New Fairies

Decided to try something a little darker than usual so I decided to do two fairies with an intense night sky and a dragon skull. I think I am going to try to explore this dark side a little more.

Nudity And Censorship

I have been thinking about this a lot and have looked at censorship throughout history. I have especially been looking into the Roman Catholic Churches Fig Leaf Campaign and I feel I have to comment on this.

Since prehistoric time, representations of the nude body have been a major theme in art. Until the 1500s the only people to ever wear Fig Leaves in artwork were Adam and Eve. In Ancient Greek art, male nakedness, including the genitals, was common, although the female vulva area was generally covered in art for public display. This tradition continued in Ancient Roman art until the conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity, Today acceptance has changed and female nudity is widely more accepted than male nudity. During the Middle Ages, only the lower class and the damned were usually shown naked. Throughout history the human form has been one of the most criticized subjects for an artist to render. Often times artist choose their subject matter to record history, question social acceptance, and challenge political agenda. Censoring these works of art show disrespect for the artist their skill and their freedom to create. The human form and its use in art have always aroused mankind and causes controversy. It is intriguing to see what one person considers tasteful and erotic expressions while another may find it to be offensive. I am referring to nudity in art and not nudity that is pornographic. Tasteful erotic artwork in most cases would be any thing that does not show acts of sexual behavior, Penetration, bodily fluids or exploitation of children and minors.

The Satyricon

I am currently working on illustrating The Satyricon of Petronis Arbiter.

FINE ART AMERICA

I am back on FAA. I was not given any reason for why my account was closed. I received an e-mail telling me my account was reactivated but never told why it was closed. When I signed in, I saw that a lot of members on the site posted some really harsh comments about my work and about me. First of all the site says it allows nudes and erotic works of art as long as it has been filtered. I have always followed these restrictions. Some of the comments I came back to were about why people thought my account was closed or what they felt about me. Here are some of these comments.

("Mr. Seeker is an advocate of much very strong graphic nudity".) I never advocated anything. I made friends with other artists who did the same type of work that I do, but I also have non-nude work like floral, landscapes, and wildlife.

("His work really was too too graphic for this place.") There are other artists doing more graphic work than mine on FAA but it is accepted more because it is of women and mine is of men. There are other artists showing women fingering themselves and eating each other out and bondage and penetration but my work were singled out.

Another comment was from an unidentified member. ("I personally complained to management months ago that he gets comments from outsiders/members and those comments show up unfiltered even though his work is filtered on site. It’s an faa problem really, but by now he probably has lost heart trying to encourage nude work because he seemed to attract mostly near-porn work, really unpleasant".) This is a FAA problem and I should not be the one forced to deal with people making nasty comments about my work or me. I also never encouraged anyone to post or encourage porno or even nudity on the site.

("He's probably fed up and gone elsewhere more sympathetic to his tastes.") I was never aware of a problem to be fed up with and my account was closed without my knowledge. I did receive e-mails from only 2 FAA members about my artwork filtering and I told them they needed to contact the FAA website about their concerns because I filtered all of my work and did everything that I was supposed to do.

(" Others wrote in also and I think he was 'advised' to stop encouraging the near-porn stuff. ") I would love to know where this person gets the notion that I was encouraging or promoting anyone else to push near porn or porn. ("Glad to see the 'back' of him, though.") I guess some one is very upset on FAA because I am back.
As for the back stabbing from other artists who made comments that they were glad I was gone or speculated that my work was pornographic and should not be on the site, you could have been grown up enough to say something directly to me but you were little cowards that just jumped at a chance to put me down and make your comments after my account mysteriously was closed down. Some of the members even pretended to be my friends on the site but lashed out and chimed in with negative and undo comments against my work and me. I do not know why people on FAA would deactivate their filters if they were going to be offended by nude works of art. Some people need to grow up and stop going out of their way to find things to complain about. For those members that became friends and followers I just want to say thank you, and I look forward to hearing from you again. I have been left with a very negative feeling towards other artists and towards FAA, but I will not allow it to stop me or discourage me from doing what I love to do.

http://artmovementspgh.imagekind.com/ trying out new site because FAA never responded to my e-mails check it out. http://artmovementspgh.imagekind.com/

My account was closed at Fine Art America

For some reason my account on Fine Art America was closed. I have been trying for a few days now to try and contact their customer support to find out why they closed it but they are not responding at all. The site is always having problems and a lot of the other artists are real pricks so I might not even bother with finding out about re opening it. I have updated my Yahoo group and will be working on updating my regular web page.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/artmovementspgh/
http://www.artmovementspgh.zoomshare.com
I will also be working on illustrating a few Greek and Roman Mythological stories as well as The Satyricon. Will post some of the pieces as I am working on them .