I found Scarwars while writing an essay about Tribal Appropriation of Body Modification in the West for my Visual Cultures class.
This community focuses on uniting scarification artists throughout the Body Modification scene. Scarwars posts lots of photos on cuttings, brandings and scars done by numerous renown artist word-wide.
Kieth Alexander [’98] was one of the first people in the scene to do “Blood Prints” of clients for his portfolio.
What he did was press paper towels to the open wounds after the scar-art was finished so as to make a print from the blood that was still flowing from the newly cut wounds.
I agree with Keith that a blood print is much more personal than a photograph and think this is a beautiful way to remember the very first stages of a scar piece on the body.
I think the next time I cut myself [accidentally] I will definitely do a blood print… I’ve made pictures with my own blood many times before… I just can’t stand wasting things!
What do you think about scarification? Does the idea of Blood Prints gross you out? Let me know below!
ARISETOTRASH 