Steve and Client. (Patreon)

“Since Ed Hardy had brought the subject of piercings up at the I.T.A.A. Reno Convention in 1977 (he felt, as did the overwhelming majority of Artists there that piercing did not belong at a Tattoo convention and should not be linked to tattooing. I.T.A.A. Members voted there and then not to have piercing at future conventions) it was decided on (by the suggestion of Bob Shaw) not to allow facial tattoos or piercings at the National Tattoo Conventions. This was to be a Convention to promote Tattooing and only Tattooing.” - NTA Newsletter, Issue Unknown.

As tattooing started to hit the mainstream- Lyle Tuttle appearing on the cover of the October 1, 1967 cover of Rolling Stone magazine being a nodally significant sign that the times were changing- anything that compromised its legitimacy was met with extreme gatekeeping from the establishment. Body piercing, facial tattooing- anything that risked sensationalism was deemed unwelcome.  

It was a surprise then, when just shy of two decades later, the work of body artists like Steve Haworth, and Jon Cobb, were met with a similar gatekeeping within the piercing industry. Steve's work on ThEnigma at the 1995 Houston tattoo convention- subdermal horn implants in the forehead- became a minor scandal, leading BME's Shannon Larratt to call me the second he heard about it, asking something along the lines of, "did you hear that they're doing HORN implants now? This is going to be bad or be big."

Overnight, piercers who'd fought against discrimination by the tattoo community were publicly distancing themselves from piercers performing  implants and "extreme" piercings (triangle of death? napes will cause damage to the spinal cord?) and using their considerable influence to demonize them and to publicly question their ethics. 

By the time I took this photo of Steve Haworth & client taken in New Orleans in 97 or 98, it was a given that bridge piercings wouldn't cause imminent death, that the worst outcome of a nape piercing would be a small scar, and that the authorities weren't likely to come at you guns blazing over putting beads under a client's skin. 

Instead of bringing down the industry, Steve would be recognized as an innovator, both in technique and in pushing the limitations of, "what if?"

Oh. And the quote above? "it was decided on (by the suggestion of Bob Shaw) not to allow facial tattoos or piercings at the National Tattoo Conventions." - here's a photo of Bob and Dennis Avner, from an NTA Convention. Dennis- later called Stalking Cat- would go on to have extensive modification work performed by Steve Haworth.