| At A Glance | |
| Author | Leanna |
| Contact | anoralzennut@gmail.com |
| When | A month ago |
| Artist | Crazy Shane of Wingnut Mods, St. Cloud, MN |
| Studio | Shades of Blue Tattoo Show, La Crosse, WI |
| Location | I am from Madison, WI |
My roommate and good friend, Amber, and I have been becoming fairly obsessed with body mods (specifically tattoos and relatively tame piercings) over the past few months -- we both have several of each. So, when we heard about a tattoo convention that was coming to nearby La Crosse, Wisconsin, we were very excited! La Crosse is about 2.5 hours away, and I am fortunate enough to own a very reliable car, so we made plans to stay in La Crosse and attend the convention, Shades of Blue, on Saturday and Sunday.
Neither Amber nor I had planned on getting anything pierced or tattooed at Shades of Blue. Having never been to a tattoo convention of any kind before, I was skeptical that such an environment could reproduce the safety and sanitation of a regular mod shop. Furthermore, when we arrived at the convention center in La Crosse, we were surprised to realize that people were smoking cigarettes inside the convention hall (living in Madison has spoiled us some – no smoking in bars or restaurants there at all!). It just didn't seem to me that getting stuck with a needle in a big convention hall with tons of people and smoke could ever be as clean or as safe as in a shop.
However, as Saturday wore on and we met more and more of the amazing people who pierce and tattoo in the Midwest, we realized that being at a convention like that was like being in a candy store, starving and with your mouth sewn shut. It was too much to take! Everywhere were talented artists, fascinating piercings and beautiful tattoos. A craving for a new mod such as I had never known began to take hold of me. Of course, by the time I realized that I was being paranoid about the safety of being pierced or tattooed there, all of the best tattoo artists were booked solid for the weekend.
For some reason, Amber and I decided to stick to our plan to come back Sunday and torture ourselves some more. We were spending a lot of time at the station of a particular shop, Wingnut Mods from St. Cloud, Minnesota. One of their tattoo artists had some incredible work and had won several awards for his tattoos, and many of their staff had participated in a suicide suspension the day before. As Amber and I were flipping through a portfolio of really original ear projects, probably with terribly wistful looks on our faces, we heard "Crazy" Shane, a Wingnut piercer, say, "So, girls, what are we going to be doing with your ears?" Amber told him, "Nothing," but all of a sudden, I wasn't so sure. I didn't have very much money to spend, but money seemed pretty inconsequential when faced with the prospect of being able to have something done by such talent. Apparently, Shane was the "ear guy" of Wingnuts, and had invented and implemented all of those awesome ear projects. Many of them were three or four cartilage piercings with barbells that connected at a single ball in the middle of the ear.
I told Shane that I didn't heal piercings very well, which traditionally had been true: at 17, I got an eyebrow piercing that never really healed and which I ended up retiring after two years, and three months before Shades of Blue, I'd gotten a helix to helix industrial in my right ear that was healing – not badly, but slowly. He explained that those projects healed very well because of how each one was adapted to the individual's ear, and how they allowed for movement. I was intrigued. I asked him how much something like that would cost, and he said anywhere between $120 and $300. I then had to confess that I didn't have a ton of money to spend – only about $80. He asked if he could look at my ear.
I showed him my left ear, because I thought that I probably should leave my right one alone or it might rebel and stage a mutiny or something. He looked at it for a solid minute and a half and then suggested an anti-tragus to conch industrial, because, as he said, I have a very pronounced anti-tragus. And I surprised myself by saying, "Okay, let's do it." Normally I'm not one to be impulsive about my mods, but Shane gave me a very good feeling, and I knew that it was going to look pretty cool.
Shane showed me the jewelry that he was going to use, a weird-looking barbell that was straight until almost the end, where it curved at a 90-degree angle. Meanwhile, a crowd was beginning to gather around the station to watch. He put on gloves, got the needles and jewelry ready – everything was sterile and new and/or autoclaved, of course -- then had me take off my glasses and lie on the table, and made lots of jokes to make me more comfortable. I felt okay, though, because I'm not too bad with pain. Little did I know that this one was going to be a doozy.
The first one he did was the anti-tragus. That's a pretty thick piece of cartilage, and it felt like the needle was going through for at least three seconds, which is quite a while to feel like your ear's on fire. Of course, it might have felt like longer than it was because it hurt so badly. I twitched like a fish on a line and screamed, "Jesus H. Christ on a raft!" which drew chuckles from the crowd. Surprisingly, putting the jewelry through hurt less than the actual piercing, which was a first for me. Then he did the conch part, saying, "It's all over..." as he slid the jewelry through there and put on the ball.
I sat up, put on my glasses and looked in the hand-held mirror. It looked incredibly awesome, kind of hardcore and dainty at the same time. Shane gave me aftercare instructions and then told me it would be $65 – a deal, as far as I'm concerned. I paid him and tipped him $15, thanking him profusely.
Amber settled on buying a pair of plugs for her 00g lobes.
It's been about three weeks since the convention, and the piercing is healing perfectly. The swelling went down after a day and there have been plenty of crusties, but I believe those to be normal and even a good thing. I wash it in the shower in the morning with antibacterial soap and soak it three times a day with cotton balls and a hot sea salt solution, per Shane's aftercare instructions. He also recommend emu oil, but I thought I'd see how it went without it, since I'm a vegetarian. And so far, it's been going quite well! This is the first piercing I've had, besides my gunned lobes (hey, I was 6), that's healed without issue. And I think that that can be attributed to a piercer who truly knew what he was doing. I'd recommend Shane of Wingnut Mods to anyone!
Moral of the story, if there is one: don't be scared to get pierced on a whim, even at a convention, if you can tell that a piercer knows his stuff and is responsible and reliable. However, that also means knowing what to look for, including sterile equipment and, if you've been into this stuff long enough, a good gut feeling can go a long way.
