Monday, February 26, 2007

Number Forty-Five

ShibariCon.  Live.  Learn.  Experience.
The 4th Annual ShibariCon will take place in the Chicago area from May 25-28, 2007. 

ShibariCon is the world’s premier annual exhibition and conference that focuses on education and information exchange among lovers of Japanese rope bondage. The goal of ShibarCon is simple; to provide an inclusive and supportive environment for the exchange of ideas, education, friendship and community. Since its inception in 2004, ShibariCon has become a treasured retreat where rope lovers from all over the world come together to live in the moment as part of a supporive community, learn new skills, and experience the joy of using those new skills to enhance relationships, both new and old.

ShibariCon is produced by lovers of rope, for lovers of rope. We welcome you to join us to experience the magic created when so many rope lovers come together. Attendee, sponsor, vendor, presenter, volunteer or staff each one of you brings something special and necessary to the success of the event. Please join us in 2007 and make the 4th Annual ShibariCon the best yet!

Tentatively scheduled instructors & classes include:

Claire Adams
Stretching for Bondage Basics
Stretching for Couples
Rope Bottom’s Boot Camp
CBT Predicaments:Bondage & Pain
Chair & Immobilization Ties

David Lawrence
Waist Harnesses & Karadas
Semi to Full Suspension

DogTrainer1974
Body Harnesses for Men
Rope Clothing

Dov
Japanese Rope Bondage Fundamentals
Foiling the Escape Artist: Working With Body Mechanics to Remove Advantages

DVNT Dom & Miss Jaded
Double Shibari
Freeform Shibari

Graydancer
Shibari Performance Workshop

Jack Elfrink
DID You Can DIY
Bondage without Knots
Resistance Bondage
Decorative Bondage for the Total Putz

Jim Duvall
Decorative Knots & Incorporating Them Into Body Harnesses
Intro to Rope Bondage
Relating to Rope

Klawdya Rothschild
Self Bondage
Self Suspension

Lady Gold
Psychology of Bondage
Ropes and Pegs and Rings - Oh, My!

Leon
The 2% Class
Creative Harnesses for Suspension

Lochai
Laughter in Rope
Artistic Aspects of Shibari
Arm Binders
Breast Bondage

Lynn Grant
Marlinspike Bondage
Decorative Macrame Bondage

M. Yu
Bio-Mechanics for Rope Players Level 1 - Basic
Bio-Mechanics for Rope Players Level 2 - Suspension
Body Manipulation with Rope for Pain and Pleasure

Mark of DV8 House
ShinNawaDo-The New Rope Way-What I Learned in Tokyo
Erotic Rope energy - Rope and the Connection Between Top & Bottom
Game Fishing 101-Hooks & Bondage
Cirque De Corde-Bondage Marionettes

Master David
Head Bondage & Rope Gags
Partial suspension-Beginners
Bamboo Construction

Master Z (Chicago)
12-Point Suspension

Mike West
It’s the Cinch: Tight Ties & Immobilization
Preparing and Conditioning Hemp Rope
Comfort Schmomfort: Sadism with Rope
Need for Speed: Techniques and Practice for Lightning Quick Suspension

MRK
How to Suspend Anyone
Bondage To Go
Hog Ties

Old Tom
Scene Management and Emotional Safety

Pere
Rituals
The Lazy Dominant: How to Achieve Maximum Effect with Minimal Effort

Psychokitty
Scene Theatrics: Roleplay Workshop

Punzel
Floor It!  Accelerate Your Floor Work
Japanese Style Diamond Bondage
If Only I Had Known! A Year of Mentoring in 90 min.
Designing Your Safer Sex Policy
Table for Three (Or More)

Savannah
Bottoms in Rope, Emotions in Play

Scott
Liquid Latex
Mummification: Tips, Tricks & Safety

Shevah
Bottom’s Round Table Discussion
Aftercare: When the Ropes Come Off

Sir C
10 Fast Functional Ties
Hojojutsu & Jujutsu for the BDSM Practitioner
Predicaments with Bondage

Steve Indands
Introduction to Japanese Style Rope Bondage
Intermediate Japanese Style Rope Bondage
Human Furniture Bondage

Mz Suzanne SxySadist
Rope & Shibari Bondage 101
Rope & Shibari Bondage 201
Intention, Connection & Breath
Ecstatic Breath Workshop

Taipan
Intermediate Suspension Workshop
Advanced Suspension Workshop

Tatu
Torture to Erotic Surrender: The History of Japanese Rope
The Way of Rope: Rope Energy & Ritual (w/Shevah)
Sex, Shibari Style
Japanese Chest Harnesses

Thomas “Keckler” Lewis
Fundamentals of Rope Bondage
Bound Together: Double Bondage for Lovers and Others

Valerie Place
Photography Workshop (w/Lochai)

* * * * *

Sincerely.
Eve and JW3 and Mélisande
Dirty Girl Things ©
Unrepentant.  Unpretentious.  Unconventional. ©

Sunday, February 25, 2007

Number Forty-Four

Bound.  By David Lawrence.

David Lawrence is first and foremost, a master photographer.  His extensive body of work which shows his creativity, artistic flair, and his eye for just the right shot.  Add his passion for Shibari (Japanese Rope Bondage), and the result is an eye-catching and insightful masterpiece, “Bound”.

His galleries can be seen at:
his website, Erotic Artists, and at Sensuous Sadie’s.

He also conducts photography workshops where he teaches a myriad of topics such as composition, distortion & perspective, film vs digital, communication skills for the photographer, lens selection, thinking outside the box, breaking the rules, creating impact with images, and more.

Sincerely.
Eve and JW3 and Mélisande
Dirty Girl Things ©
Unrepentant.  Unpretentious.  Unconventional. ©

Number Forty-Three

Seduced: Art And Sex From Antiquity To Now at the Barbican in London from 12-October-2007 to 27-January-2008.

Above: Aubrey Beardsley’s ”Cinesias Entreating Myrrhina to Coition”, Illustration from Lysistrata by Aristophanes 1896

“Seduced: Art and Sex from Antiquity to Now” is a major exhibition focusing on representations of sex from diverse eras and cultures. Provocative and ambitious, it includes around 250 works, spanning over 2000 years, including Roman marbles, Indian manuscripts, Renaissance and Baroque paintings and sculptures, Chinese paintings and prints, Japanese woodcuts, 19th century photographs and contemporary video. Drawn from important public and private collections from around the world; some of the works have never been seen in public, others rarely shown and many have never been exhibited in the UK . Seduced opens at Barbican Art Gallery on 12 October 2007.

Curated by scholars Marina Wallace, Martin Kemp and Joanne Bernstein, Seduced aims to generate a lively public debate about shifting attitudes towards explicit imagery, and to question the lines drawn between art and pornography.

As the curators say, “We are all here because of a sexual act…The union of two bodies is an act of extraordinary physical and emotional intimacy. The prelude, the process of seduction, the act itself and the immediate aftermath provide the focus for the exhibition. Like the preening bird, evolutionary rituals dominate the way we behave before, during and after sex. But as humans, we have developed elaborate social frameworks for its expression and its regulation. Visual representations of the sexual act have played key roles in the culture of sex, ranging from open display to absolute censorship.”

Over 70 artists are featured including Francis Bacon, Louise Bourgeois, Annibale Carracci, Jean Honore Fragonard, Guercino, Jeff Koons, Robert Mapplethorpe, Pablo Picasso, Auguste Rodin, Egon Schiele, Bartholomeus Spranger, J M W Turner, Kitagawa Utamaro and Andy Warhol.

It reveals how works of art with a sexual content have been openly displayed, concealed or forbidden over time. In ancient Greece, very explicit images of heterosexual and homosexual sex were rife and yet these same images have been typically downplayed in the antiquarian context of museums. The great English landscape painter, Turner, made secret sketches of sexual activities in his private notebooks, whilst Emperor Rudolph II at Prague openly commissioned flamboyant oil paintings of the loves of the gods for his gallery. Japanese prints, issued in very large numbers, treated sex with a directness that is extraordinary by any standards.

Presenting a powerful sensory experience, the exhibition highlights the relationship between viewer and artwork and provides the historical and cultural framework for us to question our own boundaries; where does art stop and pornography begin? Is an explicit painting from an ancient Pompeian brothel acceptable (hallowed by time), while its modern equivalent is not?...Because something can claim “aesthetic merit” can it be exempted from charges of obscenity?

The exhibition is enhanced by sound and movement. A sound installation entitled The Voice of Sex features readings from erotic texts, such as the Kama Sutra, Lolita and late 18th century books by the Marquis de Sade. Whilst on selected dates, Union Dance , under the artistic direction of Corrine Bougaard, present a specially commissioned movement series created as an integral part of the exhibition concept, with music specially composed by Hayden Chisholm.

NOTES TO EDITORS:  The exhibition is curated by Marina Wallace, Professor at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design at the University of the Arts, London, Martin Kemp, Professor of the History of Art at Oxford University and Joanne Bernstein, Independent Curator.  The exhibition is designed by Stanton Williams Architects.  A fully illustrated book and comprehensive programme of events and talks, including a complimentary film season, accompanies the exhibition.  Full details to be announced. Exhibition open to over 18s only. Barbican Art Gallery opening times: Daily 11am – 8pm (Except Tuesday & Thursday 11am – 6pm).  Admission: £8; £6.  Public information/advance tickets: 0845 1207550.

Sincerely.
Eve and JW3 and Mélisande
Dirty Girl Things ©
Unrepentant.  Unpretentious.  Unconventional. ©