Category: Art in Second Life

Since its establishment, the Windlight brand has striven to promote all aspects of artist expression in Second Life. Each month, Windlight Magazine provides insight into the SL art scene, reviewing exhibitions and regions, interviewing artists and creators, providing tutorials, and more.

At the same time, the Windlight Gallery offers display space for artists wishing to participate in the Windlight Artist Fellowship Programme,  the artistic aspects of fashion are represented through The Edge gallery and publications, whilst Windlight sponsors and supports arts and artists through competitions and shows such as the Windlight Magazine Spring Arts Show and the 30/31 events.

The breadth of Windlight’s support of virtual arts is one of the reasons I’m particularly delighted to be associated with the brand, both as a contributing writer and as someone able to provide a little back room support when needed.

It’s also why I’m pleased to be able to relay the news that, starting in June Windlight will also be supporting the literally expressions of Second Life users with the launch of a new twice-yearly literary journal The Quill and Pen, and that I’ll be serving in an editorial capacity with the publication.

the Quill and Pen will be published in both digital and ebook formats every June and December, and submissions are welcome for poetry, non-fiction, and fiction (including flash stories).

The broad submission guidelines for each category are:

• Poetry: one poem per page, no more than six pages, single spaced and left justified
• Non-fiction: one essay up to 1500 words, no extra space between paragraphs, white space for section breaks only
• Fiction: One story up to 1500 words, double spaced, no extra space between paragraphs. White space for section breaks only
• Flash stories: up to 500 words, double spaced, no extra space between paragraphs. White space for section breaks only

Pieces may have been previously published, and writers can submit up to two pieces per issue (either to the same category, or a mix of two categories).

For more complete information on submissions, please refer to the submissions guidelines in the Quill and Pen submissions form.

I’m looking forward to both seeing the first issue published and seeing submissions as they come in. So whether you use quill, pen or keyboard, if you enjoy writing for your pleasure,, i hope the announcement of The Quill and Pen will encourage you to write – and to submit your work!

Opening on Monday, April 11th, 2016 is the Windlight Magazine Spring Arts Show, one of the biggest arts events taking place in Second Life this year.

More than 50 2D and 3D artists are participating, with art displays taking place both within traditional galley-style units, and outdoors under the open skies or within individual gazebos scattered across the Windlight lawns.

Running through until Sunday, April 17th, the Spring Arts Show also includes daily entertainment with DJs, live performances and tribute acts, storytelling and poetry readings, a hunt and photo contest, and a fashion show as well.

Land alongside the Windlight Gallery and office grounds has been transformed for the event, with lots to see and do. Many of the participating artists are taking part in a juried art competition with a prize pool of L$20,000, with the rest participating as non-juried artists. The event has been generously sponsored by Azul, Chop Zuey Couture Jewellery, Dope Magazine, Ferosh, Ghee,  Lyrical Poetry Cafe, Magnum Opus, Meshopotamia, Pink Ice Boutique, PotPourri Markets, Prism Designs, SL Live Radio, Models Giving Back, The Edge Gallery, The Fantasy Angels, and Windlight Magazine.

To join in with the entertainment and events planned for the weekend, check the Spring Arts Show events calendar. However, some highlights for the week include:

• Monday, April 11th
  • 04:00 SLT – informal opening
  • 16:00 SLT – formal opening
  • All day and every day: Paint Bucket Hunt
• Tuesday, April 12th
  • 17:30 SLT – Lyrical Poetry Cafe
• Wednesday, April 13th
  • 16:00 SLT – Spring Art Ball
• Friday , April 15th
  • 17:00 SLT – Obero the Great
• Saturday, April 16th
  • 13:00 SLT – Models giving Back fashion show
  • 16:00 SLT – Duran Duran tribute concert
  • 17:00 SLT – Juried Art Contest winners announced
• Sunday, April 17th
  • 11:00 SLT – Seanchai Library storytelling
  • 13:00 SLT – Elysium Cabaret
  • 16:00 SLT – Marilyn Mansion tribute concert.

With its rich diversity of 2D and 3D art, full entertainments programme, the Windlight Magazine Spring Show is a superb means of seen the work of photographers and artists from across SL as well as an opportunity to discover the art of the spoken word through poetry readings and storytelling. So be sure to check it out through the week.

SLurl Details

• Windlight Magazine Spring Arts Show 2016 (Rated: Moderate)

Just opened at MetaLES is Queens Gambit Declined, a new installation – with some familiar motifs – by Rebeca Bashly.

The title is drawn from one of the classic opening moves of chess, wherein the player using the black pieces can respond to the white player’s opening Queen’s Gambit, by declining the opportunity to capture a proffered pawn, opting instead to defend their own exposed man. However, precisely how title / reference fits with the installation has left me a little bewildered 🙂 .

Two great stone towers, perhaps the last remnants of some gigantic bridge, rise from the waters of the flooded region, their appearance slightly reminiscent of Manhattan’s famous Brooklyn Bridge.

Suspended between these by massive chains, sits an enormous circular stone platform, its top occupied by a large hedged maze. Above this, and also tethered to the remnants of the bridge by heavyset ropes, floats a massive heart, similar in nature to the one seen in Rebeca’s When Life Gives You Apples … Run (which I reviewed here), but with arteries and veins bearing rose-like thorns.

Transparent walkways link the bridge towers to the platform, allowing visitors to explore the maze, in which sit a number of artefacts: three busts with transparent foreheads inside of which lie objets d’art; two snow globes with tiny scenes within and wrapped around them; and four rose-like plants, their flowers forming lips, all geometrically positioned within the maze.

At the centre of the maze a female figure kneels fully bent over within a pool of red. Her back is to the sky, a green shoot rising upwards from it, reaching towards the floating heart. When looked at from above, this figure, in the centre most circle of the  maze, appears to be cupped within a slightly lopsided Venus symbol formed by the surrounding hedge (although this could be an accident of design, rather than symbolic).

Nor is this all. sitting atop the second of the bridge towers  is a black chess pawn. Touch it, and you’re carried up into the heart itself, and a dark-walled place in when sits a series of tear-drop containers held within metal structures, particles falling slowly within them. Meanwhile, under the circular platform sits a huge black pawn, it’s base forming the basin in which the kneeling figure at the centre of the maze resides.

Touring the installation, I kept being drawn to the ideas of birth, growth and life, and renewal – ideas that also immediately struck Caitlyn when we visited together. Quite how these are related by to chess and the Queen’s Gambit Declined, however, is something which escaped us both.

Perhaps this is part of the purpose in the piece: to offer enigmatic hints at possible interpretations. One thing is sure, however you look at Queen’s Gambit Declined, it offers a fascinating and intriguing installation.

SLurl Details

• Queen’s Gambit Declined (Rated: Moderate)