KA @ The Learning X-Change (1990s) (Patreon)

If you enjoyed May’s branding performance, you won’t want to miss this one! In an encore presentation, Keith Alexander, on of NY’s premier piercing, cutting and branding enthusiasts returns to the Learning X-Change to present a lecture and live demonstration on one of today’s most popular forms of body art… Cutting/Scarification. In a riveting presentation, Keith discusses the art’s origins, rapid rise in popularity, social ramifications and present day applications, and demonstrates proper preparation and sterilization, tools of the trade, creating an applying the design, cutting techniques, aftercare, how to achieve optimum scarring special effects, etc.

Keith Alexander was one of the most influential figures in the history of modern scarification; while those who came after him favored using scalpels like tattoo machines, adding shading, texture, varied line weights, Keith was much, much more interested in the ritual experience and the mark itself than trying to duplicate graphic art in scar-form. 

This flier is from his appearance at a Learning X-Change Scarification class; the flier didn’t include full information (day and month, no year given) and the envelope’s postmark is unreadable so I can’t say for sure when this class- $10 per person to learn the basics of scarification- was offered. It was likely 1996 (judging from the MAB Corporate Seal on the enclosed letterhead) or shortly after when scarification was just beginning to receive any outside of the community media attention.

It might shock modern audiences to see technique classes offered to the general public, especially at so low a price, but the crossover with cutting in a S/M context “democratized” the modification, with a large segment of the clients looking for scars and brands in the 1970s-1990s a part of the fetish lifestyle and the amount of professional scarification artists worldwide offering safe, sterile cutting a small minority.

As a point of trivia, Keith Alexander was the only artist officially invited to the first Scar Wars event, and the first to decline participating with a note that, paraphrased, was "nah. What they do has nothing to do with what I'm doing. Have fun, dinner soon."

Keith died two months later. 

His words resonate with me more now than they did then.