It's My Scar
April 6, 2009 3:32 PM   Subscribe

Scar Necklaces. When people ask me what my necklace is, I simply say “It’s my scar.” There is something very powerful about celebrating something that to many is ugly, and should be forgotten.
posted by Hildegarde (73 comments total) 12 users marked this as a favorite
 
Is there irony in the fact that the Back button does not work on this site?
posted by autodidact at 3:34 PM on April 6, 2009 [2 favorites]


Well, I was confused for a few minutes there as I read the site, then remembered even though many people want to find a way to remove their scars completely, there will always be some who want to do the exact opposite.
posted by Chan at 3:39 PM on April 6, 2009


This is a beautiful idea.
posted by piratebowling at 3:40 PM on April 6, 2009 [1 favorite]


I should get one made using my circumcision scar as the template.
posted by sciurus at 3:40 PM on April 6, 2009 [3 favorites]


Harry Potter Fankid stampede to the Scar Necklace site in 3, 2 . . .
posted by Flipping_Hades_Terwilliger at 3:49 PM on April 6, 2009 [2 favorites]


If you want a scar around your neck, just be obvious about being a tourist in Columbia.
posted by turgid dahlia at 3:49 PM on April 6, 2009 [4 favorites]


@Chan: making jewelry in the shape of a scar isn't the opposite of reducing the look of a scar, is it? At least you can take a necklace off.
posted by Hildegarde at 3:50 PM on April 6, 2009


If you want a scar around your neck, just be obvious about being a tourist in Columbia.

Misspelling Colombia would be a good start.
posted by Serial Killer Slumber Party at 3:53 PM on April 6, 2009 [12 favorites]


Fair enough Hildegarde, but the way its being presented on the website with customer testimonials it seems like they're targeting people who want to keep and show off their scars. Neat idea, just confused me at first.
posted by Chan at 3:54 PM on April 6, 2009


I wanted to get a Scar necklace, but they were all sold out and I got a dopey Simba one instead.
posted by clearly at 3:56 PM on April 6, 2009 [6 favorites]


Misspelling Colombia would be a good start.

There are schedules standards to be maintained, even...in Colombia!
posted by turgid dahlia at 3:56 PM on April 6, 2009


just be obvious about being a tourist in Columbia

SE Washington is indeed a brutal and violent place. As is central Missouri. And southern Kentucky - man, it's like Lord of the Hillbilly Flies down there.
posted by GuyZero at 3:58 PM on April 6, 2009


I think this is a pretty neat idea.
posted by MrMoonPie at 3:59 PM on April 6, 2009


I can't help it if your continent isn't inventive enough to come up anything better than "u" and "o" variations for place names! Or space shuttles. Or explorers. Or scruffy television detectives.
posted by turgid dahlia at 4:00 PM on April 6, 2009 [2 favorites]


My first reaction was "Oh, I bet that molten metal hurt!"

Then I realized they had to have some sort of mold making thing going on.
posted by ArgentCorvid at 4:01 PM on April 6, 2009 [1 favorite]


ArgentCorvid: "My first reaction was "Oh, I bet that molten metal hurt!"

Then I realized they had to have some sort of mold making thing going on.
"

Huh, actually they carve a wax replica based on photos of the scar, and cast it from that. I thought they would take an impression of the scar then cast from that...
posted by MrBobaFett at 4:10 PM on April 6, 2009


My reaction to this was not the above. My reaction was "Scar? Singular? I'd go broke making jewelry out of all of mine. To say nothing of the future ones I know I'll get." I've got enough interesting bar stories, thanks.
posted by strixus at 4:13 PM on April 6, 2009


I wish there was a site that sold hangnail necklaces.
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 4:14 PM on April 6, 2009


Not quite the kind of flavor of empowerment I personally go for, but I was surprised how attractive some of them looked.


I have a scar that I keep toying with the thought of altering with a tatoo -- only because the idea I have for it is SUCH a good one. But I am too chicken to get a tatoo so it will probably never happen. Ah well.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:17 PM on April 6, 2009


I have a foot-long scar from a fasciotomy. That'd be one long, heavy necklace.
posted by kldickson at 4:18 PM on April 6, 2009 [1 favorite]


Just a warning to others: don't look at the wikipedia page for fasciotomy.
posted by stavrogin at 4:22 PM on April 6, 2009 [13 favorites]


endurance score for kldickson +1. I about revisited my dinner when I googled that word.
posted by rubah at 4:35 PM on April 6, 2009 [1 favorite]


stavrogin... you really went and did it, now didn't you?
posted by artof.mulata at 4:36 PM on April 6, 2009


As did I. Freaky stuff, but preferably to loosing the limb.
posted by flippant at 4:46 PM on April 6, 2009


I like this. The results are pretty, and it seems to be a way to reinforce ownership of a painful experience - integrating it into your identity rather than compartmentalizing it. Also somehow reminds me of Doug Auld's paintings of burn survivors (previously).
posted by dreamyshade at 4:49 PM on April 6, 2009


What, everyone is LBJ now?
posted by Smedleyman at 4:49 PM on April 6, 2009 [1 favorite]


That's an interesting jewelry concept. Even if I had some scars of interest, I'm not sure I'd get one, but it's cool.

I'm looking at the fasciotomy page and checking out the photos in high resolution. Kinda looks like the Lion's Choice I'm eating, what with the Swiss cheese melted onto that very rare roast beef almost like an off-white glaze.
posted by adipocere at 4:49 PM on April 6, 2009


imnoscar.com
posted by univac at 4:54 PM on April 6, 2009 [1 favorite]


If they made one based on Tina Fey's scar, I'd totally buy it.
posted by jbickers at 4:55 PM on April 6, 2009 [2 favorites]


I thought this was a post about snowmobilers who ran into barbed wire fences at night. A few guys at my high school had scars circling their whole neck from similar accidents.
posted by benzenedream at 4:55 PM on April 6, 2009


I wasn't curious about the fasciotomy page until stavrogin posted the warning.. then of course I had to go and look. Really wish I hadn't.

Interesting concept for jewelry. I'm sure my own thyroid surgery scar would make a nice necklace, but I'm currently wearing it where the necklace would be. I wouldn't want my scar to get jealous.
posted by czechmate at 4:56 PM on April 6, 2009


No comments yet about Amanda's story?
posted by ShadowCrash at 5:00 PM on April 6, 2009


I've got multiple bite scars from a Belgian malinois on my arm, and their presence is reminder enough. I can appreciate the reclamatory value of doing something like this, but I don't need an added amulet to improve the picture.
posted by blucevalo at 5:03 PM on April 6, 2009



No comments yet about Amanda's story?


lol whut
posted by mrnutty at 5:04 PM on April 6, 2009


Scars Make Your Body More Interesting.
posted by Ratio at 5:15 PM on April 6, 2009


I looking deeply into my navel, any second I'll merge
with it making a perfect loop.
posted by nola at 5:21 PM on April 6, 2009


I have e better idea! Get a bone biopsy, but ask the surgeon for an extra ghastly scar (rusty spoon bone biopsy may or may not be covered by your insurance), and use this technology to grow a scar pendant out of your (and your loved one's) bone tissue. Then contact this people to make a very nice carrying pouch for your new jewelry. That would be a conversation starter.
posted by dirty lies at 5:24 PM on April 6, 2009 [1 favorite]


autodidact: Is there irony in the fact that the Back button does not work on this site?

Huh? IE 8, Firefox 3, Opera 9.6, and Safari 4 (on Vista) all seem to be allowing me to use the back button; and I can't see any code on the page that would forbid it, although I'm admittedly a novice at this kind of thing. Maybe I'm missing something - or maybe you're on a Mac, and there's something weird I don't know?

I have a feeling it just seemed like it wouldn't work because it takes a few seconds for the pictures to 'fade in' if you hit back in the initial photo gallery. This site design is a little counter-intuitive, I have to say.
posted by koeselitz at 5:28 PM on April 6, 2009


ShadowCrash: No comments yet about Amanda's story?

Yeah, that's kooky:

[link]: ... So it was on one stormy Halloween night (don’t make too much of that) that a”friend” of mine and I decided to participate in a scarification ritual. For me it was to be an annual marker, an eventual segmented band around my arm, to grow over time. We had discussed what and where was to pass, but despite our preparations and discussions he took the opportunity to slash me. It was the deepest cut I have ever seen in my life. I was staring at my muscle, all fat peeled back in layers, blood and pain all over my world.

It did NOT go as I had hoped. But I must say it provided me with a very intimate view of myself. I was in awe for a few days at the pure fleshiness of my body - that I am just meat and bones and some thing that makes me … me. My arm was useless for days. However, I did not get stitches, I chose to deal with it myself and embrace the scar that would be. Because of the keloiding, it was a giant veiny purplish mound on my shoulder for many many many years.


Uh... wow...
posted by koeselitz at 5:32 PM on April 6, 2009


What the HELL, Amanda? She's commemorating a deliberate scar? It's fucking redundant and kind of obnoxious.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 5:36 PM on April 6, 2009 [1 favorite]


What the HELL, Amanda? She's commemorating a deliberate scar? It's fucking redundant and kind of obnoxious.

It makes sense to me, and I don't think it's obnoxious. I have a very close friend who cut herself as a coping method throughout middle school and high school. I never knew how to handle it at the time, and I think she had a similar problem with them as well. I think everyone has tendencies and impulses they wish they didn't, but she couldn't hide hers and she couldn't stop friends, family and strangers from noticing and commenting on it.

I saw her a few years ago and she has come to terms with her dozens of scars. They are interlaced with her tattoos and bruises from skateboarding. I don't think she cuts anymore, but she's also no longer ashamed of them. I think she would be totally down with the isea of turning one or two into a jewelry piece. Even if a scar is self inflicted, it's incredibly personal and speaks volumes about a specific time in one's life.
posted by piratebowling at 5:46 PM on April 6, 2009 [4 favorites]


This would be a great idea if I could actually figure out what sort of jewelry would work well with something 8 inches long and 2 inches tall that would be likely to catch on everything.
posted by giraffe at 5:47 PM on April 6, 2009


Ignore stavrogin, the fasciotomy page isn't that bad.
posted by MikeKD at 5:47 PM on April 6, 2009


Amazing idea, neat site, thanks for the link!
posted by agregoli at 6:02 PM on April 6, 2009


Ignore stavrogin, the fasciotomy page isn't that bad.

I preferred the Pterodactyl porn that was linked to on MeTa recently. But only just.

I wish I'd seen neither.
posted by crossoverman at 6:03 PM on April 6, 2009


piratebowling, I think there's a distinction between scarrification for its own experiential body mod, sake and cutting. Commemorating a body mod with a piece of jewelry? What's next, a tattoo of yourself wearing the jewelry?
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 6:05 PM on April 6, 2009 [6 favorites]


Ambrosia Voyeur: What the HELL, Amanda? She's commemorating a deliberate scar? It's fucking redundant and kind of obnoxious.

piratebowling: It makes sense to me, and I don't think it's obnoxious... Even if a scar is self inflicted, it's incredibly personal and speaks volumes about a specific time in one's life.

Well, yeah, piratebowling. But it's still odd, and Amanda's story suggests that she hasn't really processed the unhealthiness of it, which, well, let's go over it again, shall we?

* She's commemorating a self-inflicted scar, and she clearly might scar herself again given the chance or the inclination;

* She's commemorating self-inflicted scars that she chose to have inflicted knowing full well that she is physically predisposed toward keloidal tumors;

* She's commemorating self-inflicted scars that were inflicted (and this is the WHAT THE FUCK? moment for me) by a 'friend' who slashed her deep enough to cut through fat and muscle when she wasn't looking. Holy living crap.

I mean, I'm all for owning your scars, and frankly she has more right to than those who intentionally scarify themselves - since technically she didn't scarify herself. She puts the word 'friend' in scare quotes, so I imagine she probably isn't friends with this guy any more, but that must've been a fucking weird conversation, eh? 'Oh, well, I thought you might want me to get it over with, so I...' No, we need to lay down some boundaries if our friendship is going to work: all I ask is that you don't cut my flesh open to the bone when I'm not looking, okay?'
posted by koeselitz at 6:10 PM on April 6, 2009 [3 favorites]


"A tatoo's a picture; a scar's a story."
Next time you see a wounded Veteran imagine what her or his scars would look like as jewery.
posted by X4ster at 6:33 PM on April 6, 2009 [1 favorite]


"There is something very powerful about celebrating something that to many is ugly, and should be forgotten."

Paris/Britney/etc?
posted by Eideteker at 6:34 PM on April 6, 2009


I didn't quite take her story that way. Putting aside the issue of how it is especially not a good idea for someone who gets keletoid tumors to cut themselves, this is a story of her having been taken advantage of ad trying to process it. I took Amanda's story as someone who thought she was in control of her cutting, and the person she trusted to inflict the scar overstepped his boundary. Seriously. I just see this as being part of her processing/dealing with it process.
posted by piratebowling at 6:42 PM on April 6, 2009


I find this oddly touching. I have a scar over my left eyebrow, a relic from an unfriendly run in with a dog when I was three. I could have had it reduced, maybe even removed in my teens but I backed out. I might still go in for the procedure when I can afford it. But still, I understand these people. It may be a flaw but it's your flaw, more importantly it's your story. And it's your choice how to tell it,
posted by Ruby Stevens at 6:46 PM on April 6, 2009


I wish there was a site that sold hangnail necklaces

close enough?
posted by rjc3000 at 7:00 PM on April 6, 2009


Lots of scars here, but my largest one covers my entire back and travels down the back of my arms- burned in a house fire as a kid.

So it would cover me like a shirt. Awesome. Burn Armor.
posted by bradth27 at 7:06 PM on April 6, 2009 [1 favorite]


Inconveniently, the only scar I have of any size is cross-shaped.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 7:14 PM on April 6, 2009 [4 favorites]


Then I realized they had to have some sort of mold making thing going on.

Yeah, I thought this would be a lead-in to some new scarification/body-mod thing; people cutting and rubbing ash in the wound or implanting a necklace under your skin. I even had a knife handy and was waiting for the howto videos.

*sigh*
posted by Avelwood at 8:11 PM on April 6, 2009


I totally can't wait to get jewelry made in the likeness of my stigmata!
posted by pluckysparrow at 8:16 PM on April 6, 2009


For those who found Amanda's touching story a bit tl;dr, I have distilled it thus:

"I turned my back for a second and my friend slashed me open. I feel so empowered!"
posted by turgid dahlia at 8:30 PM on April 6, 2009


stavrogin:Just a warning to others: don't look at the wikipedia page for fasciotomy.

When Wikipedia hands you lemons, make lemonade.
posted by dr_dank at 8:34 PM on April 6, 2009 [5 favorites]


Very much not my type of jewelry, but I do identify with the small tinge of nostalgia for when my scars were more obvious.

And you people whining about the fasciotomy pics are total pansies.
posted by spaceman_spiff at 8:36 PM on April 6, 2009


Honestly I don't get it. I'm already wearing my scars around for everyone to see as it is, and for the most part, I try to take pride in them rather than being self-conscious. But why I would want to go about with both my scars and creepy replicas of them is kinda beyond me. It just seems redundant.
posted by naoko at 8:57 PM on April 6, 2009


Yo dawg we
posted by dirty lies at 9:12 PM on April 6, 2009


So Edward James Olmos gets to stroll around with a sackful of golden buckshot, but I have to cage myself in a Mayan high school and then be slung around my own broken neck? So nothing's changed is what you're saying.
posted by kid ichorous at 10:51 PM on April 6, 2009


My scar necklace looks like my mangled foot writ large.
-
posted by Ron Thanagar at 11:19 PM on April 6, 2009


An ex-girlfriend of mine has a penny-sized circular scar right in the center of her chest. It's really visible when she wore a open-throated shirt or bikini or whatever. Reason? She was eating a sandwich and a drop of the cheese dripped on her chest. I guess it was super hot cheese and she didn't ice it down fast enough. Pretty random reason to have such a visible scar.
posted by zardoz at 1:19 AM on April 7, 2009


I have a pretty major scar on my left elbow from surgery and, because I scar so heavily and the moron surgeon used staples that probably would have been better suited to holding down deck planks, I have a whole series of dots around it, too. Every place a staple stuck? Dot dot dot...

One night I was at a gallery opening, and some idiot photographer kept following me around snapping photos of my scar, saying (ah hell, now I'm forgetting the exact word he used because I haven't had nearly caffeine yet, but it was some 50-cent word variation on "absolutely unique"). I'm staring down at him from atop high heels just thinking "wow, you are all kinds of fucked up, pal."

And now people make jewelry out of them. Sheesh.

I have, however, considered EmpressCallipygos's idea of altering it with a tattoo -- specifically a raven flying off from it with a string in its mouth, because the other staply bits look like stitches.
posted by bitter-girl.com at 5:51 AM on April 7, 2009


PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PAY ATTENTION TO ME PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 6:31 AM on April 7, 2009


Freaky stuff, but preferably to loosing the limb.

Which can happen if you're obvious about being double jointed in Columbia.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 7:28 AM on April 7, 2009


These don't really do it for me, but I appreciate the concept; I've been wanting to do a scar as art project for a while. I have a number of scars on my left arm from just day-to-day life. I noticed that they made kind of an interesting pattern, and I thought it might be neat to do what I could to highlight them and make them stand out, get a reasonably good photo, and then turn them into an abstract symbol that I could use for an avatar icon on things like google mail and AIM.

I just really like the idea of using something as personal as a unique pattern on my skin caused by misfortune and adventure, which is totally anonymous when shown without context, as my personal symbol.
posted by quin at 7:57 AM on April 7, 2009


Kinda like Angelina Jolie wearing some of Billy Bob Thornton's blood in a vial around her neck. Maybe not.
posted by UsedToHaveGlasses at 9:50 AM on April 7, 2009


“You should wear with pride the scars on your skin. They’re a map of the adventures and places you’ve been.”
posted by pianomover at 10:35 AM on April 7, 2009


In my experience, most of the tourists in Columbia are on their way to Myrtle Beach.
posted by thivaia at 12:56 PM on April 7, 2009


Know what else is a lot like a map? A map.
posted by turgid dahlia at 4:07 PM on April 7, 2009


Zardoz, my mum has a circular scar on her neck from when a hot cigarette was dropped on her while she was a baby.

I've always liked my appendix scar, though it's 21 years old now so only I know it's there. The appendix burst and I was thisclose to dying on the operating table. A scar doesn't seem like a bad price to pay for that. It's the self-harm scars that I would find hard to commemorate, though - they seem to have guilt and bad memories tied up in them.
posted by mippy at 7:27 AM on April 8, 2009


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