Sex, empowerment and Christianity: The surprising world of erotic art

While a plate of fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies cools on a table inches away from a bobble-headed toy owl named Omar, Janette Casolary, a bubbly 22-year-old artist with an easy laugh, talks about one of her pieces. That piece? A series of plaster casts replicating her female friends masturbating.

Sometimes, erotic artists can catch you by surprise.

Casolary is one of more than 170 international visual artists who will join dozens of writers, filmmakers and performers in the Seattle Erotic Art Festival May 20 through May 22 in Fremont.