words cant explain it
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My name is Ruben Garcia Lew.
I grew up in Tijuana, Mexico until I was 18 and moved out for college. I started Anthropology in the Universidad Autonoma de Queretaro, but dropped out a couple semesters into it to pursue my piercing career.
I did my first piercing couple of piercings on myself when I was 13, ear and lip, they didn’t work out very well. At this time I was very focused and serious about practicing Judo, so I forgot about piercings for a minute.
At 15 I started high school, and realized that there was more to life than training every day. Made new friends, and started learning a whole bunch of cool stuff that I had been missing out on. Music and ideologies became my main interest. And as much as I wanted to fit it, I didn’t want to be like the rest of the guys.
That’s when I remembered that I knew how to pierce my own lip, and so I did. Everyone seemed to be against it. And of course my parents would freak out if they found out, so I had to hide it in school and in my house; this made it impossible for it to heal. Oh and the fact that I had pierced it with a sewing needle and a regular gold earring stud, that I would mainly wear at night.
Eventually my sister’s boyfriend was kind enough to get me a labret piece from hot topic. So I would wear the flatback without the acrylic spike, and so it finally healed.
At 16 I met Gilberto, who got me this week “apprenticeship” by a piercer from Ecuador, I believe.
After this I had my own piercing kit: 2 sets of clamps, catheter needles, Vaseline, iodine, Listerine, alcohol, and Krit to disinfect the tools and the external threaded jewelry.
From this point on I pierced pretty much everyone I knew and pierced every single piercing in my body that wouldn’t show.
When I moved to Queretaro I really wanted to work at “La Clinica” but the fact that I was going to school made it impossible. So I worked part time at this place called “Rising Sun” and lived with the guys who owned it; they happened to be Mexican Skinheads, don’t ask me what that means.
Shit went south and that’s when I moved to Mexico City (D.F.) to become a full time piercer.
In Mexico City only the handful of really good shops had tools. So this is when by default, pretty much, I became a freehand piercer. It wasn’t that hard to learn freehand being around piercers like the legendary Foco, who gave me my first gig, or Abel who has an excellent freehand technique.
I started hanging out with Danny and Gerber at WAKANTANKA on my time off. Trying to learn as much as possible; it was the first real piercing shop that I had ever been to.
A couple months later, Danny left for APP 05 and left Memo (Gerber) in charge, along with me as his “chalan”.
When Danny got back he asked me to work at “Body Art by WAKANTANKA” a tattoo and piercing shop in the “Sex Capitol of the World”, it was never a hit, and the plaza never really opened.
It was on 06 that I was working at Ganesh in Zona Rosa, when we had the first (but second) APP conference in Mexico. It was great! Got to meet a whole bunch of piercers from all over Mexico and the States. Alicia and Chalie punched my conches; it was my best piercing experience, hands down.
Alicia invited me to work at the APP conference in Vegas and to come visit her shop in Denver, Co.
Before leaving Mexico I worked at Karem’s shop, Evolution. I had a great time, pierced a lot, and was able to save enough money to travel. It was hard to leave Mexico, people have so little, but have so much heart! And love for what they do. I made some truly great friends, and I look forward to the day I get to have some “chabelas” with them again.
So that was Mexico…
APP 06 in Vegas was awesome! ...so was working at Twisted Sol for a couple of months. Then I visited my friend Nick’s shop Evolved in Columbus, Oh for a month. He didn’t really have a spot for me at the time, so I moved to Seattle, Wa to work at TOP Tattoo along with Mitch.
Here, I was introduced to a whole new level of freehand. We worked with a statIM, all titanium jewelry and we were pretty militant about what we did.
After TOP I worked at Deep Roots, in Seattle, this was in 07.
Deep Roots was super busy and I was able to perfect my techniques and feel really comfortable piercing. I also learned to be a bit more relaxed and open about different piercing techniques.
In New Years Eve, my girl at the time and I, moved down to California after a very rushed decision.
Working at Outer Limits was great! ...living in Southern California wasn’t...At least for me.
The whole year of 08 was the hardest and longest year of my life; I think it’s ironic that 08 seemed infinite. Finally 09 came along and things settled. It was the best year of my life and I thought it could only get better and better…then chaos! ...reality check.
I almost left the States for good. Went back to Mexico and wasn’t planning on coming back again.
Thankfully Didier talked some sense into me and had me come back and work at his shop for a few months. I had a hard time though and that’s when it finally hit me…California is not for me!
Now I’m back in Seattle thanks to John. I really enjoy working at Laughing Buddha and living here.
Everyone at the shop is awesome and clients are super chill…the shop is busy and has a great setup, as well as huge amount of great jewelry of all kinds. I don’t really love Seattle’s weather, but something’s gotta give.
thank you
Danny
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Abel
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Didier
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John
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Ron
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Ana
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Scott
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Enigma
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