Today we’d like to introduce you to Wesley Northmen.
Hi Wesley, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
When I started piercing, I didn’t really think about it in the same way I do now. Honestly, I never expected it to become the career or passion that it has. I’d always been interested in piercing and jewelry, I just never really had the realization that it was something I could actually make a career out of.
I was drawn to piercing because it combined a bunch of things I already liked; creativity, jewelry, working with people, and honestly just helping people feel a little more comfortable in their own skin.
In the beginning, I wasn’t what I’d consider a particularly safe piercer by todays standards. I worked at a studio that basically treated piercing like a quick buck, and that’s how I was taught. Be fast, get as many people through the door as possible, and move on to the next one. At the time, I thought that was just what piercing was.
It took meeting other piercers and seeing how they approached the work for me to realize that I really didn’t know as much as I thought I did. I was pretty confident for someone who really didn’t know shit. That was a hard thing to admit to myself, but it probably ended up being the most important part of my career.
From there, I became kind of obsessed with learning. Anatomy, healing, jewelry, materials, angles, placement, all of it. I started caring a lot more about why something worked instead of just knowing how to do it. Then eventually I got really interested in the styling side of piercing and how jewelry could actually be used to change the way someone sees themselves.
Over the years I’ve gotten to work with thousands of people, build relationships with some really incredible jewelry makers, become a member of the Association of Professional Piercers, and spend a ridiculous amount of time around gold and gemstones. Photography and jewelry styling also became a huge part of what I do, which was never really something I planned on either, but now I can’t imagine not doing it.
I’ve been piercing for nearly 11 years now and I still feel like I’m learning constantly. If anything, the longer I do this the more I realize how much I don’t know. Which is probably a good thing.
At this point, piercing for me is way more than just putting jewelry in somebody. It’s anatomy, problem solving, jewelry, aesthetics, education, and a lot of trust. I really like being able to take all of those things and put them together to create something that actually belongs on someone.
I started this in the mid 2010s without really knowing where it was going to take me, and somehow it turned into a career that I genuinely care a whole lot about. I’m pretty fucking lucky I got to figure out what I wanted to do by accidentally doing it for 11 years.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Absolutely not. I don’t think I’ve ever done anything the easy way.
A lot of my struggles in piercing came pretty early on, mostly because I was taught in an environment that didn’t really prioritize the things I care about now. I was taught to be fast, make money, and get people in and out. It took me a while to realize that just because I could technically perform a piercing didn’t mean I was actually good at piercing.
Probably one of the hardest parts was having to unlearn a lot of what I thought I knew. There’s a pretty uncomfortable period where you start learning more and realize that some of the things you’ve been doing for years probably weren’t the best way to do them. You have to be willing to admit that you were wrong, sometimes about things you were pretty confident about. That sucks for the ego.
I’ve also struggled with trying to figure out where I fit in the industry. Piercing has changed a lot since I started, and so have I. There’s been a lot of trial and error, changing how I work, changing what I value, and figuring out what kind of piercer I actually wanted to be.
Then there’s the business side of it, which is a whole different beast. Being a piercer isn’t just piercing people. It’s running a business, dealing with jewelry, photography, education, social media, clients, and about a thousand other things that nobody really tells you about when you decide you want to stick needles through people for a living.
There have definitely been times where I’ve questioned whether I was doing the right thing or if I was actually good enough to be where I was. But honestly, I think those periods have been pretty important for me. Every time I’ve gotten uncomfortable, it’s usually forced me to learn something or change something.
So no, it hasn’t been a smooth road. I’ve fucked up, I’ve had to start over, I’ve changed my mind, and I’ve had plenty of moments where I’ve realized I was way too confident about something I actually knew very little about.
But I think that’s also why I’m still here. I’m not particularly interested in being the guy who thinks he knows everything. I’d rather keep learning, keep getting better, and hopefully be a little less stupid than I was five years ago.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Houston Heights Tattoo and Piercing. ?
I work at Houston Heights Tattoo & Piercing, where I’ve been for almost five years now. it’s been a really important part of my career and where I’ve been able to develop the kind of piercing practice I’m proud of.
I’m a body piercer, and I’d say my biggest focus is on safe, well thought out piercings and really good jewelry. I do everything from basic lobes to more complicated ear projects and intimate piercings, but over time I’ve become especially known for working with gold, gemstones, and jewelry styling.
I’m pretty obsessive about jewelry. Probably more than I need to be. I care about the materials, how it’s made, how it fits, how it heals, and how it looks on an actual person. Gold body jewelry and fine jewelry aren’t necessarily the same thing, and I think understanding that difference is really important when you’re putting something in someone’s body that they’re potentially going to wear for years.
A big part of what I do is helping people figure out what they actually want. Sometimes that means designing an entire ear around jewelry they already have, sometimes it’s finding one really cool piece and building around it, and sometimes it’s telling someone that the idea they came in with probably isn’t going to work with their anatomy. I think a good piercer needs to be able to say no when something isn’t going to be a good piercing, even when saying yes would be easier.
I also do a lot of photography and jewelry styling. I’ve taken an absolutely stupid number of photos over the years, and photography has become a really important part of how I interact with jewelry. I like being able to show what a piece actually looks like on a person instead of just photographing it sitting on a white background.
What probably sets me apart is that I’m interested in all of those pieces at the same time. I don’t just want a piercing to look good when you leave the studio. I want it to make sense for your anatomy, heal well, fit properly, and still look good years later.
Brand-wise, I’m probably most proud of the reputation I’ve built around my own name. I don’t have a giant company behind me or a fancy corporate brand. A lot of what I’ve built has just been me, my work, my photography, my clients, and a lot of time spent learning how to do this better.
I think that’s what I’d want people to know most. I’m not trying to sell people as much jewelry as possible or do the most piercings in a day. I want to make good decisions with people and create work that I’m still proud of years later.
At the end of the day, I’m just a piercer who got way too interested in jewelry and never really stopped learning.
We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
I think I’m probably more of a risk taker than I give myself credit for. I’m just not really interested in taking stupid risks. There’s a difference between being willing to gamble on yourself and just doing dumb shit.
A lot of the biggest risks I’ve taken have been with my career. I’ve had to make decisions that were pretty uncomfortable at the time because I knew I wasn’t happy with where I was or with the way I was doing things. Leaving behind things that are familiar is scary, especially when you don’t really know what’s on the other side of it.
One of the biggest risks I took was deciding that I wanted to take piercing seriously. That probably sounds pretty fucking boring, but it meant admitting that the way I had been taught wasn’t good enough and that I needed to basically rebuild a lot of what I thought I knew. I had to put my ego aside, go find better information, learn from people who were better than me, and be okay with being the dumbest person in the room for a while.
I’ve also taken a lot of risks by investing in myself before I really knew if it was going to pay off. Jewelry, education, photography, equipment, traveling, and just generally putting money and time into things that I thought would make me better. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it absolutely did not. I’ve definitely spent money on things and thought, “well, that was fucking stupid.”
But I think that’s kind of the point. If you’re never willing to lose anything, you’re probably not really taking a risk. You have to be willing to fail a little bit.
These days I try to be pretty calculated about it. I’m not going to gamble with someone’s health or take unnecessary risks with a piercing just because it looks cool. When it comes to the actual work, I’m pretty conservative. When it comes to my career, creativity, and betting on myself, I’m much more willing to take a swing.
I think one of the biggest risks you can take is staying somewhere because you’re comfortable. I’d rather fuck something up trying to make it better than spend ten years doing something I already know I don’t want to do.
So yeah, I guess I’m a risk taker. Just preferably with a little research first.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://northmengoldandstones.com/
- Instagram: https://Instagram.com/westhepiercer
