Erotic City
One doesn’t have too many opportunities to contemplate, in a thoughtful fashion, an eight-foot-tall, eleven-foot-wide oil painting of naked men and anal sex. But providing opportunities like this was exactly what the 2nd Annual Seattle Erotic Art Festival was all about.
The weekend-long show was a chance for people to see a type of art that usually doesn’t make it to the traditional galleries. Jeff Hengst’s beautiful, visceral paintings–especially his affectionately raunchy tribute to the late Seattle leatherman Dave Lewis–would cause an uproar at the Seattle Art Museum. Hengst was in good company, though; SEAF featured a total of 187 artists, some of them from as far away as Spain and Japan, who displayed about 500 different pieces of erotic art: paintings, drawings, photography, and sculpture.
New York photographer Barbara Nitke was in town showing her work, and I got a copy of her new book of BDSM photos, Kiss of Fire. I enjoyed the other types of art, too. The longer I studied Laurie Hemingway’s Etch A Sketch nudes, the more impressed I was by how difficult they must have been to do. And I couldn’t look at R. O. Reed’s whimsically naughty metal sculptures–all made from horseshoes–without smiling.
Festival director Allena Gabosch estimates that 3,000 people visited the show, with 1,500 attending the opening-night festivities alone. “It was a phenomenal success. Our sales were more than double last year’s,” Gabosch said. “Consolidated Works is an incredible place for our event. We’ll be back there next year.”
That’s good news for artists like me. I love doing photography, but sometimes it’s a little discouraging to realize that, sure, I can work my butt off creating a piece of art I’m proud of, but if it expresses an idea about sexuality, I’ll have a hard time finding a place to show it. I feel incredibly fortunate to have a homegrown venue, run by my own community, where I can display my work. Kudos to the SEAF folks. The Mistress thanks you all.