Songwriter Shawn Patterson takes us into the creative process behind the Oscar-nominated song "Everything Is Awesome" from "The Lego Movie"; "Fifty Shades of Grey" gives a boost to adult toy retailers; GKids Films brings animated movies from around the globe to U.S. audiences and Oscar ballots; An artist whose love of heavy metal music informs his quilting
Sex toy makers and retailers get 'Fifty Shades of Grey' bump
We're used to Happy Meal movie tie-ins, but now with "Fifty Shades of Grey" opening on Friday, some adult toy makers are stocking their shelves to coincide with the film's release. Given that "Fifty Shades of Grey" author E.L. James has her very own selection of bedroom gear tied to her books, the film merchandise seems preordained.
Katy Zvolerin of online retailer Adam and Eve says she's definitely seen a "Fifty Shades" bump.
"I was recently in Las Vegas at the Adult Entertainment Expo and we had a sales booth there," Zvolerin says. "And we sold a lot of handcuffs and blindfolds ... People are definitely curious."
Adam and Eve isn't the only retailer carrying "Fifty Shades" gear. Next time you're buying shampoo and paper towels, look down the aisle.
"The items are also available at Target, or a select number of them are," Zvolerin says.
What's Adam and Eve's most popular "50 Shades"-related toy?
According to Zvolerin, "No one could keep Ben Wa balls in stock."
Desiree Duffy of California Exotic Novelties says that's the case for her company too.
"They're called Ben Wa balls by a lot of people, or orgasm balls, love balls," Duffy says. "But we noticed that anything in that category we're just selling amazingly. So much so that we started to run out of stock on items where we were never running out of items before."
Duffy says "Fifty Shades" isn't the first piece of entertainment to get people interested in sex toys.
"We had the rabbit episode in 'Sex and the City,' which you may remember," she says.
Duffy met E.L. James once and taught her a thing or two about sex toys.
"I was actually showing her, we have a product called the Body and Soul Remote Vibe ... And she was like, 'Oh my god, if I had seen that before I would have put that in the book,'" Duffy says.
Ultimately, Duffy says James and her "Fifty Shades" novels are good for her industry.
"I think that one of the things that she has kind of accidentally done is expose the world to a lot of these pleasure toys," Duffy says. "Because her understanding of them is probably on keel with what the average person's is."
Artist Ben Venom quilts the punk rock way
Ben Venom wasn't born with his virulent last name. He earned it in the Georgia punk scene in the '90s. He regularly attended shows and admired bands such as Slayer, Metallica and Fugazi. It was a way for him to rebel against his conservative upbringing in Cobb County, Georgia before moving to Atlanta.
Venom collected band shirts, pinned band stickers on his jean jackets and lived a hardcore life. “The do-it-yourself mentality is something that stuck through with me all through my teenage years and into adulthood,” Venom says.
After college, Venom left Atlanta to get his MFA at the San Francisco Art Institute. That's where he discovered the art of quilting — a craft that has a slightly less rebellious tone. He was attending an exhibit at the De Young Museum when he saw some huge quilts and, he says, “was totally blown away by these quilts that were, pretty much, entirely from recycled fabric from the community.”
Venom realized he could combine the DIY aspect of punk culture with the old tradition of quilting.
He cut up his band shirts from his punk days and created massive quilts — large patchworks of skulls and Iron Maiden lyrics.
You can’t throw away that awesome Trial by Fire t-shirt, but you could see my nipples through it, and I didn’t think that was very metal to wear in public anymore. So. I was like, I don’t want to wear it, but I can’t throw it away. So I decided to make a t-shirt quilt from my old heavy metal shirts from my teenage years.
And like some heavy metal impressionist painting, if you look closer, you immediately see so much more: all the logos from his favorite bands.
Venom describes his work as a collision of opposing ideas. He likes mixing things together that seem to clash.
[I'm] a dude who quilts who makes a lot of strong imagery, yet it’s very soft and it can’t hurt you ‘cause it’s fabric, but the imagery is aggressive. Again, these opposites attracting and not attracting, more so colliding.
Venom is subverting gender stereotypes simply by being a male working in this traditionally female sphere. And he sees this gender-bender motif even among his heavy metal muses.
“Bands like Quiet Riot, Cinderella, Poison. These dudes look like women, played hard rock and metal music, but at the end of the show, they were hooking up with 10-12 chicks at a time,” he says.
And all this moshpit of ideas – hard and soft, male and female – somehow work together to create these functional quilts: “So if you don’t really like the aesthetics of it, it still serves a purpose in the world.”
Venom's work is currently featured in the Craft and Folk Art Museum's exhibit, Man-Made: Contemporary Male Quilters, through May 3. To hear more about this show check out Men Who Quilt: Sci-fi scenes and cement blocks from our sister show Off Ramp.