handful. And, of course, I think of Christiane from Pinpoint Piercing. Christiane has been a powerhouse of inspiration from Oslo, Norway. I got a chance to ask her a few questions and get to know her a little better. And find out more about what she is up to.

Alicia: Can you please tell us a little bit about yourself. Who are you and how long have you been a professional body artist?

Christiane: I’m Christiane Løfblad, and I’m the owner of Pinpoint Piercing in Oslo. I’ve been piercing professionally since ‘94, and been doing scarification since around ‘03. I’m currently piercing about three days a week, and do administrative work the rest. I was co-running Wings of Desire Suspension Team for around ten years, but have more or less retired from body suspension due to burn-out. In my spare time I try to find a balance between physical training (mainly pilates and yoga) and socializing with friends, and I also make lamp shades from x-rays (SUKL lamps).

Alicia: How did you get your start in the industry? Did you have a formal apprenticeship?

Christiane: I spent my late teens traveling around Europe in squatted houses, and was already piercing myself with various instruments. My first visit to a real piercing shop was at the Reeperbahn in Hamburg around ’92 or ’93. My friend and I wanted to get our navels pierced and I actually remember asking the staff member who served us “why is it so expensive?” Ha ha! So when I have these eye-roll encounters with young people today I try to be a bit more understanding and remember where I came from myself.

I moved back to Oslo in ’94, and the first piercing-only shop had opened there, in the basement of  an  established  tattoo  shop.  I quickly became a very regular customer, and after some months I was offered a position at this shop. My training was very simple; I would not call it an apprenticeship. Definitely not an ideal situation, but at the time I think this was a fairly common way to learn our trade. Around ’96 a colleague and I went to London for a week to guest spot at Cold Steel, it was quite the eye opener for me to see how a “real” shop was doing things. And in ’99 I moved to Copenhagen and worked for a while at Gorlubb, which was a bit of a turning point. It was the first “good” shop I worked at on a regular basis, and I improved a lot with my time there (thanks, Jack Rubini!).

Alicia: What was the industry like when you first started? How has it changed? Good or bad.

Christiane: When I’m asked how I think the industry has changed over the twenty-some years I’ve been in it, I can’t help but think more of how I’ve changed myself. So I’ll try to put aside my subjective perception.

Piercing in Oslo has always been a commercial thing, from the nineties when we were doing navels and tongues all day, up until today when it’s ear piercings with cute gold pieces. Back in the day, neither our customers nor ourselves were as focused on quality jewelry as we are today, but I feel in general the customer base in my area is and has been conscious about getting the good stuff. So in a way I’m not sure there’s been so much actual change, rather just a shift in trends. Vanity will never go out of fashion; it’s a fundamental characteristic in humans to decorate our bodies to express who we are. As for the industry itself, for me I see a lot more pressure from our peers to excel. Elitism is not necessarily a bad thing I’ve always believed in striving to improve and get more knowledge but I don’t remember this being such an omnipresent thing before the internet became so influential for all of us. Sometimes I feel it’s getting a bit out of hand, and can be a bit excluding.

Alicia: What is your experience about being a women in the industry? Has it been easier or harder? What are some of the challenges you have faced?

Christiane: Every now and then I get asked how it is and has been to be a woman in the industry, and can’t say I have much to say in that matter. I don’t feel I’ve been discriminated or in other ways had a hard time because of my gender. Maybe I’m just fortunate to live in a country and continent where there are a lot of females in the industry, or I’m totally oblivious to any gender negativity taking place. Either way, I don’t give it much focus.

Alicia: How long have you owned your studio? How did it begin?

Christiane: Towards the end of my twenties I was again living abroad, and when    I moved back in ’02 I started working at Pinpoint (the shop was originally opened in ’98 by two former colleagues of mine; Runar Jensen and Knut Kvernvold). After a few years I was offered the chance to buy the shop. Although at first I was a bit reluctant to face the responsibility, my boyfriend at the time quickly convinced me that I would be foolish to decline the offer (thank you, Håvve!) At first I was the only person working the shop, but slowly there was need for more help. We now have two full time piercers, one regular guest piercer, one apprentice, two counter staff, and one packing help.

Christiane Løfblad

Alicia: What would be your advice to someone starting off as a new business owner?

Christiane: To new shop owners these days I have just my subjective  advise to start small and  work you way up, because I don’t think I could have done it any other way. Think thoroughly through what is absolutely essential to invest in, and separate it from what would be nice to have, but can also be upgraded later. Always work to the best of your ability, but also strive to improve. I think that’s the essence of it, really.

Alicia: Who are your professional and personal influences?

Christiane: I’m a great admirer of experience and do look up to those in our industry who have been in it for decades and still have the same passion for the work and the drive to share the knowledge (hi, Alicia and Elayne! And all you others!) That said, I think I might get the most influence from those in my closer proximity. Our head piercer Sala who’s been with us for six years now is a great motivator to me to keep on improving, as are the rest of the staff who all see the shop as their own. It’s very inspiring to work with a crew who’s so passionately into their trade, and I’m very proud of all of them.

Alicia: What is your favorite part about this job?

Christiane: There are many favourite parts of my job because it depends so much on my mood. Somedays I love doing paperwork and orders and don’t have energy to deal with customers at all. And other days I can’t think of papers and just want to do the craft part. But one part of the job I get a lot from is witnessing the appreciation of some of the customers when they see their new piercing(s). I know how good I can feel sometimes when getting new work done myself, and it gives me a good feeling to be the one helping them to achieve that feeling. In moments when I feel my job is superficial in relevance to people who work with helping those in need, I remind myself that I also manage to evoke good feeling in a lot of people.

Alicia: If there was one thing you could change about our industry what would it be?

Christiane: I’m not sure I have much desire to change the industry. Of course I’d wish for a general higher level of standards, but I think in Oslo and Norway this level is fairly ok compared to a lot of other countries where price wars play a huge influence on what direction a lot of the shops take. In any line of work there will always be contributors who are more concerned with making a quick buck than having good work ethics; this in inevitable. I’d rather put the effort into educating our customers so they make the right choices for their body adornments, than letting the lack of work ethics of some of these contributors get to me.

Alicia: What are your plans for the next 5 yrs? 10 yrs? How do you create balance in your work and personal life?

Christiane: I’ve never been one for having long term plans; I tend to lay the rails while the train is running, so to speak. These last years I have been cutting back on serving customers so I have more time for all the admin work, and it’s likely that the admin duties will take an even bigger part in the future. But I have noticed that I need to pierce on a regular basis, so I need to reserve a few days a week for this. Luckily I have an amazing staff that helps also with some of the admin work, so the responsibility is not solely on me. Learning to delegate has been important for me to achieve a balance, and I’m still learning! I was recently very close to burning out, so I’ve become very conscious about not over stretching myself. Running the shop entirely on my own in the beginning was definitely a useful experience, but I also taught myself that it’s expected to work long hours and always be on duty. It’s hard to unlearn this, but I feel I’m on the right path.

Alicia: Thank you, Christiane. We appreciate you taking the time to answer my questions. You are a continued inspiration.

Point 82: The Golden Age of Piercing in Australia

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AN INTROSPECTIVE NARRATIVE OF FEMALE PIERCERS DOWN UNDER

By Eloise Ridgewell & Kyla Scrivener

Australia; a land stretching over 7.6 million square kilometres, famous for its blistering summers, beautiful beaches and wildlife that will kill you in every awful way conceivable. Born from this unique environment comes a well-known character, the true blue Aussie larrikin; a cultural icon who is tough, defiant, loud and enjoys poking fun at people. Although affectionately embraced by the international community and Australians alike, this stereotype has its pitfalls when trying to establish one’s identity on an international, professional scale. The need to be loud, tough, boisterous and outrageous is often expected of those from Down Under and can unfortunately take precedence over the individual identity. While this persona definitely has its place in the Australian piercing community, there is a hive of quiet activity migrating from this previously dominating attitude and branching into a more delicate, refined, sophisticated and feminine creation. To understand how this evolution started to come about, we must first reflect on our origins of how Australian piercing began.

We speak with Bella van Nes of Piercing HQ, the continent’s original female piercer, whose piercing career started over 28 years ago in Australia’s first piercing studio, then located above a small adult bookstore in Melbourne:

“[In the beginning] we saw a range of colourful characters. Folks didn’t care that the jewellery was plain; all they cared about was how it was going to make their sex life better. Fast forward to the navel piercing boom in the mid ‘90s and the need for prettier decorative jewellery styles. This was the beginning of having a piercing done for “the look” instead of “the feel” and when my need for more female staff became apparent; who were happy to spend time putting jewellery combinations together for clients and pouring over wonderful jewellery catalogues with them.”

This motivation for aesthetics over sensation sparked a ferocious growth for the Australian piercing community, jewellery manufacturers and women’s place in the industry.

The Australian piercing industry has evolved and expanded greatly in those 28 years to become what we see today. As of 2018, there are only 10 studios nation-wide operating at a standard internationally recognised as high end or reputable. Outside of that minority, there are over 400 piercing-related franchise businesses and innumerable tattoo studios and beauty salons offering piercing services. Considering there are a minimum of three to five piercers in each franchise, the ratio of franchise to studio piercers becomes greatly skewed. Due to this imbalance, a severe congestion is being seen, with a saturation of lower quality jewellery and more laxed standards becoming regarded as the norm. Another more intriguing outcome of the rise of franchise piercing has been the influx of female piercers being offered full time work in these ‘retail’ positions in precedence over male piercers for similar job opportunities.

In Australia, the retail and franchise industry is the third largest employer of women, after healthcare and education; this merging of retail franchises and piercing has opened the door for more women to be offered piercing positions than ever before. Prior to this pairing, the Australian piercing scene was almost entirely male dominated and with little to no job security, while franchises played a role in legitimising this career path by paying piercers a retail wage and steady employment. Although perhaps not an ideal introduction to the industry, joining a franchised brand soon became a way to get your foot in the door as an apprentice or employee at a reputable studio. From these humble beginnings, female piercers were now in a position to step forward and put their foot on the career ladder within these retail chains and begin to network with high end studios and manufacturers like never before. Synonymous with this saturation of female piercers nationally came the increased desire for ornate, couture, and more exclusive lines of jewellery, directly influenced by the world’s creative stylists; gone were the plain steel captive  bead ring haydays of the ‘90s! On the runways of high end fashion influencers like House of Malakai, Alexander McQueen, Dior, and most noticeably Givenchy, we were seeing luxuriously stylised adornments and  faux-piercings that soon proved to be ground-breaking in establishing the market for high end body jewellery in a modern Australian setting. Social and visual media greatly contributed in globalising these international piercing and jewellery trends, also allowing clients on our shores to make reference to the work of international industry members. It also increased a demand for unique pieces sculpted from precious metals and stones that had never before been seen here on such a scale or with such diversity.

This mainstreaming of elegance in piercing began to widen the original Australian piercee demographic; the demand for opulent, more feminine jewellery options lead to a shift in what clients expected to experience within a piercing studio, and their attitude towards the practitioners providing their services. Piercers collectively started hearing fewer statements about “putting a hole in” or “just being a piercer,” and were now being trusted to provide more of an artistic and immersive approach to the client’s overall aesthetic and desires. This newfound expectation of a piercer’s artistic integrity to craft an ensemble designed to accentuate and flatter became more desirable than the previously normalised pierce-and-go experience, which gave rise to an opportunity for a deeper, more personal collaboration and interaction between piercer and piercee. This noticeable atmospheric softening and an openness to more emotive experiences is moving further away from the masculine stoic stereotype. Allowing for a synergy that can be a wholly rewarding, cathartic contact for both client and piercer by creating a positive, safe space to process the potentially serious emotions and events that brings patrons into our work spaces.

Introspectively, from our own personal experiences as younger women growing up in more rural Australia, the options presented for adult life are largely centered around hairdressing, beauty therapy, or child-rearing. To be a woman not actively pursuing those ambitions is to be an outlier from the norm of femininity, and as such, implies harshness, bullishness, and almost a certain masculinity. In addition, an interest or participation in an already taboo lifestyle, such as body art, modification, or the kink scene, and this misconception about who you are and your attitude as a woman is reinforced greatly in the eyes of others.

Eloise Ridgewell

ELOISE RIDGEWELL of The Piercing Urge, Melbourne, VIC:

My interest in the industry as  a spectator was peaked in early adolescence by an urge for rebellion and a desire to be abrasive and obtuse. I grew up in a very conservative household by most standards,  and  saw body piercing as an outlet, so expressed my aggression by getting—wait for it—an awfully, AWFULLY executed 16ga septum piercing—somebody call Korn; their freak got off the leash. Retrospectively, that traumatic first piercing experience in the typical rough, dingy, bikeresque tattoo studio as a naive girl served as the catalyst that opened my eyes to the prospect of stepping into the industry as a practitioner, rather than purely an enthusiast. I entered the industry young, angry, and always on the defensive, but soon realised that I didn’t want to give my clientele the same experience that I had received, which was largely regarded as the norm for the area I lived and worked in at the time.

Soon enough, the scary outfits turned into soft colours and floral skirts, and the “fuck you” attitude softened into something much more truthful and authentic to who I am. Around this time, I was lucky enough to connect with some incredibly strong female piercers on the Australasian scene, Cherry Sutherland and Kylie Garth, and was offered a position with one of the most established high end studios in the country, The Piercing Urge, which has been in operation in Melbourne since 1991. I am eternally grateful to my employer and owner of The Piercing Urge, Peter Sheringham, for providing me with the platform, support and opportunity to be able to step forward in this industry, as well as his acceptance of a more feminine touch in such a well-established kink-originated studio, in order to become inclusive and welcoming to a broader demographic.

Attending the Trauma Informed Modification and Grounding class, as well as taking part in the Women of Piercing roundtable discussion during the 2017 APP Conference really ignited a spark in terms of what kind of impact I wanted to have on my clients during my short amount of time with them. Being trusted by our clients, whether it be their faith in our professionalism, technical abilities, eye for design, or allowing us to assist in the reclamation of their body is an incredibly powerful thing, that I truly feel grateful for every single day. Becoming more in touch with my own femininity and softness has helped my work and client interactions infinitely; I’m noticing an overwhelmingly positive and fulfilling encounter for both parties in comparison to the more typical Aussie piercing attitude of “have a teaspoon of cement and harden up”. We as piercers are often therapists, healers, personal life coaches, cheerleaders, and caregivers, and I sought to create an inclusive, welcoming space, where people could feel free from the quick judgements and abrupt bedside manner they may have been used to; where they could not only receive a traditional in and-out piercing service, but also something more holistic and cathartic should they require that.

This newfound placidity has also opened many doors professionally,  allowing  me to connect with a much wider spectrum of piercing community members. Being able to attend my first APP Conference and meet the community’s strong female figures and industry’s foremothers, including Alicia Cardenas, Bethrah Szumski, and Kendra Jane (who is also the reason I am sitting here writing this article) was a profoundly humbling and inspiring experience. Brainstorming with Kylie Garth and Suzanne Hallett and birthing the concept for a now hugely successful industry group for women, gender non-conforming people, and trans folk, then forging meaningful connections with the beautiful people that are part of it has been one of the single most rewarding encounters of my life. There’s a real feeling of sisterhood, inclusivity and empowerment brewing both in our industry and societally at the moment, and I am so thankful to be a part of it.

Kyla Scrivener

Kyla Scrivener of Sacred Art, Newcastle, NSW and APP Member:

I experienced one of the most powerful eureka moments of my life during the 2017 APP Conference. The incredibly well spoken John Johnson spoke of the “Life Piercer”. To paraphrase, he explained that we take the lessons our craft teaches which have an impact on our life forever. We see the world through a piercer’s eyes no matter where we are, inspiring the people who continue to be a piercer long after they have retired the needle. I have learnt some of my most important life lessons from this incredible art form, but none more than the ability to embrace my femininity and embrace my womanhood. The irony that I needed to learn this from men still makes me laugh quietly at the weird twists this universe throws our way.

  I naturally fell into piercing at a time where to me it was still a way to ruffle society’s feathers. If it was large, impressive, shocking, or garish then I wanted it pierced and I wanted it as offensive as possible because to me that was tough and that’s all I knew. Fast forward to 2015 when I was offered a position at Sacred Art in Newcastle, New South Wales where APP Member Mick Swan ran things a little differently to what  I was used to. Mick had created an atmosphere that was calm, gentle, inviting, and boutique. His prime focus was to establish an environment where his mother and sister could visit and feel safe and comfortable. The confronting mohawk, black metal band shirts, and obnoxious choice in piercing jewellery that once comforted me made no sense in my new found environment. The demographic I was now piercing were women between the ages of 18—45, from a middle to high socio-economic demographic, who wanted delicate gold ends with precious stones.

The confronting attitude and attire had to go, because selling diamonds and presenting myself this way was an uphill battle. This small change pushed me to soften my look and find a more female friendly identity. With mostly female clients, I was finding that I was constantly surrounded by these women, who all had stories to tell and that room would become a safe confession of catharsis, adornment, and human connection that I had never experienced before. Then the emotional bomb of the incredible “Modify Your Story” by Jaymes Lombardi hit me; his words of you being a guide to these people and that “everything you do, revolves around the stories we tell” resonate with me to this day. This is the third male in this story to make me realise that I was put on this earth to create, heal, celebrate, and mentor. These people wanted to create a moment, to heal or celebrate that memory or chapter in their life and to be guided through it in the nicest and safest way possible. To be able to be this person, I had to tap into that innate feminine side of myself because my masculine side just could not connect. These tiny changes planted seeds that now allowed me to really honour the clients I was so lucky to be surrounded by and finally allowed me the space to embrace that side of myself which never felt comfortable before.

While the metaphorical cauldron of a feminine energy is bubbling over internally, Australia is starting to see an awakening in a more soft-handed and delicate approach to piercing as a result. This newly allowed artistic freedom presents an opportunity to cultivate an immersive atmosphere of safety and beauty by utilising scent, sound, and design both personally and in the aesthetics of your studio to appeal to your client base. By doing this, two high end studios can create an entirely unique experience for their clientele, even though they may well provide the exact same services with the exact same jewellery. Clients are also becoming much more involved in the process of seeking out artists who compliment their jewellery and design choices, like they would if they were researching a particular style of tattooing. You no longer go to a piercer just to get a piercing, but rather for an overall experience, and our attitudes must reflect this.

Although the industry at large is becoming more multi-faceted, progressive, and gender-diverse than ever, the final shifts of societal norms still need to occur to be completely inclusive nationwide. The distribution of piercing positions in terms of binary gender is relatively even in Australia, however the societal norm of what is acceptable and expected from each role is not. Gloria Steinem quotes, “women are always saying, ‘we can do anything that men can do’ but men should be saying, ‘we can do anything that women can do.’” The final frontiers of Australian piercing need to see the barriers of stereotypical masculinity receding so that more male piercers are able to connect on a deep and interpersonal level also without the fear of not being a ‘bloke’. As Australian writer and comedian Patrick Marlborough quotes,“our national image of manliness is obsolete, and it’s killing us”. With this feminine piercing renaissance at its peak, hopefully we will see more men allowed to be able to shed the weight of toxic masculinity and embrace their feminine side within the industry, and encourage more women to be present in the dialogue without feeling the need to be loud or aggressive to be heard.

“Be soft for the sake of every hard heart; show them with every move of your body that gentle does not mean weak.”—Emma Bleker

Point 82: Women in Piercing – A perspective on Role Models

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By Charlie LeBeau, Board Member of UKAPP

Charlie LeBeau

The terms “women,” “woman,” and “female” in this article are used to represent all binary and non-binary women, regardless of size, shape, race, and religion.

Personally, I can count on one hand the female role models I had growing up. I don’t just mean in relation to my career, I mean in general. I had my mother, Debbie Harry of Blondie, and Princess Leia as my sole inspirations; although each are wonderful in their own right, my mother was really the only one who could provide me any reasonable advice. So when it came to choosing a career path, I knew I didn’t want to be a mother. I also couldn’t be the General of the Resistance (I’m still holding out hope for that one). So instead I chose to become a rock star. Clearly, that worked out exactly as planned.

It was during this era of my life, that I discovered more and more about body piercing. As I immersed myself into the music scene, I came to realize an abundance of crossover with the piercing industry. At this point, I already had begun to get pierced and had shown an interest in modification, but it was only by throwing myself into another interest that it became a passion. I hunted out my local studio and hassled them for months, until they agreed to take me on as an apprentice.

I bring this all up not for my own trip down memory lane, but because I became aware as I started my apprenticeship, how few female role models there were in my life. My mentor was male, my college lecturers were mostly male, I was one of three women on my music course, and almost none of the music I listened to was sung or played by women. This, I realised, was a problem.

The piercing industry owes its debts to many incredible piercers, male and female, and it would be brash to suggest that it was ever actively anti-women, but the building blocks of piercing as a business and industry were male dominated. This is not necessarily a negative observation, merely that this is still a young world for my generation and it helped me come to terms with the fact that we are still finding our feet within the industry.  We are still waiting to become role models for the next generation of Debbie Harry and Elayne Angel wannabes.

I’ve been lucky in many of my personal experiences. I’ve not had many issues with harassment, negative work environments, or workplace bullying due to my gender. I know this is far from the case for the vast majority of women who continually worry between going to work or not being able to pay the bills. Or alternatively being threatened with career ending slander shouldthey dare tell anyone about what is really going on. If you think it’s unnecessary for women to want their own personal space, then you haven’t been paying attention.

Recent movement within western society has lead to many industries “outing” their former heroes—something a lot of women would all agree is a long time coming—and the piercing industry isn’t an exception. With this newfound recognition of the female voice comes a responsibility from all genders, to leave that space to be filled by someone who is needed there. We can actively give women freedom to have discussions in forums without feeling the need to censor and rephrase their question. We can allow women the opportunity to lead more seminars without the fear of someone threatening to end our careers because we didn’t want to speak alongside them. We can allow more women to become Generals.

The women now leading the forefront of our industry have years of knowledge and experience, not only fighting for a hard earned spot in an incredibly selective occupation, but also doing so with little inspiration from our own to spur them on. I am fortunate to have an amazing support network now, filled with women who I look up to for their business acumen, their strength, their style, and their hard work to promote a new generation looking for role models of their own.

Mateo Way with Marian Muller doing the heavy lifting.
Photo by Shanna Hitchens