familiar faces
■ by Wendy Kantor | photo by Erick Gibson
Blake Williams, head piercer and shop manager at CraigPokesU
Body Positive At Arlington’s most popular piercing studio, the baubles are sparkly but the motivations are often more than skin deep. BLAKE WILLIAMS HAS 14 dragon tattoos and 12 piercings. Some of his body art you can see—like the “third eye” on his forehead, the ring in his nose and the letters that spell out “kindness” on his knuckles—while others fall into the “that’s private” category, he says. Williams, 47, is the head piercer and shop manager at CraigPokesU (craig pokesu.com) on Langston Boulevard,
just up the street from Cowboy Cafe. It’s a delicate job that requires both emotional sensitivity and dexterity. He blings a lot of noses, ears and belly buttons, but also loves finding corrective solutions for people who weren’t pierced properly the first time—for instance, the 60-something client whose earlobes had been pierced too low decades earlier. The fix? “We put
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a tiny little ring in the bottom [holes], then corrected and moved up. She got to wear the studs she hadn’t been able to wear for years, and then she’s got a cool little ring hanging off the bottom.” Symmetry is overrated, he adds. “Nothing has to match. Your ears are two different shapes—they’re two different body parts. It’s just like they say about your eyebrows: sisters not twins.
