On a warm day in September of 2006, I stopped at my regular piercing studio, The Arthouse. I had a few questions about dermal punches. I'd never had one before and, naturally, was getting curious. I know the owner quite well and though I've had more than one piercer work on me in that studio, I trusted that they were all competent.
At A Glance Author pandora9kry Contact pandora9kry@bme.anon When Six months ago Artist Dan Marshall, www.piercerdan.net Studio The Arthouse Location Calgary, AB
I waltzed in and dropped my things the way I usually do. Most of the staff there know me by name, as I've been known to spend a fair amount of time talking to the different tattoo artists and piercers. I went up to the counter and quickly realized that I didn't recognize the guy sitting there. My first thought was, "who is this hot guy at the counter and how did they hire him without me knowing?" I assumed he was the new counter person, though I'm not sure why. I asked him where the owner was, at which point he told me she was in the middle of a piercing.
To make conversation and find out some more about this unknown, "counter guy," I told him how fond I was of his vertical bridge. While we were waiting, he showed me a few photos on the computer.
When she came out, she greeted me as usual, and I told her I was looking to have a dermal punch in my left conch. She simply said, "talk to Dan, he can do it for you." As I'm sure you've guessed, Dan was not a counter person but a guest piercer. He is, by far, the best piercer I've ever encountered. Needless to say, I'm now one of his regulars.
I sat down with him in the piercing room and we discussed options for size and placement. He said that our two best options were a 2g through the upper part of my conch, or a 0g through the lower part of my conch, where a standard conch piercing would sit. I said I wasn't sure, and decided to sit and think for a few minutes.
I plopped down on a couch in the waiting room and started to flip through Dan's portfolio. It was a slow day, so he sat down on a couch across from me and we ended up talking for nearly an hour.
"So? What do you think?" he asked after awhile.
"Let's go with a 0g," I replied.
I followed him into the piercing room and I sat down on the piercing table. I took my hoodie off and pulled my hair back into a tight ponytail to keep it out of the way. He washed his hands, got the punch and jewellery ready, put gloves on, etc. He explained that he would prep my ear with Techni-Care. I must have looked confused, because he went on to tell me that it was chloroxylenol bonded with collagen and that it had a kill time of about 30 seconds, rather than the 20 minutes that rubbing alcohol would take.
He did a dry run with me, starting by saying, "now I haven't got anything sharp in my hands." He explained how everything would go and had me lay down.
He asked me to take a deep breath in, and as I exhaled, the punch started to go through. I had expected it to be quite similar to a piercing, and was amazed how much it hurt. It nearly brought me to tears and it seemed to go on forever. In retrospect, it probably took about three times longer to go all the way through than a standard piercing. I felt blood run into my ear canal, which was irritating, more than anything. Then the entire left side of my head started to ache.
After what seemed like ages, he was finished, or so I thought. Unfortunately, there was a small shred of skin on the back of my ear that didn't want to let go. He had someone get some surgical scissors for him and after warning me that I was about to feel a sharp pinch, cut the skin. That, "sharp pinch," seemed, at the time, to be almost as painful as the rest of the punch combined.
He took the small sandwich of skin and cartilage and set it aside. Next, he pressed paper towel to both sides of my ear for a short while to let it bleed out. He told me later that this would reduce swelling. He slid the glass tunnel in and put the elastic on. After a minute, I sat up and we went outside to take photos.
He answered all of my questions via email from Toronto, and has since moved to Calgary. He now works at a shop called Sacred Balance on 17th Ave. SW and his website is www.PiercerDan.net
I took the tunnel out about a week later to soak my ear in saltwater and clean all the dried blood and lymph secretions off of the jewellery. It was so strange to me to take the jewellery out of a new piercing, but I enjoyed it, as I'm a neat freak, and I was happy that I could get the tunnel so incredibly clean. My ear swelled up a fair bit and stayed that way for just under two weeks. Of course, it didn't help that I had a four-year-old girl at work (I work in a daycare) hug me and smash her head into it twice in its first week of healing.
Other than one incident where the O-ring got lost and the tunnel fell out while I was sleeping, requiring a taper to re-insert the jewellery (thank goodness Dan had made his way to Calgary by that time), it has healed up beautifully.
A few weeks ago, Dan even helped me select new jewellery for it, and I'm currently wearing a Kaos ver 2.0 silicone tunnel in it. It's wonderfully comfortable and is great to sleep on. I'm incredibly happy with the work he's done on me and plan to see him for many more mods to come.