I was interviewed by Brazilian participants about the Educational Congress for body artists.
*in Portuguese

Interview for Blog www.almatatuada.wordpress.com   By Soul Tattoo Art e Café (www.soultattoo.com.br)

The text of the interview in English:

Brian Skellie

1. For how long you have been piercing for living?
   I celebrate my 20th year piercing as a professional in 2012.
2. Do you have any parallel activity –as a job?
   Apart from piercing, I also teach about how international standards relate to body art: infection control precautions, jewelry quality related biomaterials science and technique without clamps. I also distribute infection control products and technology, such as the fast Statim autoclaves, Hydrim automatic instrument washers and anodizers through my websites www.statim.us and www.piercers.com
3. Is this the first time you come to Brazil? How have you got invited?
   I was elected to serve on the Board of Directors for the Association of Professional Piercers, and volunteered as the International Liaison. This would have been my second time to visit Brazil. I was invited before to come as a tourist and visit friends in 2000, and this visit was supposed to be to share information. I am terribly disappointed by the bureaucracy that prevented me from making it to the congress! I spent over two days traveling and waiting only to be forced to return to France because of my visa. I will return as soon as possible to make up for this.
4. What do you know about Brazilian scene?  Any particular or relevant difference between American and Brazilian piercing scenario?
   From the colleagues I have interacted with, it seems that there are major similarities worldwide which are true for America and Brazil. There are some very well informed professionals who are interested in the well-being of the public in Brazil, and they seem to be outnumbered by those who need more information. The population wants more piercings, and each year many more new piercers start to work at home and in shops without knowledge of appropriate safety or proper jewelry quality.My work with the APP is to help develop international media resources such as www.safepiercing.orgto share the safety standards for piercing procedures and jewelry. so that the public will know and so fellow professionals will have a resource to continue to learn and share ideas together. There are many piercers who choose to improve when they find out about APP standards to become approved as APP members, and gain from being willing to participate instead of trying to go alone. We have evidence based standards to share that can be agreed upon by professionals, and we publish them for free to the world as a procedure manual, as brochures for clients to give away at your studio, and a journal full of articles of news and information related to safe piercing.The major differences seem to be in the availability of different supplies, and the variety of safe jewelry. The personal protective equipment, antiseptics and other items needed to do a safe procedure are similar enough from medical suppliers. The big problem I see is that very few manufacturers produce jewelry from safe materials, and they tend to mislead the public to believe that what they make is good enough. Educating the public about safe jewelry standards matters most, since that is the part that we all see after the piercing is done, and we can frequently help a new client by something as simple as changing them to a new quality piece of jewelry.
5. How do you see the future for piercing professionals?
   I see that Brazil and South America has great potential for organizing professionals through an educational groups like the APP. The more colleagues work together to agree upon and educate the public about safety standards, the better the business can be.
6. What  the public can expect for this great meeting?
   The public can expect more from their piercers, and better quality jewelry. The attending colleagues will be better prepared to provide this for them, and to know where to refer to for more information.
7. What are your expectations for this Convention? Do you think  there are changes coming?
   What I hope to see is that my professional colleagues will focus on educating the public about quality and safety, and to use our resources for reliable information along with their own research. I hope that we will stay current and communicate frequently to share new information and keep up good standards to prevent unreasonable regulation.
8. Your Contact for further information
   www.safepiercing.org and www.brnskll.com