Shiny leather in the dark ,
Tongue of thongs , the belt that does await you
Strike , dear mistress , and cure his heart
It has been a bit quite on here recently , mainly because - with a second stage assessment coming up in January - I have been concentrating on work for my MA course and trying to develop my illustrative style. The second stage of the ' Tunnel of Love ' is well on its way to being finished , together with three new pieces - ' Cabaret Burlesque ( Cabinet of Curiosities ) ' and ' Backstage the Hoochie-Coochie Girls are Getting Ready ' , both from the House of the Dominatrix , together with ' The Back Lot ' from the House of the Art Lover . Hopefully all pieces should be finished by Christmas , but it still surprises me how much time and effort they take.
Anyway , in the process of working on ' Cabaret Burlesque ' I came across the work of photographer Maria Coletsis. Maria obtained a Master's Degree from the San Francisco Art Institute , where she specialised in feminine identity and sexuality. Always having been interested in subcultures , she began photographing the fetish scene whilst working in London as a commercial photographer. Through this she met a professional dominatrix who wanted pictures for her website , and from here a whole new world opened up.
The images and texts on the Dominatrix and their dungeons interested me for a number of reasons ; firstly ( and obviously ) because one of my focal points on my MA course is ' The House of the Dominatrix ' , investigating both the persona and their environment; I can never understand why with this most theatrical of spaces most dungeons illustrated on the Internet are all almost totally devoid of any sense of theatre at all , certainly within the UK , and at least part of my work was to try and address this through designing a top-end bordello/dungeon on Canal Street in Manchester. I posted a comment on here some while ago on a book that I had picked up in Paris - ' Maison Closes Parisiennes ' - which detailed at length the establishments in Paris at the beginning of the 20th C , and the quality of design and finishes was extremely high . The other point of interest , however , was Maria Coletsis approaching this from the point of view of investigating established sub-cultures and the question of feminine politics .
One of our Context lectures on the MA course offered an option on 'Feminism', but after what seemed an interminable sequence of images of ' yarn-bombing ' , ' tanks covered in quilting squares ' and ' a never ending shopping list embroidered onto a roller towel ' my enthusiasm and sympathy had wained somewhat . All the images seemed to do was to re-inforce the stereotypical idea of feminism as a passive /craft based ideology. Maria's series of interviews with Dominatrix from across the globe seemed to offer another perspective altogether , where the woman fully controls the situation and dictates / defines any relationship purely on her own terms. You could argue here of course that for this to work then the male has to be fully compliant anyway , and the role only works in a male orientated world but nevertheless it provides a different point of view .
One of the aspects of the dom/sub relationship that suprised Maria was that the typical male sub , far from the timid and shy person she was expecting , was generally a high powered exec in an extremely demanding position , and the role of the sub allowed them - for a period of time - to relinquish all responsability and decision making ; for once , to give up all control. Having run a design practise where everyone is looking to you for the answer , I can relate to that.
Interestingly , Maria recalls seeing one ' super good-looking guy go into the bathroom and appear as a dog on a leash , wearing only a thong '.............................one of my own works suggests our hero dressing up in a dog-costume at The House of the Dominatrix...........
There is a DVD to go with the book , and you can see a full interview with Maria discussing the book
Hhmm- wonder if they will let me have another go at my Context Presentation ?
