Category: My Bits

Over the last few months, and as time has allowed, I’ve been re-working the art display areas at Holly Kai Park, something I blogged about in July. However, as is the way with me, that blog post proved to be a little premature, as I was uncomfortable with some of the changes made. The last week or so has given me the opportunity to look anew at things and carry out further work – and if I say so myself, thinks are now looking a lot better.

The main thing that was niggling me was the use of old ruins; it’s a theme we’ve used on the home island, and repeating it at the park niggled me. So, the ruins are now gone. Instead we have what I hope feels like a more natural flow to the areas on the art hill – which is now even more of a plateau – with the events area now flowing naturally into the Storyteller’s Garden, rather than being separate to it in placement and look, with a slight reworking of the Storyteller’s Garden to help with this.

I had been debating replacing the wooden art decks with something else – and this might still happen at some point. So far, though, I’ve not found anything which really talks to me, as it were. There’s an additional stairway for accessing the plateau, which is now ringed completely by cliffs and  which has been retextured to more closely match the land below, and includes rock paths similar to those running through the park elsewhere to again (hopefully) give a sense of continuity. We even have room for a little cuddle snug!

As well as the art at the park hilltop, there have been a number of little nips tucks and tweaks around the park in general, which we hope will add to visitors’ pleasure. The most noticeable of these is the arrival of a new art piece at the Art Garden.

Reflections at Midnight is a piece which has been generously presented by its creator, Frankx Lefavre. It can be found alongside the garden’s landing point, between the two art studios, and it is a simply stunning piece.  Frankx is a master when it comes to the use of light and shadow, and his visualisations and models are stunning – take a look at my review of his former full region installation, Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor as an example.

To fully enjoy Reflections at Midnight, please make sure you follow some basic instructions, as noted in the sign alongside the piece: set your time of day to midnight, enable ALM (no need to turn shadows on), then climb the steps and sit in the chair. You might also want to swap to Mouselook for a full first person experience as well. I’ve also set an independent media stream for the parcel, so feel free to enjoy that as well when sitting down, if the mood takes you!

Many thanks to Frankx for the gifting of Reflections 🙂 .

Hopefully, these changes mean that we can finally start the ball rolling with the next series of Art at the Park exhibitions, and the first announcement should be coming up very soon. In the meantime, do please feel free to pay the park a visit; we have walks under the trees, places to sit, snuggle spots, two beaches (east and west side of the region), and those able to access Blake Sea can reach us by water or air, the east side slips offer two hours of mooring time, with re-rezzing from the piers.

We look forward to seeing you soon!

Holly Kai Park Revised SLurls

Holly Kai Park is rated Moderate.

• Main landing point for the art hill
• Holly Kai Garden
• The Pavilion
• Caitinara Bar

Things have been changing at Holly Kai Park. The work started in May, with a revamp of the west side beach, the redevelopment of Holly Kai Gardens and the relocation of our live events venue, The Pavilion – all of which I’ve previously written about.

With the closing of the June Art at the Park exhibition, we’ve taken time out to complete the work in revamping the hilltop art display area overlooking the east side of the island which we hope will make exhibitions at the park more attractive. While there are still some finishing touches still to make, we’ll soon be gearing-up for a resumption of art displays at the park, the next one of which should open towards the end of July or early August.

The new Art Hill is much broader and flatter, forming a horseshoe shape defined by the Holly Kai river, which loops around it at the base of the cliffs. This has allowed us to swap-out the old art decks for newer, larger units, as well as offering a dedicated area for displaying sculptures (3D art can also be displayed along the grass paths leading around the hill-top).

The decks are half as big again as the old ones, and are now positioned around the “outside” of the hill, each one overlooking the river to its rear, while opening to the main path around the hilltop in front.  Hopefully, this will make visiting individual art displays easier, whilst allowing artists to display their work in a single place, rather than having to split it across different decks.

However, the biggest changes to the park come with the inclusion of a new Storyteller’s Garden, and a new stage area for hosting Art at the Park opening events (and, possibly, other activities at well).

The Storyteller’s garden suopercedes the old stone gazebo, and has been centrally placed on the hilltop so that it offers a view of all the surrounding art decks (handy for Stories at the Park), and provides a place to simply sit and enjoy the art and the park, whether or not stories are being told. It has been made possible through the generosity of Alex Bader, who provided his new Tiered Garden Wall Building Set for me to try. I’ll have more to say on this another time, but suffice it to say it is another excellent kit from Alex, and really provided the means to provide the hill-top with a focal point.

The new Art at the Park event area is admittedly a little spartan at present. It sits on the east side of the hill, overlooking the main boat slips for the park, and also forms one of two main entrances into the art display area. It takes the form of the remains of an old castle or fort, with a wooden stage erected on one side, and  light projectors installed in the towers to give a little night-time colour (if you have ALM enabled in your viewer).

As noted above, there are a few more nips and tucks to make around the hill-top, but otherwise, all major renovations at the park are now finished, and we’ll be resuming a full programme of events in the near future, with a new Art at the Park exhibition opening, as well as out weekly gatherings at Caitinara Bar for music and dancing (every Wednesday and Friday between 16:00 and 18:00 SLT) and Sundays between noon and 14:00 SLT.

In the meantime, my thanks to Nber for trusting me with the remodelling, to Alex Bader for his invaluable generosity, and to Caitlyn for her patience, eye for detail and her suggestions which have helped complete the work.

I hope very much that we get to see you at the park!

Holly Kai Park Revised SLurls

Holly Kai Park is rated Moderate.

• Main landing point for the art hill
• Holly Kai Garden
• The Pavilion
• Caitinara Bar

Much of my time in-world over the last week has been taken with the Holly Kai Park remodelling, some of which I’ve previously blogged about. Since then, Caitinara Bar has swung back into action with our weekly DJ sessions on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays, and the work of quietly swapping out high render cost trees and shrubs with more modest alternatives has been continuing.

We’ve also been carrying out further refinements to the woodland paths through the park, re-working the west side beach a little following the move of Caitinara Bar, and continuing to generally tweak and refine, without disrupting the main art exhibition area on the art hill – although this has been quietly extended whilst no-one was looking 🙂 .

In particular, the latter part of the week has focused on creating a new part of the park sitting between the west side beach and the curve of the river. This used to be the home of a series of hump-backed hills which, while they broke up the land quite well, tended to be too much of an abrupt break in the landscape.

To change this, the hills have been lowered to form river banks, and the space they occupied has been turned into a picnic area with a new pool of water fed by a little set of waterfalls, and an old ruined watch tower. The pool offers several places to sit and to snuggle, while up on the banks behind it, there’s another little sitting area, and there’s also a picnic blanket and basket in the shade of the tower.

Aside from some nips and tucks here and there, and a re-working at to the op of the art hill, which we’ll complete once the current exhibition has run its course, this should be the park pretty much in its new look.

I would like to offer love and thanks to Caitlyn for being so patient while all this has been going on, and for coming up with some excellent ideas that would otherwise have been missed. Also, very warm thanks to Alex Bader, who has been a marvellously supportive and generous friend.

Please feel free to visit Holly Kai Park any time, and keep an eye on the Holly Kai blog for news on events and activities at the park.

Holly Kai Park Revised SLurls

Holly Kai Park is rated Moderate.

• Main landing point for the art hill
• Holly Kai Garden
• The Pavilion
• Caitinara Bar