A Reno business owner led piercing expeditions to the Middle East by BRAd Bynum b r a d b @ ne wsr e v ie w.c o m
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On one of her trips to the Arabian Peninsula, Angela Watson, owner of Reno’s Black Hole Body Piercing, visited the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building.
onths before Donald Trump traveled to Saudi Arabia to sign a massive multi-billion dollar weapons deal, Reno business owner Angela Watson traveled to the country to punch some holes in skin. More precisely, she was there to meet behind closed doors with some of the region’s affluent women and pierce holes in noses, navels and ears—mostly ears. Lamb & Lu is a jewelry retail company based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The company is owned by two women, still in their early 20s, and it sells curated jewelry online and at pop-up shops. Among the jewelry sold is earrings, and the owners had the idea to host a piercing event. Piercing is not widely available in Saudi Arabia—at least not piercing that adheres to contemporary standards for sanitation. Sanitary piercing is available at some medical clinics, but there the service is provided by medical technicians who might not understand the finer points of piercing aesthetics, like placement. Saudi Arabia, as evidenced by its recent 12-digit deal with the U.S. government and American weapons manufacturers, is a wealthy nation. It’s also an absolute monarchy that follows Islamic law. And piercing—especially piercing anywhere other than the earlobes or nose—is frowned upon in some sects of Islam. The owners of Lamb & Lu wanted to offer the careful sanitation of contemporary American piercing studios, and they also wanted to offer their customers the wild—what one might call “authentic”— experience of being pierced by a heavily tattooed, pierced-up, dyed-hair, heathen, looks-like-trouble American piercer. They initially contacted Adam Block, a piercer based in Brooklyn. But Saudi Arabia, like many Islamic societies, is, in many ways, heavily segregated by gender. Block and his staff are men, and Lamb & Lu needed female piercers to service their female clientele. So, Block directed them toward Watson and her business, Black Hole Body Piercing.
“Within my own industry, I’m known for the ladies of Black Hole,” said Watson recently. “We’ve always been an all-female shop. It was really odd when we hired a male last year. … It had been about eight years since I had a male on staff.” Black Hole has been in business for more than 20 years, and has become a local institution and one of the hubs of Reno’s midtown. Watson has owned it since ’94. She got interested in piercing in the early ’90s after she got her belly button pierced. At the time, she was a 21-year-old who had recently gotten divorced, and she now describes that piercing as an act of “rebellion,” but it eventually led to her attending a piercing seminar in Sacramento, which started her career. “My very first piercing was a penis,” she said. “Not many people can say that.” Watson and her business were instrumental in developing the area of town now commonly known as midtown. Thirteen years ago, when Black Hole moved into its current location, 912 S. Virginia St., there was no Junkee Clothing Exchange, no Craft Wine and Beer, no Brasserie Saint James. Recycled Records was several miles away. Now, all those businesses, and dozens of others, are within a block or two of Black Hole, in the most booming section of Reno. Watson was key to the economic and cultural growth of the neighborhood. She served on the board of the Midtown Merchants Association and the Creative Coalition of Midtown. She’s also a mom, who has been active with the PTA at Mount Rose Elementary School. Around the community, she’s known for her perseverance, quick wit and outspoken style. She and the owners of Lamb & Lu hit it off right away, and Watson has now led her staff on two trips to Saudi Arabia, the second of which also included a sojourn to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, exporting a quintessential Reno cultural experience to the Middle East.
courtESy/AngElA WAtSon
Angela Watson presents a slideshow lecture about her experiences in the Middle East at the Holland Project, 140 Vesta St., on June 6 at 7 p.m.
“holy journey”
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