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Mic Rawls (he/him) - Piercer
Mic has been piercing professionally for more than 20 years and has been with Cold Steel since 1999.
Originally from Louisiana, Mic trained under Paul King while at Gauntlet, the first professional piercing shop in the Western world. Mic eventually obtained the level of Gauntlet Senior Piercer. Having worked in New York, London, Hawaii, Los Angeles, and Australia, he happily calls San Francisco home. Mic is proudly a recommended piercer by Elayne Angel, author of The Piercing Bible. Mic is a member of the Association of Professional Piercers.
Mic is in the studio every Friday through Monday.
Follow Mic on Instagram @drm_drmmr
Christopher Garcia (he/him) - Piercer
Bio coming soon!
Christopher is in studio every Wednesday through Saturday.
Tyler Dunn (he/him) - Piercer
Tyler has been in the piercing industry for over ten years. He joined the Cold Steel America family in 2021.
Born and raised in St. Marin, CA, Tyler apprenticed under Eldo Chan at Body Manipulations in San Francisco. He has also worked at Blue Lotus Tattoo & Piercing Lounge in Petaluma; Nomad Body Piercing in San Rafael; and Adorn East and Adorn West in Portland, Oregon.
You can find him in the studio every Monday, Tuesday, and Sunday.
Ferin Fick (they/them) - Counter Staff
Bio coming soon! You can find them in the studio every Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.
Cassidy Iverson (she/her) - Counter Staff
Bio coming soon! You can find her in the studio every Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday.
Andrei Baiu (he/him) - Counter Staff
Andrei joined Cold Steel America in early 2020, just a few weeks before the world went on lockdown. When the studio reopened, he trained under Danny Greenwood to learn as much as he could from her vast troves of knowledge on jewelry and materials, while also absorbing as much as he could about piercing and aftercare from Christopher Garcia and Mic Rawls. He has also occasionally assisted Paul King with projects for the Body Piercing Archive.
Andrei loves helping out with your jewelry selections, answering any questions you may have, and creating fun, safe, and informative experiences for each and every client coming in for piercings. Whether it’s your first or your fiftieth piercing, his goal is to make sure you walk away happy with your visit.
He can also assist clients in fluent Romanian and (mostly) fluent French.
As of April 2022, Andrei will no longer be working a regular schedule at Cold Steel, but you may catch him filling in shifts every few weeks or so.
Paul King (he/him) - Studio Owner, Manager, & Piercer
Paul has been a professional Body Piercer since 1991 and an enthusiast before that! He is Gauntlet trained and certified with a one and half year apprenticeship under Elayne Angel, author of The Piercing Bible. He worked in all three former Gauntlet locations, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco and was store manager of LA and NYC. In 1996 Jim Ward, Founder of Gauntlet, awarded Paul King with the honorary title of Master Piercer. He apprenticed many Piercers for Gauntlet as well as co-taught Gauntlet Training seminars. Paul has a B.A. degree with highest honors in Anthropology from UC Berkeley. He has lectured at Universities, community groups, and conferences on various aspects of body modification since 1993.
In 1999, Paul King partnered to create Cold Steel America, tattooing and piercing services in San Francisco, California. He is an active member of the Association of Professional Piercers. In 2005, he successfully completed a three year elected board position as Treasurer for the APP. In 2007, he received the APP’s President’s Award for contributions to the Piercing Industry. He has served as a board-appointed treasurer and officer of the APP since 2008. In 2014, with the support of the APP board elect, Paul King created the Body Piercing Archive:
"The mission of the Body Piercing Archive is to select, collect, document, preserve, exhibit, and interpret the personal, social, and material evolving histories of Body Piercing to ensure these artifacts are available to present and successive generations.”
Please contact him through this site for guest lecturing. More information about his research, writing, documentaries, and travel, as well as the piercing shop can be found at:
www.bodypiercingarchive.org
www.safepiercing.org
www.coldsteelpiercing.com
https://paulrking.blogspot.com
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/48v4f1g0
https://www.facebook.com/coldsteelamerica/
https://www.instagram.com/coldsteelpiercing/
http://coldsteelpiercing.tumblr.com/
College guest lectures:
San Francisco State University
San Francisco Academy of Art
Skyline Community College
City College of San Francisco
Stanford University
University of California, Berkeley
Conference guest lectures:
Association of Professional Piercers (Las Vegas, USA; Mexico D.F., Mexico; and Amsterdam, Netherlands)
BMX Conference, (Essen and Berlin, Germany)
Oslo SusCon / Wings of Desire, (Oslo, Norway)
Dallas Suscon (Texas, USA)
Associazione Piercers E Tatuatori Professionisti Italiani (APTPI) Conference (Milan and Venice, Italy)
Association of Safe Piercing (ASAP) Conference (Gothenburg, Sweden)
