Jim Ward (body piercer)

James Mark Ward, known as Jim Ward, ( b. 1941 in Oklahoma) is an American professional piercer and artist and founder of Gauntlet Enterprises; Ward is considered one of the founders of the modern body piercing.

Life

Jim Ward grew up in Colorado and moved in the early 1970s to West Hollywood in Los Angeles. There he met Richard Simonton, under the pseudonym Doug Malloy, and Roland Laomis under the pseudonym Fakir Musafar to know. With them, Ward put the foundations for the development of body piercing has become a fashion trend.

Jim Ward, who experimented with piercing since 1967, met in 1975 in Reno on Horst Heinrich route Bach ( 1929-2001 ), of a " studio for skin and body jewelry " business in Frankfurt am Main and regularly traveled to the United States. Route Bach, also called tattoo Samy had made ​​together with Manfred Kohrs his own tattoo machines, as well as body jewelry made of a metal pin and balls with threads. Of this, Jim Ward was inspired, and in due course the barbell was born.

With funding from Simonton ( from his work with the Muzak corporation ), Jim Ward began in 1975 to use his house as a private piercing studio. With his studio, he moved to initial customers from a mailing list that had put him Simonton available and advertised by classified ads in local gay and fetish publications. After three years of continuous improvement of techniques and equipment, Jim Ward opened on 17 November 1978 at the West Hollywood store the Gauntlet. The establishment of this business is considered as the first commercial studio of its kind

With the support of Simonton and Laomis Ward founded the magazine Piercing Fans International Quarterly ( PFIQ )

Publications

• Running the Gauntlet, Ward, Inc. 2011, ISBN 0-6154-2472-4