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Robert Richards’ hot
sailors
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By BILL ROUNDY
FIRST YOU NOTICE THE PENISES. The eye is inexorably drawn
to them, jutting proudly erect from every flat surface.
Impossibly proportioned, dripping, pierced, in black and
white.
Then, in a surprisingly short time, the brazen cavalcade of
cock becomes normal. You start to notice the delicate
brushwork, the ink that makes up a muscled back, and soon
you’re thinking…
“Hey, this is pretty good,” a browsing customer says to his
friend. “It’s a lot better than I thought it would be.”
This was the scene at the Third Annual Erotic Arts Fair
last weekend, presented at the LGBT Community Center by the
Tom of Finland Foundation. This year was a special event: the
Foundation presented the Center with an original Tom of
Finland sketch. The Consulate General of Finland was at the
ceremony, and it all made for a pleasant evening: there were
speeches, and gifts, and photos of the deputy counsel general
and his wife posing with large men in leather.
But for most attendees, the weekend was a chance to roam
two large rooms, filled with 35 booths displaying erotic
photos, drawings, paintings, sculptures and more. It was a
chance to find that perfect picture to hang in the living
room, bedroom, or dungeon, as the case may be.
Increasingly, erotic art does go in the living room, says
Robert Richards, who has been contributing his luscious
draftsmanship to gay magazines since the 1970s.
“People are buying things that are less explicit, but more
sexual,” he says. “You don’t want something that turns you on
every time you walk into the room. They want to appreciate it
as a beautiful object. They want something they can live
with.”
He makes this observation at a packed panel discussion on
Sunday afternoon, the topic, “Does it Have to be Big to be
Sexy?”
“Tom always said that he let the penis be as big as it
wanted to be, in that moment,” says Durk Dehner, president and
co-founder of the Tom of Finland Foundation. “When you focus
on a cock, even if it’s an average-sized cock, six inches, it
seems larger because it’s important to you. That’s why he drew
them so big.”
In this room, people are thinking seriously about the
penis. One audience memeber observes: “The large penis is
representative of the male dominance, and the male-to-male
competition in our society…”
“Tom’s use of the uneducated, naïve young man is like
Picasso’s use of the Minotaur as a symbol of sexuality,”
begins another.
Meanwhile, in the exhibition space, Mark Durham has drawn a
menage a trois featuring the male members of the Fantastic
Four, the Invisible Woman watching, aghast. Nearby, the Hulk
flexes his muscles and displays the gamma- irradiated pole
between his legs “People walk by, and they start laughing,”
Durham says. “And I love that. To me, it has to be
funny...”
AMUSING, INTELLECTUAL, subversive, disturbing: there are
many ways to enjoy this erotic art. But none of it is just
spank material. If you want pornography, you have the
Internet. People come to the Erotic Art Fair for the art. Even
at the live nude modeling sessions, there is a minimum of
leering. A crowd gathers, but they mostly watch the sketchpads
of those drawing.
“You’d think the creeps would come out of the woodwork,”
says Alert Crudo, selling photos of Ken dolls getting it on.
“But everyone’s nice and friendly. Of course my stuff is a
little less erotic than most, so maybe they stay away.”
The customers are just gay folk. They wear T-shirts and
jeans, and they browse the art in couples. There are even a
few straight people here. (The Foundation welcomes erotic work
regardless of gender or sexuality, notes administrator Matthew
Blouin, but the event is still dominated by gay men.)
Just beginning her career is Laurel Griffy Caprio: this is
her first show, ever. She paints watercolors of women with
legs spread and nipples pointing to the sky.
“Oh, no, I’m hetero,” she laughs, almost apologetically.
But she doesn’t feel isolated. “Every woman who comes in here
stops and talks to me. And the other artists — I’ve made so
many friends. I’m definitely coming back.”
Again and again, the artists say that they’re here for the
sense of community.
“It’s very isolating work,” says Richards. Sitting alone in
the studio, it’s hard to know if anyone appreciates what
you’re doing. “It sounds very Pollyanna, but I like meeting
people… I like seeing their reaction.”
“The artists have to be nurtured, by each other and by the
public,” says Dehner, from the Foundation. “Because they’re
still outsiders, they have difficulty getting exhibits and
galleries… Here, they can get together and inspire each
other.”
MORE INFO
http://www.tomoffinlandfoundation.org/
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