Confessions of an Erotic Artist

A Presentation of the Erotic Art of William Monje

The artwork presented here is being offered for sale at http://yessy.com/wm-monje Those pieces for sale are digitally enhanced and printed individually by the artist as a certified giclée limited edition, signed and numbered by the artist, with a certificate of authenticity. Be sure to check out bronze sculpture and other of my gallery exhibits with links on the left of the page.

Please note: I've opened this site with considerable text, some of it personal in nature, but a great deal of it regarding the whole subject of censorship, both religious and political, which is, having spent years moderating message boards on the topic of civil liberties, a subject I jump into, compulsively, every chance I get.

If you don't want to read the opening text, you can just look at the pictures as you scroll forward. Further on in the site, however, I have larger and downloadable jpegs of the work with brief anecdotal and/or descriptive notations.

Important Notice:

The artwork herein is copyrighted by the artist, William Monje /2008/all rights reserved, and may not be used for sale in any form, electronic or otherwise, such as printouts or other means of reproduction. Inasmuch as most of the originals have been sold, it should be reminded that ownership of originals does not imply a copyright unless expressly granted in writing. Also under copyright law, the work may not be defaced or distorted in anyway, but I do not object to a fair use of it online providing full credit and a link to this site is given.

To those who have collected my artwork in the past, wondering, perhaps, what happened to me, I will try to sum it up as best I can. First of all there has been a return of censorship, and I could not find an exhibit open to the public that would show my work. Beyond that, after a lengthy period of depression following a fire that destroyed much of my work, I simply became discouraged. That ended when I discovered online, was produced as a playwright, and otherwise devoted most of my time to writing fiction, both narrative and drama, and further took a stand, online, against that return of censorship and other lost liberties. I have not done any new artwork in over twenty years, however, except for a small collection of unique and erotic pieces of sculpture, also presented on this site.

The opening portion of the text is a bit of personal history and commentary on both my work specifically and on art in general, including aesthetics, censorship and other aspects of erotica or simply art. (A lot of the commentary is political in nature, a kind of an obsessive/compulsive problem I have, probably the result of twelve years doing message boards, including seven years as the ACLU message board moderator.) The smaller pictures used in the opening text are illustrative only, relative in some small way to the text around them, but are not the presentation of the art itself as such. Further on, after that opening text, I have larger pictures, most with some brief comment or anecdotes regarding that particular picture. All of the smaller pictures used up front will be repeated in larger versions further into the site.

The giclée art prints being sold at http://yessy.com/wm-monje are presented in double matting. The certificate of authenticity is evidence the signature is the artist’s and insures resale value should the work appreciate with time. “Giclée” is a French word referring to individually enhanced and controlled inkjet reproduction of art prints, and is pronounced zhee-clay.

The work herein is taken from digital photographs or scans of either original work or reproductions that in most cases are hand-colored prints. Book quality reproductions would be shot professionally by the printer. Most originals have been sold already, so much of this work is taken from prints. In most cases the originals were done in pen and ink, professionally photographed in black and white or halftones specifically for printing, then colored in transparent watercolor. The same watercolor was used on the black and white prints and colored by the artist. Some originals remained uncolored, although the prints were usually hand-colored. Most work is in pen and ink and watercolor, but those in oil, pencil, charcoal or any other medium are so indicated in the description of the picture. The collection presented here also includes some sculpting.

This collection is not all-inclusive, and a good number of pieces, including the remaining prints of several popular pieces that were lost in a fire several years ago. I would be interested in hearing from anyone who owns either originals or reproductions with the possibility of using that work for a more inclusive collection, giving an ownership credit if desired, should the proposed book be published at some point. I can be reached at william@wm-monje.com , and the subject line in any mail relating to this site, including potential publishers or agents, should read "Regarding your artwork."

I have presented my Self Portrait here as a reminded to those familiar with my work, being the best selling of all reproductions.

Continued