j.c. potts
j.c.’s adventures in piercings began in 1989 when he secretly had his nipples pierced by an old drag queen with earring studs. The piercings were short lived, but the interest stayed. That was soon followed by piercing all his male friend’s ears (since the local big-box stores wouldn’t pierce male ears in those days). After high school, he made his way to Dallas, where he fell in with the local piercing scene. One connection led to others and j.c. wound up attending Fakir’s Intensives in San Francisco in March of 1994. After bouncing around tattoo shops in Dallas, Austin, Lansing and Chicago, j.c. finally landed permanently at PANGEA in 2007. Since then, PANGEA has grown from a small operation to one of the largest piercing-only establishments in the Great Lakes Region.
Contact: jc@pangeapiercing.com
Twitter: @Pangeajc
Kenny Hughes
Kenny’s first foray into body piercing began in 2001 with a counter job and, soon after, an apprenticeship. That first apprenticeship was a failed attempt, due to the fact he only had six weeks to train, and that’s not how he wanted to start his career. Soon thereafter, Kenny joined the Houston, Texas based performance art troupe C.o.R.E., where he worked as a rigger, performer, and piercer, and learned from some very talented piercers. In 2007, after turning down numerous piercing positions in inferior shops, Kenny moved to Houston and finally, after six years of persistence, landed a job at the legendary TAURIAN Piercing and Metals. For the first two years at TAURIAN Kenny learned the ins and outs of body jewelry design and manufacture, and in the third year, started a proper piercing apprenticeship under the tutelage of Byriah Dailey. Kenny was the only person ever to be trained at TAURIAN in jewelry making and piercing. TAURIAN closed in early 2010, with Kenny leaving Houston and his position with C.o.R.E. to come work at the mighty PANGEA PIERCING, one of the few shops in the world up to his stringent standards.
Contact: kenny@pangeapiercing.com
Twitter: @PangeaKenny
Pierre Rogers-Monsalve
Jean-”Pierre” Rogers-Monsalve started his piercing journey at home as a wayward 16 year old with the internet and too much time on his hands. A chance encounter with a piercer would eventually land him a chance at Accurate Body Piercing under the tutelage of David Blair and Gary Green in Miami, Florida, After a year training, and another working at the studio, Pierre decided it was his time to move on and in 2005 became the only piercer at a small tattoo shop called Sik Wit It Tattoos, in Cutler Bay, Florida. During all of this time, he was in constant correspondence with many piercers and eventually began to evolve his own techniques and assimilate others into his own eclectic piercing paradigm. In 2006 Pierre was able to open his own small studio Seppuku inside of another tattoo shop, he eventually became disgusted and drained dealing with 20 dollar piercing mishaps from everyone else in the county, he decided to take his show on the road after receiving the 2007 Al D Scholarship award. He closed down his shop, and began guest spotting as much as possible. He believes that experience to be invaluable to his learning as a piercer, saying “you’ve got to learn how everybody else makes a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, you might like their way better”. After four years in the business, he’d guest spotted a few times in Ann Arbor, and felt the town suited him so he stuck around. After almost a year in town, he stopped working at a tattoo shop, and finally made it into PANGEA, where has worked since June of 2008, longer than at any other studio he had worked at before, even his own. Pierre likes doing all sorts of piercings, but is especially fond of oral piercings, surface work, and large gauge piercing work.
Contact: pierre@pangeapiercing.com
Twitter: @PangeaPierre
Laura Tew
My love for piercing started when I was 18 years old and got my first one at PANGEA! Two years later I started working at the old State Street location. I learned from Andrea, the founder of PANGEA, about all the things surrounding body piercing. During that time I was working at five different jobs, including Speedcult, a metal shop in Detroit, and in a couple bands and going to college. As soon as j.c. started my apprenticeship in 2007, I cut back my crazy schedule to focus on piercing. I’ve attended the APP conference, and took as many classes as I could while I was there. I choose not do genital piercings for folks of my own volition for several reasons- I might be the only observant Catholic piercer you will meet! I generally work Wed-Fri come so visit me at the shop!
Contact: l2@pangeapiercing.com
Andrea
Andrea’s immersion into the piercing scene in Michigan was only natural after moving to Lansing from Dallas in 1995. It didn’t take long for her to blend into that scene and she began working at a local studio where she apprenticed under April Williams, a former board member for the APP. Andrea attended the Gauntlet seminars in San Francisco in 1996 and after an incredible apprenticeship, she began piercing in Lansing and East Lansing.
Andrea joined the mass exodus from that studio in 2000 when she moved to Ann Arbor to work again with April and Jeff Zuck at Name Brand in the original location on Church Street. In 2002, when Name Brand decided to be a tattoo only studio, Andrea founded Pangea, Ann Arbors only studio specializing exclusively in piercing. In 2007 Andrea passed the torch to J.C. (a friend from those early days in the Texas piercing scene) so she could care for her mom and spend more time with her daughter and eventually adopted another child, a son.
After a brief hiatus, Andrea is back! Welcome home, its about time…
Andrea is available for piercing by appointment only.
Contact: andrea@pangeapiercing.com