..WHEN THE WHIP COMES DOWN

Kiss the boots of shiny, shiny leather
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

at  www.youtube.com/watch?v=67pnMjEMwlw

 



Hhmm- wonder if they will let me have another go at my Context Presentation ?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

..OUR HOUSE IS A VERY VERY FINE HOUSE.....

 

 

 Well , its Christmas and with five granchildren its difficult to avoid having an Advent calender , so we thought we might as well get a decent one ; this one is lazer cut from ply and arrives ready assembled, complete with LED lighting , and the boxes are just the size for a chocolate...........just wondering now whether to sprinkle some icing suger on as snow........................  

 

 

 Merry Christmas and a happy New Year

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...AND IT's BEEN A LONG LONG TIME.....

.....Design Classics : I suppose at the mention of the phrase , the usual suspects leap to mind - the Zippo lighter , the Jeep , the E-type Jag , the Parker fountain pen , the Barcelona chair and the Charles Aimes chair , various Apple products , all examples of industrial design . Graphic design , not so many , possibly because of the more ephemeral nature of graphics . The question of typefaces aside , I suppose you are left with the London Underground map , David Gentleman's stamp designs for the Post Office , some of the Penguin paperback covers from the 1960s - iconic images all , but mostly of their time . Can graphic design - more specifically packaging - transcend its time ?

This thought wandered across my mind recently when I was in my local art shop buying some Winsor and Newton drawing inks for my MA course work, and it occurred to me that I had been buying them in the same bottles , same labels , same boxes for what seemed like ages - and ages and ages and ages and ages......was I really buying them in this self same packaging when I was last at art college - in 1970 ?.......the best part of forty five years ago ?..........and it's still the same packaging ?  No tweaking ?........even Coca-Cola/ Oxo / HPsauce logos get tweaked......

 

 

 

If they can remain unaltered since 1970 , still in production and still the same packaging then surely they rate as design classics. They were designed by Michael Peters , who won a D&DA design award in 1973 for his packaging design for Winsor and Newton , so they must have been on the shelves before then . Check out the interview with Michael Peters at

www.winsornewton.com/resource-centre/product-articles/michael-peters-interview/

 

........and after all that , I realised when I got back to the studio that I needed a couple of shades darker . Oh well , another couple of really nice little boxes to add to the collection.

...AND LET THE LIGHT , THE CANDLE LIGHT, SHINE

Late November and we brave the Christmas shoppers and the Christmas Markets in central Manchester - row upon row of brightly coloured sheds full of christmas cheer , selling mostly stuff that you wouldn't buy at any other time of the year.......

........and then we come across this shed..................

 

.......and it's lit inside by candlelight..............

.......and it has illustrations inside.......icons..........mysterious  eastern European icons...

.........and they are wonderful.

This particular shed is tucked away inside that enclave of peace and sanity known as the John Rylands Library on Deasgate in central Manchester , well worth a visit in its own right. The illustrations are purported to be the work of one Herman Inclusus , a name that comes from the Codex Gigas ( a medieval manuscript also known as the Devil's Bible ) that is said to have been written by a Herman Inclusus ( Herman the Recluse ). The overall occult mood of the works with their images of plague and misery blended with a more contemporary style of illustration make for a quite impressive visual representation of doom and death , and I really liked the way they were presented , in a quasi eastern european chapel complete with onion dome.

Herman Inclusus is the alter ego of illustrator Stuart Kolakovic : the web site
www.stuartkolakovic.co.uk/hermaninclusus.html
Stuart's own website is www.stuartkolakovic.co.uk - and the John Rylands Library is definately worth a visit.

..INTO THE GREAT WIDE OPEN.....

 

..Into the great wide open
  Under them skies of blue
  Out in the great wide open........

One more piece from my current MA work . One of the Context lectures we had earlier this
year took as its starting point Wittgenstein and the period he spent in Manchester early on in
the last century , something I wasn't aware of . A student at Manchester University studying aeronautics , he took to flying large gliders out on Chunnel Moor up beyond Glossop in the Peak District - an area I know well . Taking this as a starting point , the Context group organises a kite flying day up on the moors , followed by a theatre evening down in Glossop - all good fun.

My own knowledge of Wittgenstein was essentially of the building he designed and built in Vienna for his sister and I was fascinated by the structured thought and discipline that he brought to the design process ,  clarifying his own philosophical ideas whilst resolving the formal arrangements of internal planning and detailing. Records also exist of where he lived whilst in Manchester , both at the Grouse Inn out on the moors above Glossop and the house in Palatine Road in Didsbury.

 So, Wittgenstein , kite-flying , houses , constructions.......................

The premise of the piece of work illustrated is that our hero the Book Lover , with his own house in the centre of Manchester - the ' House Of The Book Lover ' - is intrigued by this and decides as a homage to Wittgenstein and writers in general to build a Kite Flying Platform on the roof of his building , to enable ideas to escape , to float.................pamphlets , notes , sketches are launched from here to find their own way out into the great wide open.......

..TUNNEL OF LOVE...

..I can feel the soft silk of your blouse
 and them soft thrills in our little fun house
 then the lights go out........

The Tunnel of Love - another piece in the on-going story of four buildings in my MA course. There are a lot of things going on here , but then this piece exists in two states - the ' Study/ Work in Progress ' piece , illustrated here , and the final completed work , still in construction .

 


The ' Work in Progress ' piece deals with and illustrates  the ideas , the possible futures for this piece ; the work is still ' open ' at this stage  . The  ' completed work ' will deal with just one of those possibilities , taken to a formal conclusion .

The starting point here is of course the idea that the ' Tunnel of Love ' , the fairground ride , is indeed an actual tunnel , running between the basement of the Art Lover's house and the House of the Dominatrix .

Our Hero is intrigued by the possibility that he can pass from the Art Lover's house to next door unnoticed , the idea being that the tunnel becomes a changing room , a 'Rite of Passage ' . Our Hero is of course in love with his alter ego and emerges from the tunnel in his female persona - the ' Reveal ' . The piece of work contains many points at which decisions must be made ; for our Hero , decisions on the colour of lipstick , the colour of nail-varnish. For me , decisions on what to include in the ' final ' piece , what to leave in , what to take out. References are many - fair-ground rides , pop-art ,  magic , transformation , penny-in-the-slot machines , the Hoerengracht ............

 

HHmmmm ..........decisions , decisions........

..I WAS SO MUCH OLDER THEN.............

........Ah , but I was so much older then........
         I'm younger than that now

One from the archives this week ; I was clearing out one of the drawers in the plan-chest , sorting out some interior sketches to take in to Stockport College for the Interior design students , and came across some photos of old projects. Once in a while - if you are lucky - you absolutely nail a job . For some reason everything comes together - the site , the location , the brief , the client , the time - and , putting no small part of yourself into the job , when it arrives , when it's finished , you know that it could not have been any better . If you are lucky you maybe get five or six or these in a professional career ; I can probably still count on the fingers of two hands the projects I am really , really proud of...........so that's eight fingers , then.

 

 

This one dates from 1974; yes, that long ago . I was still wet behind the ears , only four years out of college , and was asked to design a traditional London wine bar - in Manchester . God knows how it came together - it was all assembled on site , by eye , from reclaimed screens and panelling that at that time were being stripped out of traditional pubs all across the city . A wine bar - no beers , draught or bottled , just bottles of wine , and forty years ago Mateus Rose and Hirondelle were all that anyone drank - well , ok , maybe the occasional Blue Nun - so to design a proper wine bar selling Bordeaux , Burgundies , all chateaux bottled was another world to me 

 

Still remembered today with great affection , it had a wonderful atmosphere , suddenly appearing yet feeling as if it had been there for decades. If it was still there today it would make a fortune - only be duplicated , sold on , rolled out , the energy gradually

dissipating as it becomes just another high street brand. One-offs should be remembered for being just that.

Goblets , Bridge street, Manchester , 1974