Seattle Erotic Art Festival gets nude awakening

The big art show that celebrates human sexuality and carnal expression is back in the flesh.

Now in its fifth year, the Seattle Erotic Art Festival has grown in popularity, attracting more than 3,000 patrons at the peak of its run.

The show has become a welcome part of a Pacific Northwest community known for its open and liberal embrace -- or so the festival organizers thought.

Then they tried to print 1,000 program catalogs for the 2007 show -- and got a nude awakening.

A dozen or so printing companies across the region refused to do the job.

"It really surprised us," said Anna Hurwitz, the festival's producer.

A couple of years ago, festival organizers got e-mails from people who suggested that the art was "blasphemous" and "sinful." But they say they've never had a real emergency surrounding the show's content or catalogs -- until now.

The printing companies -- festival organizers are withholding names -- have every right to refuse business.

That the companies shied away, though, goes to show that the Northwest has a liberal patina that covers up a reactionary streak -- especially when it comes to sex and nudity.

Some people wig out at the slightest whiff of erotica or bare flesh.

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In Fremont, the longtime epicenter of Seattle counterculture, not everyone loves the nude cyclists who ride in the annual Solstice Parade. Some would prefer that the bicyclists in the buff put on Speedos -- or something.

It was just a matter of time before the erotic art festival felt a chill.

Organizers first reached out to a print shop in Portland. That shop was too small to handle the size of the job and decided to outsource it. But when it reached out to other companies they said no, pointing to some of the racy images.

The Portland shop suggested that the Seattle organizers look closer to home.

They did -- with the same result. At least one Seattle-area print shop said nope because of a tight deadline. At another shop some employees were so turned off by the material that they threatened to walk if he company printed the 48-page catalog, said Larie Smoyer, who is on the festival organizing committee.

Eventually, a Seattle company agreed to do the job.

The catalogs were shipped out and arrived just in time at The Fenix, the Sodo site of the festival.

I dropped by the hall on First Avenue South this week to see what all the fuss was about. As soon as I walked in, I was greeted by a hanging chandelier of green bananas and leaves.

The glass, fashioned as fruit, was part of a handsome light piece. Dale Chihuly popped into mind -- that is, until my sex festival escort explained the bananas were, ah, symbolic.

Walls in the exhibition hall were adorned with beautiful and provocative art, including one photograph, "Of the Deep," showing a topless woman whose torso was draped by a real octopus.

Yes, there was other stuff on display -- stuff that could make a guy go, "Yikes!" Stuff I cannot mention in a family paper. Stuff featured in the catalog.

Such button-pushing creations make one empathize with folks at the skittish printing companies -- but only to a point. Not all the art in the catalog or in the exhibit is guaranteed to offend, unless you think of the unclothed human body that way.

Taking in the display as a whole made me think: Isn't the goal of artistic expression to provoke thought and spark dialogue, even if some of the art makes some people uncomfortable?

Festival organizers call the display art.

Critics may think of it as porn.

To me, the only obscene thing in full view is the degree to which some people get in a twist over anything remotely sexual.

Before I left the building, I had one question: Which brave Seattle company dared to print the catalogs? Lips remain sealed -- and with good reason.

It turns out the company wants to be anonymous because it has ties to big bread-and-butter, conservative clients, including church groups that might take offense.

Say amen to the company for at least stepping up wholly.