I was gently challenged last week by the owner of a book arts gallery. She’d hopped on the blog to see the latest 2013 and 2014 book arts pieces, and ran into the disclaimer that I keep on the front page. The fairly big ‘Adult Content’ note to the left, which is just the first level of warnings I give browsers. Because I am too lazy to keep separate sites for art and writing, and see no reason to.
But the gallery owner saw possibilities. She wrote: “It was so intriguing to see an adult content warning on a book art web site. Couldn’t resist poking around. Ever thought of making erotic artist books?”
Well, yes. While some of my university clients are more conservative, others – and many private clients – can be quite liberal as far as social issues. If my artwork can serve as mini-devotionals and meditation aids, why not mini pillow-books?
Another friend suggested that, since I have a habit of starting and working on artist’s books and other art during the Olympics, I should start something LGBTQ-themed during the Sochi Winter Games, in a form of protest.
I have a few projects that I want to finish this year, since I know galleries and agents willing to represent them:
‘Pearl Skin’ – using leather, mother of pearl freeform plaques, and embroidered fabric and beaded pages to show very abstracted, close-up views of M/M, M/F, and F/F intercourse. Viewers won’t even know it if they don’t already guess what they are looking at. (Oh, Tumblr, you give me so many pretty sources. Grin.)
‘Shibari’ – again, very close-up and abstracted views of skin indented and crossed by ornately tied ropework, giving a nod to the ancient artforms of Japanese rope bondage.
‘Glimpse’ – a short 150-240 word original erotic story inspired by a design described by the late SF author Iain Banks, and by Incan knotted Quipu string texts. This would be similar to my 2005 wall piece ‘Handprint’, where each sentence will be one word woodburned onto a wooded plaque anchored to a sentence ‘string’ of beaded and braided cord. The whole thing will be 4 to 5 feet long, and at least 20 inches deep, and could be displayed stretched out or worn like a shawl. I would of course provide a printed, hand-bound transcript in a specially-designed binding.
With all of these pieces, the idea is to conceal explicit content within subtle sensuality and very lovely, museum-grade packaging. It will be interesting to see how close I can get to my original intent and vision.