Wednesday 4 May 2011

Back from Spain

Hi! It’s been a little while I know but I’m back! And I’m full of new ideas, though most will have to go on the back burner for the time being while I put the finishing touches to the book. One idea that won’t have to wait too long though is an entire new subsection to be added to the blog list in the sidebar – of which more next time.

As regards my last posting, way back on Tuesday 19th of April, an anonymous contributor has commented on the punishment of a girl’s hands that is touched upon in the extract I presented then. Well, I have tried to include a little variation into the depictions of the corporal punishment aspects of the tale this time around in the new volume. I have not neglected, though, the inclusion of a modicum of imaginative (I hope) psychological torment and punishment and subtle (and not so subtle) coercion. After all; we need some sort of plausible explanation of how a late teen might be placed back in school uniform and be found on a warm summer’s afternoon crammed into a cramped school desk in a stuffy attic room fastidiously copying out lines from a blackboard in her finest copperplate hand or another might be found in a tortuously quiet ‘seclusion room’ situated in the behavioural psychology research unit of a private mental hospital, the cane lines throbbing across her behind her only company.

Even on holiday the imagination never lets up on me. While in Spain I photographed a (perfectly innocent) iron cage-like structure encasing the shuttered window of an old house. It is a common enough sight around the Marbella / Costa del Sol area and barely noteworthy to most I imagine, but in me a thousand fantasy-born scenarios open up (well, perhaps not a thousand). For instance in my minds eye I see the shutters drawn back and white knuckled hands gripping the bars, the pretty yet pale sun-denied face staring out beseechingly framed by blond curls tied in ribbons and atop the tight stiff shirt-like collar of a severe button-through green and white striped dress, perhaps some sort of identifying crest on its breast pocket. Behind, hidden in the shadows there is a female figure, a glimpse of a nurse’s starched apron, the momentary glint of a polished filigree belt buckle and the yellow flash of a length of rattan illuminated in a stray beam of sunlight. Or perhaps the young lady is in her pyjamas, despite it being mid-afternoon, the light catching and reflecting off the glassy transparent plastic buttons of an institutionally ugly and ill fitting striped flannelette garment such an attractive girl would never be seen dead in.

Well, as I say I couldn’t resist the shot, which I’ll show you in a couple of days or so, and I hope to try use it at some later date as a basis for a little artwork aimed at recreating some part of my mental processes.

Talking of oblique ambiguous yet imagination-stimulating imagery: An anonymous character sent me this thought-provoking pic (top) just before I went to Spain. I had hoped to share it with you while I was away but couldn’t find a WiFi hotspot where I was staying – not a free one at any rate. It’s what it doesn’t say that says so much. The second pic has been around on my hard drive for ages and I just couldn’t resist it – not sure if it is one of our good friend, Snooze’s, or not? As for my trip to Espana: It was a hoot... not! Although it did get much better later. We left a sunny and warmer-than-average Gatwick in the UK only to emerge under a dull grey and damp Spanish sky (chilly too!!!). Then after several (cold) showers, a couple of days later there came a thunderstorm and a deluge worthy of the film 'The Day After Tomorrow' or some such worthy and 'environmentally aware' film. Then came sunny spells and finally a couple of days or so of blue skys and sunburn.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

The intriguing picture for which you gave credit to Diaperspace, is, in fact,one of my own from which someone has obviously cropped my name.
It happens all the time and is a real pain, but there you are.
Wringer.

Toyntanen said...

Hi Wringer. Sorry about that. I shall remove it shortly.

It's a bit crap that someone's cropped your name off it too. Trouble is I can’t tell you exactly where it came from either other than from someone linked to that site as it has been on my hard drive for a while and it's been ages since I visited it.

Do you have a site, by the way?

Wringer said...

No need to remove it, Garth.
I have sent you a few pictures before if you remember and I am happy for them to be on your blog so long as Wringer is acknowledged.

Its the bald assumption that my stuff can we used willy-nilly without attribution that pisses me off
Wringer
No website I'm afraid. I'm too old for all that!

Madmonkey said...

Yes, taking someone's signature off there work is very wrong. I have had this happen a few times and it really burns me. It is one thing to use work that isn't theres without permission but it is quite another to remove the signature. Were they thinking that doing so made it better? Or were they just trying to take credit for it themselves?

On another subject Garth, here is a little snippet of an idea I had that you can use if you wish:

A young woman who was formerly very well placed in a successful company is now in care in a facility where she is allowed little freedom and is to be trained to be a lowly submissive domestic. While there her keepers decide it will be beneficial for her to help train the young man who is replacing her in her old job. So he visits her weekly and while he enjoys a cup of tea she is forced to tell him all the ins and outs of her old job, share all her insights and wisdom and give him help whenever he needs it. She does this while polishing his shoes or perhaps washing his car. In addition he sends her paperwork he doesn't feel like doing, etc...

sixofthebest said...

What a beautiful drawing of a naughty school-girl, about to be caned. Thank you.

Toyntanen said...

Hi Wringer:

I would guess that someone at Diaperspace cropped your name, as I certainly didn't and the pic has their address scrawled all across it.

In addition it most definitely came from their site, even if I cannot recall exactly whereabouts it was on there. I suspect it may have been posted up by one of their bulletin board users, which may be their defense, though I would have thought that legally the onus would be on them to monitor their own content.

As they are a commercial outlet and presumably benefiting financially from your work I would think you would have remedy and redress in law available to you.

I do recall someone mentioning you and sending me a few of what since have turned out to be examples of your work - which I admire greatly incidentally - but did not realize that person was in actuality you, as he or she signed themselves 'Anonymous'; sorry.