Steve Haworth

I ran into my friend J. Coburn during APP last year and had the opportunity to photograph the implants I had done on the back of his hands. He is an amazing artists and you should definitely check out his web site http://www.provoke-productions.com When we had done these he had asked for the largest size rings that I could place in his hands and told him in doing so the concept of digging things out of his pockets would be difficult. He can literally use his hands as shot glasses! As we were talking about his hands and the previous discussion when they were first done he asked “now that we’ve established that I can no longer reach in my pockets can we go bigger” we haven’t gone larger yet but I am working on it.

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I am starting off with shaped Piercing Holes since there is very little information about them. The first discussions that I can remember revolving around the creation of a shaped hole in the upper ear/cartridge took place in the mid-90s. One of my good friends DJ works in an aerospace manufacturing facility and had brought me a couple of parts that he had machine that had a similar resemblance to what I was wanting to create. After I engineered some designs and concepts he went off to see if it was possible to manufacture my designs. About two weeks later thanks to the help of DJ the Star shaped piercing hole was born.

In the first picture, No. 1 is an example of the piercing blade. These are very expensive to create so therefore are reusable and easily to sterilize. No. 2 is the star eyelet itself and has been engineered in such a way to the minimize the recession of cartilage during healing. No. 3 is a standard O-ring to hold the eyelet in place during healing. I personally recommend using silicone O-rings during this healing period. No. 4 is an intestinal clamp that I modified for use as a shaped hole punch tool. No. 5 is the assembled version of the shaped cutter, backing and tool. And finally No. 6 is an actual star shape removal. (Note that you can actually see the perfectly shaped cartilage star in the middle).[inspic=215,,,0]

The second picture is a shaped star on Amanda. No. 7 was the freshly pierced star shape hole. The process takes all of about 10 seconds to complete. No. 8 is the completely healed hole showing full definition on the inner points of the stars. No. 9 is a view from the back side. In No. 10 is a beautifully healed example with eyelet in. Amanda took approximately two months to completely healed her star.[inspic=219,,,0] The third picture is Dita from Japan who had both of her ears pierced into heart shapes. Dita was the first person in Japan to get this style modification. In No. 11 you can see the piercing blade as well as to heart shaped sections removed. Here in No. 12 we actually see the fresh piercing. In No. 13 the eyelet is in and the O-ring is in place. And lastly in No. 14 a beautifully healed heart several months later.[inspic=223,,,0] In the next picture is Andi. In No. 15 you can see that she has a uniquely shaped upper flat cartridge which makes her a perfect candidate for this kind of piercing. In No. 16 she is going through the process of the piercing. In No. 17 we see a completely healed piercing with silicone O-ring. In No. 18 with eyelet removed we see the evidence of an extended healing process due to a diabetic condition. The average healing period for this type of upper cartilage piercing averages 3 months. In Andi’s case if memory serves me right I believe it took about one year.[inspic=217,,,0]Amanda is a body piercer from Boise ID http://www.krahnic.com and had both of her upper ear cartilage pierced with the heart shape. She had the point of the hearts angled in such a way that they point through the center of her lower stretched ear lobes. I’m really liked this affect. Also I believe the picture on the left is on her wedding day so congratulations are in order![inspic=216,,,0] Lastly, I will show a close up picture of some star and heart eyelets. The eyelets themselves, both hearts and stars, retail at $100.00 each and I charge $50.00 per piercing so you would be looking to $150.00 per ear. [inspic=226,,,0]I’m going to be looking into mass production of the eyelets as well as the shaped cutter in order to make this modification less expensive and more accessible to other piercers. Once I have figured out cost issues I will also create a seminar to teach the other body modification artists these techniques. As always I recommend H2 Ocean for the healing process.