Wednesday, July 14, 2010

26. Skindependence 2010

Another adventure to Montana has come and gone. I traveled with two silly boys, my fiance Ben and Rick from Houston, for eight hours by car from Denver, a fun and simple little road trip. We arrived in Billings on Thursday evening, and I was greeted with many hugs and kisses. :D It was cool to see everyone from bodymod.org again, and even some new faces. Everyone was so friendly, and even those who hold grudges against each other overcame their differences had fun and took pictures together and consumed delicious foods.

(Ben and Rick at a rest stop.)


Things didn't go as planned this year, however I did get to work out of a sweet tent with friend Rick and the largest swamp cooler I have ever encountered. The tent was pretty much where it was at...if you wanted to get stabbed or cut. I was able to watch a few cuttings that my tent-mate did between piercings, which was neat. Rick's pretty swift with that blade! I did a lot of work, likely more than last year (but made less, hehe). Thinking about it now, I feel like I've gained quite a bit more experience and speed since last year's Skindependence. Working around such amazing artists truly inspired me to keep continuing forward with my education and expand my horizons.

(Rick doing a cutting)


I did a lot more corsets this year than last year. I won the award for "best piercing", a 22 point back corset done on my lovely friend Laura. It's the first award I've ever won for a piercing and I definitely wasn't expecting it (however, there really wasn't much competition, as the other piercers were busy with branding and scarification). It's still pretty cool either way.

(22pt back corset that I won an award for)


(22pt back corset I did on Lisa...picture from Jared)


(me and Sean...and the 13pt corset I did on him)


I experimented with some corsets where a shirt is attached to the piercings instead of just lacing them up. I did three different ones, all with 10 piercings. I reconstructed the shirts as well. Here's a few pictures of what they looked like.







I was pierced this year too! Rick did two microdermals on my lower back. It's been about a week now and they've been lovely. He did such a great job! I was also tattooed by Ben, a matching tattoo with my friend Laura who lives in England. It's a little butterfly with a coffee cup....it's to commemorate the mornings we had and will have together. She visits once a year just for this event.

(microdermals on my lower back from Rick, moments after being installed)


(matching butterfly tattoo with Laura, and her and Kasie's matching tattoos)


My days were busy and I wasn't able to watch many suspensions, but I did get to see a few cool ones, including a superman suspension and a forearm suspension. I even experienced some serious energy pull and hook bending action! Also, I was able to check out some branding done by another piercer at the event, Mr. Jonz. I had a front row seat to watch him split Sean's tongue. Talk about intense! I was in so much shock and awe that I couldn't even capture a picture.

(Sean and Dustin doing a pull)


(Lisa's knee suspension)


(Kasie's superman suspension)


It went by so fast. I'm invited to work again next year, so I'm already planning for it. I can't wait. :D

(me with some awesome bodymod.org friends!)

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