Category: Reviews

A quirky Peace of Mind in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey

Peace of Mind; Inara Pey, August 2018, on FlickrPeace of Mind – click any image for full size

Peace of Mind is a Mainland parcel a little over a quarter region in size, held and landscaped by Talacious (Talacious Tigerpaw).  It’s a quirky design that offers as much vertically as it does horizontally for the willing explorer, so a stout pair of walking boots might be recommended!

The About Land description offers a warm invitation to arrival to explore, relax and have a little fun, with Talacious noting she has a passion for landscaping, design and art, and hopes that people find a little peace and tranquillity when visiting.

Peace of Mind; Inara Pey, August 2018, on FlickrPeace of Mind

Visitors arrive on the beach, a narrow sliver of sand sitting between high craggy shoulders of rock that reach back inland. Water tumbles – a little erratically in places – from one of these high mesas, eventually finding its way down to the beach where it rolls over the sand and into the sea.

Three opportunities for initial exploration are offered from the beach: a short climb up stone steps to a caravan, oddly perched on a shelf of rock and now so much a part of the landscape, nature is taking up residence on the outside as much as someone ins living on the inside. More stone steps run up alongside the caravan and to the conservatory sitting above and behind it, while a wooden bridge spans the water in its rush to the sea, offering the way to one of several routes up into the high cliffs and rocks surrounding the setting.

Peace of Mind; Inara Pey, August 2018, on FlickrPeace of Mind

Those climbing to the conservatory will find it is home to a warm-looking bathing pool, while the path branches left and right – offering a further choice in routes of exploration. While you take is entirely up to you; suffice it to say both – and the path winding upwards from the log bridge down by the beach – offer routes of discovery.

Trails wind between the trunks of tall pines and other trees and slide between tall cliffs and hunched rocky outcrops, leading the traveller past local wildlife, over pond and root and through the occasional shower of rain, before inevitably winding upwards. As they do so, the paths climbing the cliffs may change from bare rock to tiled step (or back again) or from grassy trails to dirt tracks, all of which twist and climb – sometimes very steeply – up to the high plateaus above.

Peace of Mind; Inara Pey, August 2018, on FlickrPeace of Mind

These high tables are home to more curios awaiting discovery – a pair of trees houses here, with the remains of an old van that must have had a bugger of a time climbing up the steep trail; a house cut into a hill there, surrounded by sunflowers that reach down into a little box canyon where yet another cottages sits, roof covered in grass and more sunflowers growing above it bay windows. Just below the house-in-a-hill sits a Tuscan villa, a paved set of steps reaching up from it to a narrow promontory on which sits a further tree house, even as hollow logs offer a bridge to a large house standing on the headland, and the destination of the rocky path winding upwards from the beach. This last appears to be the house of Talacious; however, like the other buildings sitting both high and low, it appears to be open to the public.

With the many different paths and bridges connecting them, finding one’s way around and between the houses is something of an adventure, and reveals some of the more quirky elements of the parcel – such a  set of stone steps supported on nothing more than a wish, leading the way to vine-arched bridge spanning the gap between one plateau and another. Meanwhile, the path winding down from from the garden of the twinned tree housesoffers a way past a cavern, also awaiting exploration.

Peace of Mind; Inara Pey, August 2018, on FlickrPeace of Mind

However, said cavern is not the “secret caves” referred to in the About Land description. This requires a little discovery. Clues are provided, and I don’t want to spoil the fun. Suffice it to say: look for the “arrowed” paths  in the grounds of one of the houses, or the sign board watched over by rabbits (then touch the rock behind it). And when you do find your way into the caves, be sure to follow the paths all the way down and to give the wall below a certain sign concerning life a tap …

Peace of Mind is, as I’ve mentioned, a quirky place. It is rich in detail, albeit with a few rough edges that could do with a little attention (waters falling into grass and vanishing, or floating above the beach as it flows to the sea, for example, while the odd tree floats rootless above the ground). But these are not sufficiently problematic as to spoil the overall effect, and it’s clear that Talacious has poured a lot of her own personality into the parcel’s look and feel, together with her sense of fun.

Peace of Mind; Inara Pey, August 2018, on FlickrPeace of Mind

So if you are looking for something just that little bit different to explore, Peace of Mind might be for you.

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A sense of Confinement in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
DaphneArts: Confinement

Confinement is a complex installation located at DaphneArts, featuring a concept and art by Mi (Kissmi), with the physical space and overall presentation of the elements making up the installation by DaphneArts curators Angelika Corral and Sheldon Bergman (SheldonBR).

Mi says of the piece:

Confinement is our lot – from the beginning, in the womb, and even before, as soon as the idea of our conception germinates in the minds of our parents, enclosing us.

In other words, how we might grow as individuals is subject to a series of constraints which encompass us from the moment of conception through until death. Mi sees these constraints as falling into four main categories: geographical, mental, physical and social, and the visitor is invited to consider each of these both visually and aurally.

DaphneArts: Confinement

To fully achieve this, it is necessary to ensure your are correctly set-up to experience Confinement. This means ensuring you have Advanced Lighting Model enabled within your viewer (Preferences > Graphics > check the Advanced Lighting Model check box), you accept the local Windlight setting on arrival (automatic if you are using Firestorm; if you are using any other viewer, the preferred Windlight is Phototools – No Light by William Weaver. Should you not have this available with your viewer, try opting for Midnight or a similarly dark setting). Most importantly, you must accept the local HUD when offered and allow this to attach – without it, you will miss the greater part of the installation. Once attached, the HUD will display introductory text, which can be clicked away once read and the instructions followed. You are then ready to proceed.

This involves walking along a walkway constructed of massive cubes, while walls of these great cubes dominate the view left and right, separated from the walkway by deep chasms.  As one progresses, each of the four categories of confinement are revealed in turn, starting with Geographical. Images by Mi are illuminated, and the HUD presents visitors with the opportunity to hear a reading in French by Mi intended to encompass the symbolism of the confinement – and to read the words, presented in both French and English (note that due to the limitations of SL, the words may lag behind the reading; this is unavoidable).

DaphneArts: Confinement

For Geographical, the reading is taken from the lyrics to né quelque part (“born somewhere”), first recorded by Maxime Le Forestier in 1987; for Mental Confinement, we are presented with Un grand sommeil noir (A big black sheep), by the 19th Century poet Paul-Marie Verlaine; for Physical Confinement and Social Confinement, Mi presents two poems by Jacques Prévert: First Day and Familiale, respectively.

Each of these reading is accompanied by a series of images by Mi, also designed to be representative of the confinement they represent. Like the readings (including né quelque part, when the lyrics are separated from the music), these are stark pieces; abstract in nature, are designed not so much to illustrate, but to encourage, along with the spoken words, our deeper contemplation on the nature of each type of confinement we live within: those born – no pun intended – by the place and time of our birth; the confinement we face in terms of mental development – both our own capability and the opportunities society gives to us;  and the constraints we have to face within both life itself and in society’s expectations of the roles we will ultimately play.

DaphneArts: Confinement

Beyond the fourth confinement, the way leads down to a lower level, stairs lit by the naked flames of candles cupped in stone hands as the darkness closes around. In descending these steps, it is easy to feel as if one is descending into a sepulchre; or that the descent marks the passing from life to death. In echo of this, the hands towards the bottom of the stairs become more grasping in nature, as if trying to reach out from the walls and grasp the life from those passing.

Finally, the path leads by candlelight to a last figure:  a woman caught between death (the hand at her throat) and life (the candle emerging from her midriff). And thus the circle is closed; our ultimate confinement lies within the unknown: we emerge from it in birth, and descend back into it in death.

One since June 2018, Confinement is a layered installation deserving of time and consideration when visiting.

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A late summer exhibition at the Rose Gallery

Posted on by Inara Pey
The Rose Gallery: Biancajane Juliesse

The Rose Gallery, curated by  Shakti Sugafield (Shakti Adored) is hosting a”late summer” exhibition with a focus on physical work art, of which the greater theme within it might be said to be of an abstract nature.

On the ground floor, in Halls 1 and 2, the marvellous art of Sisi Biedermann continues to be exhibited. Her work – always marvellous to see – was a focus of what might be called the “early summer” ensemble of art on display at the Rose, again in Halls One and Two, and was a subject of my review of the Rose exhibitions at that time. Her display has been refreshed, with a further offering of her stunning art, some of which can also be found in her What a Wonderful World exhibition at the Lin C Art Gallery (read here for more).

The Rose Gallery: Sabine Mortenwold

Occupying Halls 3 and 4 is a visually impactful exhibition of abstract art by Sabine Mortenwold. Working in mixed media on canvas, Sabine’s work is powerful in tone and style, with the pieces offered at the Rose perhaps split into two halves. Within Hall 3 is a series of images that might be referred to as more deeply abstract, the 11 pieces  offering  reflections on emotional states. Vivid, strongly abstracted and layered, there are pieces that may at first be hard to grasp, but there is also a subtleness in the way each really is reflective of its title.

Hall 4, meanwhile offers what might be referred to as a “softer” series of Sabine’s art, with 13 pieces, the majority of which are clearly collage paintings of flowers. With softer tones and lines that clearly denote leaves and petals, these are perhaps the easier images to grasp with eye and mind, but each of them retains a wonderful abstract form within it.

The Rose Gallery: Sabine Mortenwold

Hall 6, on the floor above, is home to a series nine pieces of digital art by Leigh Quartz. Small the series might be, but each image is powerfully evocative, colour and tone carefully balanced to match its title, with just a hint of abstraction within some of them to offer a  connection with the exhibitions on the ground floor.

The Rose Gallery: Leigh Quartz

The use of the available space within the hall, with wide gaps between most of the pieces, allows the eye to focus on each painting in turn, encouraging the visitor to fully appreciate it without the distraction of neighbouring pieces slipping into the eye’s periphery. Thus it is possible to almost feel the primal force evoked with More Than a Conqueror, sense the passage of time in Seize the Moment, or find oneself caught within the gaze of Jolie Moly, seen on the right.

The abstract theme continues into Hall 7, where art by Etamae is presented.

Several of the ten images offered here are of an abstract nature in tone and idea; but with a much softer, more organic approach that perhaps found in the abstract pieces found within Sabine Mortenwold’s and Leigh Quartz’s pieces. Shapes here are more rounded, offer flow and a sense of quiet, almost relaxed (hypnotic?) motion within them.

Also offered within the set are paintings of flowers. Again abstract in nature, these offer a connection back to the flower-themed pictures within Sabine’s exhibition, and so again present a sense of thematic threads follow through the exhibitions, weaving them together on a subconscious level.

The Rose Gallery: Etamae

The Gallery’s main exhibition hall is given over to a presentation of art by Mary Sparrow, via her alter-ego(?) Bianca (biancajane Juliesse). Known for her portraiture of both humans and their pets, Mary’s art also encompasses still life, animals (notably horses) and photography.

Portraits and pets are very much the subject of the exhibit at the Rose Gallery, although wildlife and farm animals and poultry are also represented. The portraits  – all of them women and their dogs, are neatly presented to one side of the hall, becoming an exhibit in their own right, all presented in Art Deco or gilt-edges frames that perfectly compliment and complete the images they contain, which are themselves perfectly executed paintings.

However, it is likely to be the animal paintings on the remaining walls of the hall that are liable to captivate, simply because of the depth of character caught within them; not only with the portraits of cats and dogs, where it is perhaps most clearly evident, but also with the paintings of pig and piglet, cow, rooster and flamingos.

The Rose Gallery: Biancajane Juliesse

I believe this selection of exhibitions continues through into September – but please check with the gallery.

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Artfest: calling SL artists and performers

Posted on by Inara Pey
The ArtFest region of Tiger Hill

Artfest 6 is currently open through until November 6th, 2018, and is accepting applications for participation from artists, DJs, singers and performers.

The focus of the event is to raise funds for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in their continuing work to bring aid and relief to people around the world who have suffered from the effects of a local disaster – earthquakes, flooding, storms, fires, enforced migration, and so on. IFRC has been chosen due to its record of delivering help, aid and support without discrimination against race, religion or gender.

A full region – Tiger Hill – is given over to the event, with locations both at ground level and in the air overhead, with individual display spaces marked out for artists who apply to take part. The vent supports art of all kinds, including:

  • Second Life snapshots, both raw and post-processed.
  • Physical world photographs.
  • Physical world art and image manipulations.
  • Sculpture and 3D art.
  • Poetry recitals, spoken word recitals, music and dance.

Fund-raising within the event takes a number of forms. For example, artists can enter their art into the Artfest competition, in which visitors “vote” for the art by making donations. Or, if artists prefer, they can sell their art through the event on the understanding that at least 50% of all sales goes to raising funds for the IFRC. Profit sharing is via scripted means, and the organisers will provide the necessary script to those artists wishing to use it.

100% of all funds received by the event will be donated to the IFRC.

In addition, and quite aside from the fund-raising “competition”, there is also a juried art competition artists can opt to enter – details on this can be obtained from the organisers.

The ground level area is set out with a large number of available plots for artists to use. Due to the length of time the event will be running, artists are encouraged to refresh their allotted space as often as they can, in order to encourage people to come back and pay further visits, exploring and (hopefully) making further donations. In particular, artists are encouraged to build-out their display spaces in situ, allowing their displays of art to grow over time, again encouraging re-visits by the public.

DJs, singers and performer can apply to participate in the entertainment that will take place through the event, centred on the Tiger Hill Den, a skyborne club sharing its space with shops and other facilities related to the event.

Artfest is a fairly free-form event, the core rules of participation being to keep all art and performances in line with the General rating for the region and the Second Life Terms of Service / Community Standards. There are some general guidelines on prim, script and glow usage, but these are guidelines, not tablets-of-stone caps / limits, and are provided to all those applying to participate in the event.

Those wishing to apply to participate in ArtFest 6 are asked to do so by note card, and provide:

  • Avatar name (not Display name).
  • Type of art or performance – give as much information as possible – or:
  • Other ways in which you would like to take part – as an artist, performer, helper, etc.

Note Cards should be sent to Huntress Catteneo.

General enquiries about ArtFest 6 should also be sent to Huntress Catteneo.

Discovering a Missing Melody in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey

Missing Melody; Inara Pey, August 2018, on FlickrMissing Melody – click any image for full size

The heat of summer has left the grass long and golden, roots reaching deep into the soil to gain moisture. Closer to the local stream and river, the grass and moss are still green, benefiting from both the plentiful water seeping into the land on either side of the waterways and from the shade offered by tall trees of a rich woodland. But the seasons are turning; the sky offers a paler Sun than might have been blazing down in the midst of summer and the trees are slowly losing their canopies of leaves, scattering them across the ground below, where their gold and reds form a slowly decaying carpet and litter the calm surfaces of the river’s arms.

Such is the tranquil scene awaiting visitors to Missing Melody, a Homestead region designed by Bambi (NorahBrent). Still under construction, it is nevertheless open to those wishing to explore it, offering a beautiful autumnal look and feel with – at the time of our visit at least –  a delightfully minimalist approach to a setting Bambi describes as a “shabby rustic theme”; an approach I hope continues through to the region’s completion in this form, and things don’t become too crowded.

Missing Melody; Inara Pey, August 2018, on FlickrMissing Melody

The yellowing grass sits at the northern end of the island, lapping around the broken tower of an old windmill and appearing to leave a tractor stranded within the waves of seeded grass heads as sheep graze fitfully. From a distance, it might be easy to mistake the grass for a field of corn and the lodge sitting close by for a farmhouse. Closer examination, however, reveals the truth of the grass, while the lodge appears to be more of an artistic retreat than part of a working farm.

An unsurfaced road, rutted and marked by rocks on either side runs past the lodge and points the way south to where a bridge reaches over a branch of the river (almost the landing point) to arrive at a little café. Such little places are very much a staple of many regions designs, offering places to sit and perhaps cam around the setting.

Missing Melody; Inara Pey, August 2018, on FlickrMissing Melody

Between lodge and café, the road runs through the region’s woodland and past an old shack that fits the region’s shabby theme perfectly while also offering a cosy interior with a rich homeliness about it. Behind the shack, a path directs feet towards a deck reaching out over the coastal water. This almost – but not quite – reaches an off-shore fishing shack converted for use as a little snug for couples.

Eastwards from the road, the land gets a little more rugged in nature. Bridges and steps offer a way up among the rocky humps, passing a wrought iron gazebo and passing over tumbling falls to reach a shabby platform of a tree house before the land tails off into a small headland dominated by a great water tower.

Missing Melody; Inara Pey, August 2018, on FlickrMissing Melody

The theme of music is presented here not only in the region’s name, but also in the way the wrought iron gazebo offers a home for a musical trio of guitar, piano and drums, with pillows, logs and benches set out under strings of lights bulbs to offer space for an audience should musicians arrive.

Meanwhile, the idea of a missing melody is perfectly framed by the weathered form of an old grand piano sitting behind the hunter’s lodge. Apparently being slowly claimed by nature, the piano would appear to be more of an artistic statement, carefully placed with sheet music anchored by vines, while an old curtain or blanket hangs from the ppiano’s closed lid. The placement of these, and the little models of two little robins, perhaps giving the lie to the piano simply having been abandoned and add to the idea that the nearby  lodge is the residence of someone with an artistic bent.

Missing Melody; Inara Pey, August 2018, on FlickrMissing Melody

There are a lot of little touches through Missing Melody – picnic benches along the roadside, little snuggle points scattered around the landscape; deer to be found within the woodlands with their misted ground, and plenty of opportunities for photography (rezzing is permitted with auto return set to 60 minutes – but do remember to clear up props ahead of that limit).

Yes, there are a couple of rough edges – trees floating over water, for example; but again, this is a region still under construction, an matters like that will be addressed. In the meantime, Missing Melody is already a photogenic destination – and our thanks again to Shakespeare and Max for the nudge in suggesting we visit.

Missing Melody; Inara Pey, August 2018, on FlickrMissing Melody

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Abstract and surreal in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
La Maison d’Aneli: Cullum Writer

Now open at La Maison d’Aneli Gallery, curated by Aneli Abeyante, and located in the gallery’s sky exhibitions space, is a series of exhibitions which – with one exception – might be described as exercises in the surreal and the abstract, mixed with a little geometry.  The artists sharing the space are Cullum Writer, JudiLynn India, Senka Beck and 9Volt Borkotron, and Aneli Abeyante herself. Four of these artists are exhibited on the upper level of the gallery space, and one on the lower, who shares the space with Megan Prumier, who completes the current set of artists.

“My work is entirely intuitive,” JudiLynn says of her paintings. “I get lost in the layering of texture and colour. My work embodies my spirit and personality [and] my goal is to allow you to experience the image with your own mind’s eye.” The result of this approach is highly individual painting, rich in colour, abstract – sometimes surreal – in nature, which are by turns wonderful primal and, despite their abstract nature, very natural.

La Maison d’Aneli: JudiLynn India

This latter aspect is though the layering of colour to which JudiLynn refers, and the colours themselves, offering a rich foundation of what might be called earth colours – greens, blues, browns, which are overlaid and blended with bright, vibrant yellow, oranges, red, golds and more, to create images that can be so richly interpreted by the imagination.

Facing Judilynn’s exhibit is that by Aneli Abeyanti. Fully embracing geometry in their form and motion (most of the pieces are animated), these are glorious pieces of modern abstract art, mesmerising in form and movement. A small display, true – just seven pieces; but one not to be missed.

Maison d’Aneli: Aneli Abeyanti

Between the two, and to one side is Detoxomania an immersive 3D art piece of abstract form by Senka Beck and 9Volt Borkotron. In terms of colour, this is again a primal installation in may respect, the colours and motion within it intended to illicit an emotional response. It’s also ethereally tactile. Moving (or camming) through it, it is as if the various elements can be felt as one passes them.

“It isn’t about substance abuse,” Senka explains of the piece, which might be seen as a surreal landscape, “but about the mania of interpreting our lives in terms of toxicity. Toxic people, toxic relationships, toxic environments, toxic thoughts … Please enter, reflect and detoxify if you may.” To aid those wishing to do so are places within the installation to sit and contemplate.

Maison d’Aneli: Senka Beck and 9Volt Borkotron

Born in Porto Alegre, Brazil, Cullum Writer found her artistic inspiration through Second Life. From in-world snapshots, her expressionism has grown to encompass fractals, collages, and digital art with a defined geometric foundation. She presents some 14 pieces at La Maison d’Aneli on the lower floor of the exhibition space. All of them are abstract in nature and exceptional at capturing the eye. Some appear to be traditional painting in form, others more digital in origin, with a stylistic flow from left to right as you face her display area.

Also on the lower level, and standing quite aside from the more abstract exhibitions Is a small monochrome exhibition of Megan Prumier’s always evocative avatar studies.

La Maison d’Aneli: Megan Prumier

Overall, an interesting, eclectic selection of art across five exhibitions.

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