Erotica.

Art.

Twilight.

Three words that peak my interest whenever they are brought into a conversation separately. Can you imagine what would happen if all three of them came together at once?

I can…because they did.

Every year as part of the Mardi Gras festivities in St. Louis the amazing Koken Art Factory plays host to one of the most entertaining art shows of the year. Usually the weekend before Grande Parade day the enormous warehouse is filled wall to wall with often breathtaking…sometimes funny…always interesting pieces of erotic art. To compliment the art, there are live Burlesque performances by Lola Van Ella & the Bon Bons (please take a moment to check them out), live music, and three fully functional bars.


For me…it is quite possibly the closest thing to heaven on earth.

From the moment I first laid eyes on this festival of debauchery I wanted to get artwork into this show…no, I NEEDED to get artwork into this show.

Of three things I was positive. First, I wanted to do artistic nudes. Second, I wanted it to be tasteful. Third, I didn’t care how, but I was going to incorporate Twilight in the pictures come hell or high water.

My always clever muse T-Nabs had the brilliant idea of alluding to the Twilight book covers in each photo. This worked out nicely because each artist is allowed to submit four pieces of art to be considered for the show and there are four book covers. The day before the shoot I purchased a bag of apples, some red ribbon and a chess set all before I realized that finding the fucking Tulip on the cover of New Moon was going to be next to impossible in time for the art submission deadline.

So, scratch that idea.

Having a very vague idea of what I wanted to create I hauled my camera and some props into my friend Banda’s house (it was a kid free zone) and prepared to shoot my Super Secret Nudie Friend (SSNF from this point forward) in several interesting and most likely compromising positions. With my backdrop all laid out we cranked the heat up in the house, banished Banda’s hubby to the bedroom and then stood around waiting for SSNF to get drunk brave enough to strip down to her birthday suit.


Soon enough I was snapping away all of us merrily making jokes as SSNF froze to death on the floor of the living room trying to look serious and not laugh as we cracked jokes about her…well…crack.

We started with our Ode To Twilight….




My idea for Breaking Dawn was so good in my head but it just didn't translate well into photographs. I had forgotten to take into account the fact that chess pieces would not stay put easily on the curves of a human being without some sort of adhesive...I'm not the brightest crayon in the box sometimes.

I will, however, still share the attempt.



This is when things turned a bit silly.

I asked Banders to go get me some forks. She obliged and to my complete shock dumped about forty forks onto the floor next to me. So what did we do? We started sticking them EVERYWHERE....duh.