Brian Skellie

Body Piercing

Brian Skellie, founder of Piercing Experience

About
“All of this intrigued me at a very early age. The permanent results of the rituals and processes I read about enthralled me, particularly as a personal reminder of experiences. I have collected books and pictures of all sorts of body adornment ever since. I decided to begin altering my own body during adolescence, when I felt my mind and spirit changing at the speed of thought. I put forth a concerted effort to determine what kind of outward mark of my inner growth would feel right to me.”

“I met Jack Yount in 1992, a kind and gentle person with over forty years experience, and he steadied my hands and gave them direction. I interacted with as many other experienced individuals as I could to share knowledge and discuss ideas. I observed and was supervised while in Florida, and continued to interact with Jack until he passed away in 1995.”

“I anticipate the eventual decline of anyone practicing non-sterile piercing methods. People are moving towards safer procedures such as wearing sterilized gloves to handle and insert autoclave sterilized needles, instruments and implant grade jewelry and steer away from prevalent clean-looking but contaminated procedures. People are beginning to realize that too much has been previously left to guess about in the business, and that there are safer ways to put jewelry in people, without all the loose ends and nagging issues of conscience. I anticipate that clients will choose safer methods based on researched instead of perpetuating old guesswork opinions and assumptions.

Caveat vendor; caveat emptor: Seller beware; buyer beware

I am working on refining systems of quality control to provide for public health while still in the best interest of the piercer. It is a challenge to take safety seriously without incurring some expense, whether it be time, labor or cash. It is worth it…”

Qualifications
He studied under Jack Yount.
Working full time since 1992
“I researched the conditions and procedures necessary for successful traditional body adornment of all kinds: cicatrisation, tattoo, ritual burns such as brands or moxibustion, body shaping such as corsetry and binding the feet, arms, legs and head, and the insertion of decorative objects under the skin. I compared all methods I could learn of with scientific and medical research to determine how to emulate these sorts of processes without deleterious effects. Anthropologists’ reports of what they saw as ‘ruined’ body manipulations were often hard to decipher as to indicate infection or trauma. I wanted to carefully avoid any undesirable outcome.”

Business
“I planned to NOT do it for a living, or for trade, just for my friends and myself. When I came back to Atlanta from my first year of college, I made so many appointments within my circle of friends and acquaintances that I rented two rooms with a sink from a retail store, and set about making a studio as Piercing Experience. I met with success and saved my money intending to rent a larger space for exclusively piercing. I spent over a year side tracked, sharing space with a group of tattoo artists, and finally in May of 1995, had found and designed my ideal space. It was a building located one block from where I grew up, and just the right size. I did most of construction myself and had it opened by August. It has been amusing ever since…”

Honors