I love this photo that Rolf Buchholz took at the recent 8th Italian Suscon of Erica Marinoni suspending with her twin sister Claudia Marinoni. Not only is it wonderful to see twin siblings suspending together, but I love the glee and joy captured in this image — it almost looks like they’re dancing. I suppose in a way they really are.
Speaking of Baz Black (Dundalk, Ireland), he also sent me these absolutely beautiful play piercing shots. They were taken at Red Tree Studios by Maik, with Baz having done the black wings on Suki Syndrome, and the white wings were done by Edel Walsh on Sara Tonin. It’s not uncommon to use feathers in play piercing photoshoots, but these stand out — I love the final tone of the images, they look almost like paintings, like the sort of thing I imagine hanging in some deviant Austrian art fan’s apartment at the start of the 20th century, perhaps next to their Klimt painting. Click to zoom in.
Buzzfeed has an interesting article right now about the leftovers of the “skinvertising” industry. It seems to have all-but died out, but there was a time where you could collect tens of thousands of dollars for tattooing your face or other body parts with a corporate logo — the Golden Palace casino’s attention-seeking marketing team took regular advantage of the publicity this generated.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/jackstuef/branded-for-life
I asked long time BME frenemy Brent Moffat, an eccentric but conservative modification artist who has held world records in piercing and knows first hand what it’s like to be part of the “skinvertising” world as he accepted $10,000 to tattoo the Golden Palace logo on his forehead. These days the tattoo is almost completely eliminated by removal and cover-up, but even that Brent seems to hide most of the time under a hat judging by the photos he has posted. I was very interested in hearing his feedback on this story, since he’s one of the only people I know that’s willing to speak his mind honestly on the subject and also has significant first-hand experience with both the “publicity stunt” world and the “skinvertising” world. I’d like to share here some of his comments posted on this story. My apologies to Brent for using rather unflattering photos — the left one is with the tattoo fresh, and the other two are more recent.
I cant speak for anyone but myself but when I “sold” my forehead to Golden Palace back in 2005 I did it for a quick $10,000 to help and start a business (my piercing studio that later disolved due to a breakup). I make a point of tryin to never regret anything I do in life, but I will say that the day has come that I do regret not only this but all of my facial work. Unlike many people with facial work I live in Bible Belt Saskatchewan and am the only person in my whole city with anything above the neckline that I know of, so it has gotten in the way of my lovelife and in the way of jobs.
I would seriously discourage any young person from facial or “Ad” work on their body because the reality is the world is still not as tattoo friendly as you think it may be and its very very permanent. I started the process of removing the forehead work I had from Golden Palace and it was the most painful thing I have ever felt and I was so swollen I couldnt see for days.
“To each there own”, but take some time and think, and think hard, about what kind of presentation you are making to the world because it can and has come back to “bite people in the ass”. I thought I would be a piercer for the rest of my life, but as life is, it came along and changed everything for me and now im a unemployed disabled phlebotomist. I believe most of my unemployability is due to my tattoos, for which I have no one to blame but myself. I love them but I wish they were a few feet lower on my body knowing what I now know.
As per the early 2000 craze towards “ad” work, it was publicity stunts and that was it. I probably could have not gotten the forehead tattoo done at all and Golden Palace wouldn’t have cared because they got their name in every paper in the world and that is what they were paying for. However, seeing as I am an honest person, I would have felt like I robbed them if I hadn’t had gotten it done. So obviously I did. It’s bad when you have people in society struggling, especially when they have kids — like the woman who did her forehead as well like me — because you will do anything to provide not only for yourself but also for your children. If it means pain and ridicule… so be it.
Given how common facial tattooing is, I hope that people will take his words seriously, especially given at what a young age people are making permanent and largely irreversible life-altering decisions. Of course, young age may well make it impossible to really consider this issue with perspective. I hope that most people have better luck than Brent has, but I fear not all will, and that his story will repeat itself in other lives. Brent is currently working on his autobiography, so perhaps in time there you’ll hear more of this story — and he’ll be able to say he’s a successful author, rather than an unemployed phlebotomist.
About three years ago Baz Black of Dundalk, Ireland did a heart-shaped jewelry project on his girlfriend’s arm using SkinDivers (a simplified variation on the microdermal that looks a little like a labret stud). It healed well, but after three years she was tired of them getting caught on things all the time and decided to remove them. During the removal, since Baz knew that she was going to have some scars from the project no matter what, he suggested that they could improve its appearance by using a dermal punch to convert the piercing project into a skin removal scarification project. I think he came up with a nice way of breathing new life into a dying mod.
A while back I made a post about Marta’s UV-ink Ichi The Killer-inspired tattoo, and was asked to follow-up with exactly how it looked under UV light, fully healed. Marta just posted this wonderful follow-up picture, which gives me the perfect chance to answer that very query. And of course it looks even better with an assortment of matching UV acrylic jewelry.
Almost a decade ago I remember admiring pictures from Gus Diamond and Paragon in Hawaii doing suspensions, often on a beach or in the water itself — Suspension.org has some great photos of a sandbar suspension and ModBlog as well posted a nice pulling/suspension combo — using a large bamboo tripod allowing them to set up anywhere quickly. I was reminded of these pictures when I saw the tripod rig in use at the recent Italian Suscon, which is a similar design, but realized in metal for both increased durability and because it’s hinged at the top, even faster set-up and break-down. And like with the Hawaiian style suspensions, the resultant photos are quite beautiful. The first photo was posted by Marjolein Lankester van Rijn and the second by Giuseppe Beppe De Palo.
Here’s the latest video — the sixth run — from Sinner Team who have been defining the art of free-fall suspension. In this incredible video they climb up on top of some huge derelict warehouse in Russia that looks like it’s the size of a small city and jump through a skylight to get a just massive swing. I’m always struck by the brilliant and complexity of the rigging in these videos — these guys really know their stuff. If they didn’t, well, they’d be dead. This is not the sort of thing you want to do without massive amounts of experience and expertise keeping you and your team safe. Don’t miss the previous posts on Sinner Team here on ModBlog. They’re all amazing.
I want to start off with a “guess what”… Click to see if you were right.
The mod you see in that picture is on Walker Bod Mod and was done by Oscar Kbza Santos. While I’m talking about Oscar, I wanted to show you his hand implants, because they’re a little unusual — unique would be a better word.
That reminds me that I’ve been meaning to show you Sandy from True Body Art, a beautiful looking studio in Zurich. Anyway, I spent some time looking at her hand implants, trying to figure out what they are — my first guess was some sort of I Ching symbol.
The truth more enigmatic and amusing — it’s actually a random shape devoid of specific meaning, and is there to confuse the viewer!!! This is especially funny because Sandy isn’t some strange troll that no one sees, or that when they do see, are afraid of them… She’s actually a very beautiful model in addition to being a body modification artist, so these unusual implants have been featured in the work of many photographers (the photo on the left is by Siete Ramirez, and the one on the right is by Dark-Style Fotografie), and I’m sure as a result a great deal of time has been spent pondering their meaning. She has an implant on her chest as well that is similarly strange. I always enjoy people who have a sense of humor.
Oh and you can click that picture for one last shot.
I don’t want to overpost the work of Ferank Manseed, which I just covered yesterday, palm tattoos no less, but I just had to include this screaming hand tattoo because it’s got to be about the most perfect idea for a palm tattoo ever. For those that don’t recognize it, the “Screaming Hand” logo was designed in 1973 by Jim Phillips for the Santa Cruz Skateboards team, and is widely used as a symbol of skateboarding in general. I’ve seen the logo tattooed quite a few times, but this is even better — actually becoming the logo. Now to tattoo his hand all blue…
Sometimes it seems like you have to travel to the boundaries of the map, the sort of “here be monsters” zone where you’re likely to sail off the edge of the world, to find somewhere truly epic to suspension. That’s probably just a bit of “the grass is always greener” thinking, but when I look at this picture of Jussi Paradise (photo by Wormz) suspending in Iceland, I feel like it might as well be swapped in for the opening shots of Prometheus or something. “Suspension is not a crime”, September 17, 2012.
