Exploring Chattanooga’s ever-growing body piercing scene
Picture a girl’s clenched body and face with hands gripping a high barbershop-like chair in a storefront for all to witness (one of) her most traumatic experiences in becoming a woman—getting her ears pierced.
The trite tradition of having a sophomoric salesperson sterilize your lobes with rubbing alcohol and then ready a scarring piece of machinery beside your head is anything but safe or sanitary.
I was once that clenched-face girl getting her lobes dismantled in a store front window. Then I made the mistake, as many youngins do, of getting pierced on my own during senior beach week.
I got my tragus pierced with a gun, which is unheard of, and I remember hearing the loud shot as it blew through and annihilated my cartilage. I thought I was fine, got up and began to walk out only to awaken to the door hitting me in the head as I lay on the floor because I passed out. I was also drunk.
I have other cautionary tales, too. For instance, I bought a cheap nose stud and it got stuck. The only way to get it out was to yank up or down and it was not pleasant.
Despite my varied history, the age-old process of piercing one’s ear at home with an ice cube, needle, and potato has been in style since before I can remember. My husband got his ear pierced in 1986 (I was six, he was twenty, teehee) and it was seen as very counter-culture. He was enlisted in the Navy and decided to get his ear pierced while on leave to return back to duty Monday with a throbbing red heartbeat of an earlobe that was almost as angry as his commanding officer. He took it out immediately.
Taking an impromptu survey of friends, I found, along with some horror healing stories, that some parents actually frowned more on them getting facial piercings than tattoos. I also recall my mom mentioning “your beautiful face” when I came home with my eyebrow ring. However, over the decades we’ve progressed in our viewpoints about piercings until now conversations about quantity or gauge seem more acceptable. Which is ironic since there is evidence of body modification dating back to prehistoric days.
Otzi the Iceman, one of the ten oldest human mummies, is adorned with tattoos and size-0 gauge stretched lobes. In some tribes, young girls would have their ears pierced but not have them stretched until older as it was a nonverbal indication of growth and maturity. Mayan and Aztec tribes believed ears were conduits of energy and stretched lobes empowered wisdom and compassion. Folklore said pirates wore earrings to protect them from drowning and, during the Renaissance, men wore earrings as a status symbol.
So at what point did a male having his right ear pierced insinuate something more than just a fashion statement? Or was it the left ear? And did that mean if a man had both ears pierced, he was bi? The ridiculous rumor regarding homosexuality and ear piercings was prominent mostly from the late ‘80s to the ‘90s but thankfully now the jewelry indicates only style and not sexuality.
Got Your Backing
“It is not just for punks and goths anymore,” says Kelly Carvara, owner of Monarch Piercing, the first (and still only) piercing-only studio in the entire state of Tennessee. “I was a goth kid in high school and mom was super against it before I turned eighteen. So when I turned of age, I got most of the piercings I have now, which is over twenty.”
Only eighteen credits shy of receiving her degree in biomedical engineering, Carvara dropped out of college to pursue what she was truly passionate about—metals and the human body.
“I was looking at a career in prosthetics but in my last semester, I started apprenticing and changed my mind.”
Carvara still draws on her academic knowledge of subjects such as Anatomy & Physiology and Biocompatibility, though.
Nominated for Small Business of the Year by the Chattanooga Chamber of Commerce, Monarch Piercing has been pivotal in progressive piercing in Tennessee. Carvara is the only freehand piercer and single-use shop proprietor in the Volunteer State.
Carvara first visited Chattanooga in summer of 2015. After guest piercing from New York to Atlanta and plenty of places in between, she decided to open Monarch Piercing in February 2016. After apprenticing under Jef Saunders, president of the Association of Professional Piercers (APP), Carvara is about to celebrate her 10-year piercing anniversary this March.
“I’m the only member of the APP for 180 miles,” she explains. “Several times a year, I seek out continuing education because the industry is constantly changing; however, with opening the new location, I may not go anywhere for a while.”
Although a piercer does not have to be a part of the APP, Kelly encourages other piercers in the area to attend APP workshops. “If any of us are doing better, we’re all doing better.”
Carvara cares so much for her craft and harmonious relationships that she created a Tennessee piercers’ Facebook group called “Southern Fried Tennessee Piercers” to share ideas and connect on a local level.
Long in business in Hixson, Carvara is moving to a larger, custom studio on Main Street, just behind The Handle Bar. Her new spot will have two piercing rooms, an inviting waiting area and “dope designed jewelry display cases.” Carvara is stoked because her new space will have much more of her vibe.
“Being handicap accessible and kid friendly were my two biggest focuses and, although I was shown some pretty cool second floor spaces, I could not have found a better place at ground level.”
Monarch Piercing will be in limbo until the Main Street location completes final renovations, but that will not stop Carvara from taking care of her “awesome clients.” She will not be poking holes while she is sans shop but you can contact her for jewelry changes such as downsizing, which is when you change your jewelry post-piercing inflammation, a process she recommends with lip, nostril, earlobe, and industrials.
Until her doors open in May, Carvara will be available just a few doors down from her new spot at Main Line Ink. Email info@monarchpiercing.com to make an appointment.
To The Face
Former piercer and well-known local Pinkie Pell, female Guinness world record holder and co-founder of the fantastic freakshow Subterranean Cirqus, has a sweet face glittered with silver studs from ears to eyelids. Possibly the most-pierced person in the area, Pell jokes, “Let’s just say I have 30 something, which also describes my age.”
Her top three piercings are her eyelids, neck, and chin microdermal. The runner-up is her vertical bridge that used to run between her eyebrows.
“I started piercing myself in my early teens because my grandmother wouldn’t take me to get my navel pierced,” Pell says. “I was like, ‘If she won’t let me. I’ll do it myself.’ That’s how I became a piercer; I realized I was really good at it.”
As we joke about the piercing kiosks of our childhood, Pell says that when her grandmother finally decided to have her ears pierced in fifth grade, she took her to an upscale retail place, “the bougie Merle Norman.” When I ask her opinion on at what age should kids get their ears pierced, she eloquently says, “It should be illegal to get a baby’s ears pierced. You should not be allowed to get a decorative hole in your head until you are old enough to ask for it.”
I concur.
Pell pierced her belly button at high school and recalls fondly that she still has that hole.
“I have lost piercings through life,” she says as she points to her right wrist where a surface bar used to be but is no longer after a concert.
As a piercer for almost a decade, she emphasizes knowing what you’re getting into before you pierce.
“There is a video or blog for everything so there is no reason not to know.”
When Pell began staple gunning herself and lifting record-breaking weights from both eye sockets for Subterranean Cirqus performances, she knew the risks. She’s working on breaking three more records with mouse traps on her tongue in a minute, most weight lifted with one eye socket, and most weight lifted with her cheek piercings.
Still, she says, “Safety is more important than shock value.”
Transgress—Safely
Some states, like Iowa, have no laws regarding piercing and then others, like Oregon, are very strict. However, professional piercing organizations are a little more cautious. I’m sure no one from the APP works at a big box store or small mall store nor would they suggest to get a free piercing with purchase of jewelry.
Whether you pierce at home or visit a professional, think safety first. Do your research and figure out what you’re doing or, better, visit an APP member-owned practice.
A friend got her ears pierced in a store and they were done too low on the lobe. She thought they healed so she got a second hole closer to where she wanted them originally and the two holes eventually ripped through one another and she had to get surgery to heal them.
Opting for safer, if more expensive, venues may save beaucoup down the road of recovery.
So…what’s your flavor? A modest earring on each side, or a host of silver stars spangled across your anatomy? Whatever piercings you choose, tolerance for piercings is expanding, while the presence of expert professional piercers makes Chattanooga a great place to get stuck. Again, and again, and…
Dreaming of wanting to be a writer since she could remember, Jessie Gantt-Temple moved here three years ago from the Carolinas with her husband, and has found roots on her farm in Soddy Daisy.