Ron Garza travels more than some pop singers and by and large has a lot less (televised) meltdowns than Brittney or Beiber. He recently traveled to Croatia, where he did this collaborative piece with our new friend Christian Bedics. You can check Ron’s blog out at here for more of his travel misadventures!

Scarwars was started as a means of communication between artists; in a trade where most artists had never met one another we encouraged the idea of working on collaborative pieces at our events. Different artists with different styles and techniques working on the same client leads to really amazing results.

While not done at one of our events, Teresa has a great set of scars that came from the talented hands of Ron Garza and Wayde Dunn. I don’t know the specifics- maybe they each did one side, maybe they works on both sides together; regardless of the hows and who’s this piece shown here at approximately four years, is pretty dang awesome.

The fresh cutting.

Like I mentioned in the last post, I spent the better part of last week surrounded by people who never fail to amaze or inspire me. One of those folks is Ron Garza; I’ve known Ron for going on 15 years and he’s one of those characters that always one-ups your expectations.

He sent this Mosque cutting over earlier tonight with a promise to keep us updated on the healing.

You can always swing over to his blog at RonGarza.com for more info, appointments, etc
More photos follow the break-

Ron Garza just dropped this into my email box…

During a recent scarification workshop I was giving recently at BMX.net in Germany I was going to do a tissue removal workshop with the single line cutting workshop I also gave, but because of the design chosen( swastikas), and due to our understanding of certain legal factors at the time (like displaying a swastika in public, in Germany being Illegal), I decided not to have do the tissue removal workshop and had an impromptu workshop for a select few in a much more relaxed environment.

The design Lassi chose was in the shape of the Hindu good fortune swastikas, which most of you ( at least i hope most of you ) know is an ancient symbol over 3000 years old that only in our lifetime has became a symbol of hate.

It seemed fitting we do this in Germany , while listening to hip hop, and ironically enough, it was a brown man, making an Scandinavian Aryan bleed! I had to have a laugh and share with all of you.

Lassi being perpetually hungry, ended up disposing of the remnants.. ahh those Crazy Fins..

Living the Dream,
Ron Garza

(More pics by Damien Kenny after the break!)

Ron Garza checked in with this cutting the other day; I’ve finally found time to sit back and check my inbox; sorry for the lack of posting recently, but what can you do.

The design (on Chris from High Priestess in Oregon) was roughly taken from a batik tapestry print that Ron got while traveling through Indonesia a few years back.

Regular updates will resume soon!

Accolades are a weird thing. When I was considering creating an award in Keith Alexander’s honor for the second SW event, I threw out a bunch of names to the artists who I respect; asking them who they thought really changed the culture of scarification.

A similar list of names came up; each artists bringing up the people they were inspired by. It formed a pretty clear picture of the previous two decades of Scarring; Raelyn and Fakir, Steve Haworth and Blair… every list had a few of the same folks.. but only one name was on all of them.

Ron Garza.

I met Ronnie for the first time back in 1995 or so; virtually. He was already a character and laid claim to a burgeoning legend; some of which I’m sure he’d rather forget. But the constant back then was him sending me pictures of the cuttings he was doing. Very ‘ahead of it’s time’ stuff, Ron was using tattoo iconography as a basis for large scale cuttings. In 1995 the prevailing design aesthetic for cutting and branding was mainly ‘tribal’ or ethnographic, fraternity designs or geometrical stuff.

Ron took Chicano tattoo designs and laid them in with scalpel. Some of his early work really got my mind churning for what could be possible with scarification and along with Keith’s passion for it leeching into my brain, pretty much steered me on to the path that created the SW events.

With that in mind, we presented Ron with the first (and currently, only) ‘KEITH ALEXANDER AWARD FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF THE ART AND CULTURE OF SCARIFICATION’ in 2006.

He’s spent most of his life traveling, piercing, tattooing, cutting and suspending and continues to be a valued presence in my life.

Ron sent in a new cutting this morning; a shaded rose piece on a client from Ohio. The shading stuff looks so awesome when it’s healed. I’ll bug Ron to bug the client to keep us updated.

He’ll be guesting in Seattle March 8th – 14th and is taking appointments now: RonGarza.com for contact info.

More new old SW photos!
I love finding discs I had forgotten about; these were taken by my good friend and consigliere Brian Sowden. There are hundreds on the disc from the first and second events. SO many of our guests took pictures, and so FEW ever sent me discs of their images (that’s guilt-tripping, people… it’s never too late) but it’s always nice to see an event from another person’s perspective.

This shot features Dave Gillstrap, Ron Garza (back to the camera), Jesse Villemaire (on crutches), Johannes (aka Jo-hotness) Sammi (back to the camera) and in the distance Ryan Ouellette and Brian Decker cutting the first two pieces of the event at SW1.

Aaaaand they’re in!
After some delays (you know who you are) the Fall/Winter book is finally in. I’m still waiting on the shirts, but rest assured that they’re going to be badass.

Eventually there will be a massive full sized (and maybe an oversized) SW book. I have so many images to choose from that I find myself constantly revising and reediting the book in it’s current state… I’m eventually going to bring in a co-editor who’s not so emotionally attached to the images and who will kick my ass into gear and get you guys a finished product. Eventually.

Until then, thanks so much to the folks who picked this version up!

I’ve known Ron Garza going on 15 years now; he was one of the first guys (with Steve Haworth, Keith Alexander and Blair) who got me really excited about the potential of cutting/branding. He’s also a damn fine piercer; one of the few that I’d make an off topic posting for here on the ol’ Scarblog.

So here’s the posting.

Garz and my buddy Chris Glunt just started shipping out their much anticipated “Professional Piercing Basics Vol 1″ dvd.

The limited edition pressing is available through Ron’s website.

“This DVD explains needle bending, palming vs pouching techniques, added safety measures for freehanding piercings,, explanation to understanding needle bevels, as well as marking and piercing of most above the neck piercings as well a few ways of doing each piercing, AND MUCH MORE!!! . More than 74 mins and over 25 piercing videos with SO much new information!!!”

If you mention SCARWARS with your order, Ron or Chris will draw you a monkey on a cocktail napkin.

Due to issues with Ron’s website, I’ve included the information after the break.

PROFESSIONAL PIERCING BASICS

VOL.1 : Above the neck piercings

done freehand WITH blade needles.

AVAILABLE NOW!!!!

ORDER NOW!!!!!

LIMITED EDITION 1st pressing!!

introductory price of 60 Euros!!

(FREE shipping)

DEBUTING AT London Tattoo convention SEPT 27th – 29, 2009

and BMX.NET CONFRENCE in ESSEN , GERMANY

OCT. 1,2,3, 2009

This DVD explains needle bending, palming vs pouching techniques, added safety measures for freehanding piercings,, explanation to understanding needle bevels, as well as marking and piercing of most above the neck piercings as well a few ways of doing each piercing, AND MUCH MORE!!! . More than 74 mins and over 25 piercing videos with SO much new information!!!

Featuring piercing by Ruben Lew, Chris Glunt, and Ron Garza.

This is the DVD 5 years in the making !!

VOL 2 – Below the Neck – out Jan 1, 2010

VOL 3- Surface Piercings and Microdermals

out June 1, 2010

Currently only available in English -

allow 2-4 weeks for delivery

For orders – email : sicklove666@yahoo.com

We prefer payment by:

(Payable to sicklove666@yahoo.com)

be sure to include shipping address when making payment

Ron at SW2, Photo by Atom Moore.

I just got word that my friend Ron Garza is heading over to Europe for a Scarification/Speaking tour. Ron and I go back fifteen years or so; I’ve known him as a piercer, scarification artist, suspension practitioner, tattooist and most of all, stand-up guy and a good friend. If you have a chance to catch up with Ron on his tour, make sure to buy him a glass of wine!

Speaking: WOD (Wings of Desire) SusCon Oslo , Norway July 25th & 26th.

Cutting/Branding: July 30th- August 7th
SWEDEN: Stockholm.
DENMARK: Malmoe & Copenhagen.
Soon: UK , GERMANY, AUSTRIA and more to be announced.

Anyone interested in scarification or branding make appointment with Ron as soon as possible.
IAM.BMEZINE- Sicklove.
WEB: RonGarza.com