May 5th through May 26th will see the annual Raglan Shire Artwalk take place across the regions of the Shire, allowing visitors to wander along leafy roads and paths, taking-in the builds and in particular discovering and admiring the pictures, painting, sculptures and models on display.
Every year, around 100 exhibitors participate in the Artwalk, and the organisers hope that this year will be no different.
Applications for participation as an artist opened on April 8th, and will remain open through until April 28th, at 21:00 SLT. Artists of all shapes and sizes are warmly invited to participate, and submission of reproductions of RL artwork (painting, drawing, digital fine art, printmaking that can be imported and put on a prim) are welcomed, along with SL photography, manipulated photography and sculpture.
Artists can display more than one piece if they wish
2D (“flat” art pieces will be awarded a maximum of 15 prims, and individual pictures should be 1 prim, including the frame
3D art (sculptures, etc.), will be awarded a maximum of 500 prims for up to three pieces of work. Artists are requested to state the number of prims per piece in their application
All the above art forms are welcome, but should be rated PG / G – so no nudity, please!
Sales of works are allowed
Group membership will be required in order to display work
Questions should be addressed to Teal Freenote or Liandras Jameson in-world.
The arrival point for Artwalk 2012
Key Dates
Sunday April 28th: Applications close at 21:00 SLT
Thursday, May 2nd: Notification of exhibit space location issued to artists
Friday, May 3rd / Saturday May 4th: Artist set-up days
Sunday, May 5th: ARTWALK OPENS
Sunday, May 26th: Artwalk closes
Sunday, May 26th (after 18:00 slt) / Monday, May 27th: Takedown of works.
Sunday April 7th marks the last opportunity for people to enjoy Neva Crystall’s beautiful Neva River for a while – at the end of the day, the region will once again be closed to public access. This does not mean the region is going away – just that it is Neva’s home, and she understandably deserves some peace any quiet to enjoy it with her friends.
Since my last visit in March, the region has gained an enchanted forest, made by Alex Bader, down in the south-west corner, close to one of the beaches. Here paths wind between a variety of trees, a now-shaded bridge crosses the river, and people can wander and enjoy or simply sit on the beach and admire.
If you have not yet visited Neva River in its current form, I really urge that you do before the end of the day; once it is closed, it may not re-open until after Neva has once more remodelled it at some point in the future. so why bot make a little time and pay a visit; it’s unlikely you’ll be disappointed.
Update: If you missed the April 6th show, there will be a further performance on Saturday April 13th and 14:30 SLT, same SLurl as below.
Ziki Questi keeps her finger on the pulse of SL art and performances far more closely than I; so I was delighted to drop by her blog and read that Tyrehl Byk will be presenting a special performance of his outstanding Catharsis at 13:00 SLT at Eden Celebration on Saturday April 6th.
Tyrehl’s immersive work has featured is this blog over the years, his work never fails to engaging and enthrall, whether it is an installation piece or performance art – at which he is one of the great exponents.
I first witnessedCatharsis back in October 2011, when Tyrehl was sharing facilities at LEA 6 with Quadrapop Lane, and found myself dawn to watch it several times over. As I described it at the time, Catharsis is, “Emotional, cleansing and utterly superb” – and it is not to be missed.
This is a fully immersive show performed in a special theatre in which Tyrehl takes control of your camera and takes you on a journey of music, light, particles and images designed to instill the very definition of the word itself, and which lasts for around 20-25 minutes.
As an immersive, interactive piece, there are a few points worth noting in advance – notably that you attend as lightly scripted as possible; there is a lot going on between the server and people’s viewers, so the less personal load either has to deal with the better it is for everyone.
Also, and assuming Tyrehl’s two “assistants” may not be on-hand to guide you prior to the performance starting, make sure you sit in one of the chairs provided (they all provide the best view in the house), close any open floaters in your viewer, crank particles to maximum and ramp draw distance to around 250 metres. Then tap the ESC key a couple of times to free-up your camera ready for Tyrehl to take control when the show starts.
After that, it’s a question of sitting back and just taking in the show (although I also tend to turn the light off in my little home office as well!).
If you’ve never seen this show before, I honestly cannot recommend it enough. See you there!
The third in Draxtor’s Despres series looking inside Second Life, The Drax Files, premiered on Friday April 5th. In it, he talks with artist and creator Eshi Otawara, a six-year veteran of Second Life.
Perhaps best known for her clothing designs in SL, Eshi is also an artist in her real life, and also lends support to other SL projects as well. In what only can be serendipity, prior to watching this segment ahead of the release, I blogged on Chakryn Forest a region in which Eshi has had a hand in helping to design.
Eshi’s beautiful and restful build within Chakryn Forest
As someone who has been involved in SL for a good while, and who invests a considerable amount of time and talent in the platform, Eshi offers a considered and insightful view of Second Life, and which perfectly frames both the immersive and augmentive opportunities presented by the platform.
“At the beginning,” Eshi candidly tells us early on in the piece, “I created my avatar to be everything that I was not. She was super, super tall, super, super skinny, [and] had super long hair. When I realised that my personality and my spirit continued to experience life no matter what kind of packaging I put myself into; nowadays I’ve just kind-of become a complete shape-shifter….”
There are times when those of us involved in SL perhaps define it a little too sharply, picturing it as either augmentive or immersionist, with a distinct division between the two – a division which may well have been broadened of late by the Lab’s focus on enhancing the more immersive elements of the platform possibly at the expense of the more augmentive. This may even be a reason why some feel that SL has “failed” and so lost its appeal; because they do place themselves on one side or the other of the divide.
Eshi Otawari’s stylish in-world store
Eshi’s words, however, serve as a reminder that SL doesn’t have to be one or the other. It always has been, and remains, a blend of the two – and that really, so much of how we perceive and interact with the platform is really down to our own nature. Her attitude to her avatar, to me at least, is very much a reflection of this: she can both immerse herself in the world through her shape-shifting use of her avatar while simultaneously augmenting her natural talent and love of art and design in ways she notes aren’t always possible in real life and which allow much of her spirit and personality shine through her avatar. In doing so, she has a perception of Second Life which can all too easily be lost after several years of engagement with the platform, but which she has clearly managed to keep very much alive.
Her views on the creative power inherent in Second Life clearly speak to the appeal of the platform. “It’s not a non-existent universe,” she tells us later in the video, “It’s there. It exists. If you just release yourself of that prejudice towards what’s virtual; that’s it’s not real, it will make you happy.”
This is another outstanding piece examining Second Life which again, as with the first two segments (though hardly touched upon in my reports to date) speaks as much to those of us involved in SL as to those new to the virtual world. They help to remind us as to why we’re here and (possibly) reinvigorating our love of the platform.
For me, out of the segments Drax has published to date, it is the one which resonates the most – for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on. Perhaps it is because Eshi touches on the immersive / augmentist elements of SL (which I’ve been thinking about a lot lately) or that her enthusiasm for the platform as a means of extending her both her creativity and her ability to interact with other is so infectious; maybe it is simply that having experienced something of a pendulum attitude towards Second Life over the course of the last year, her insights into the platform as a whole resonate more strongly with me.
Whatever the reason, this another pitch-perfect exploration of Second Life and the many ways it can appeal to us and offer us something magical. Congrats to Drax on again striking precisely the right editorial balance and to Eshi for painting such a vibrant picture of Second Life and her involvement with it.
I had intended to write-up my most recent experiences with region crossings and vehicles; some of which were a tad bizarre following yesterday’s RC deployments, which should have seen the fix for vehicles reach the entire grid. Things were initially a lot better today – until Firestorm decided it was going to repeatedly crash on me due to texture memory errors (likely down to my poor old GPU struggling), and then the official beta viewer repeatedly refusing to render worn attachments / attach additional items (like my flight HUD).
In these circumstances, there is only one of two things you can do. Rant at the screen or go seek something more calming. While I’m getting rather good at the former (my PC and I are going through the “adversarial” stage of our relationship at the moment), I opted that this time I’d do the latter and visit Chakryn Forest.
This is a region which at first glance lives up to its name: it’s a sim and it’s a forest – but it is also much more than that. It’s a collaborative effort by Bettina Tizzy, Thomtrance Otoole (who provides the Homestead region), landscape / sim artist Andrek Lowell (who has a store in the forest) and Eshi Otawara. It’s also a natural work of art.
You arrive amid stunningly tall redwoods and, if you have sound on (and I recommend you do), the sounds of a forest – and more. Here you can wander between the tall trees and admire the flowers and other flora or you can find places to sit and watch the world go by.
Floating on the water / among the trees are Elementals, some of which may have a communications orb floating nearby. Click on this, and the Elemental will task you with a quest which will see you roaming the forest in search of certain items which, once gathered, must be returned to the Elemental.
For those not given to quests, there are caves to explore and hidden places to find. The latter may be as simple as a hammock nestled in a rocky dimple, or as encompassing as and entire underground room by Eshi Otawara. There are also other lovely “finds” to discover.
Object entry is open (although auto return is set to one minute), so if you’re minded to put down a blanket you can; just make sure you’re sitting on it before the minute expires – and remember to pick it up.
For those who enjoy photography, this is another of those regions which encourage toying with windlight. I seriously doubt I’ve done the forest any justice at all; but for those who enjoy their SL photography, there is also a Flickr group.
Andrek Lowell is responsible for a number of forest themed regions across Second Life, including: Fruit Island’s Tropical Rain Forest, the Enchanted Unicorn Sanctuary and Magical Forest, and Brooks Forest, a part of Indigo Mertel’s marvellous East River Community (and adjacent to the airport there (see how I cleverly circled the subject back to the theme of my opening comments? 🙂 ).
And speaking of flying – region crossings can wait another day. I’m just going to sit under a tree here and ponder for a while…
It’s no secret that late last year I quit my last private land holdings in SL and retreated to my Linden Home. While some regard the latter as “lag-laden slums” (and to be honest, some of the Linen Home regions aren’t exactly picturesque), I’m actually happy with my Tahoe home and the region in which it is located, which is neither crowded and benefits from having both a river running through it and from a large expanse of open parkland close to hand.
However, in my wanderings through Second Life, visiting and blogging about regions and activities, I have on occasion, come across a style of house build which has both intrigued and attracted me. These are mesh builds by Winter DiPrima, and sold under the LAQ Decor brand name (LAQ as in the avatar skin brand).
The LAQ Decor Picturesque Cottage (with the separately available “snow roof” applied for a suitably wintry look, inset
I first came across these buildings – in the form of the Picturesque Cottage – while exploring Second Norway, and have since seen it in a number of places, including an appearance in Ginger Lorakeet’s Inside Art installation at LEA23. I’ve also found the Quaint Cottage featured at a number of places I’ve visited.
Both cottages are 100% mesh and demonstrate just what can be achieved with mesh and without it having to be hugely expensive in terms of land impact; both total less than 80 prims / LI, and the Picturesque cottage includes a window sofa and a modest kitchen in the count!
The Quaint Cottage and (inset) the interior
Of the two cottages, I confess the Picturesque Cottage is swaying me dangerously back towards taking-up a modest parcel of land, simply so I have an excuse to go purchase the cottage and put it on display. It has a delightfully attractive design which I find endearing – be it the curve of the roof or the slightly careworn interior walls or the fact that it looks so perfectly natural no matter where in pops-up in-world.
It certainly offers enough in the way of living space, with a large open-plan area downstairs with two rooms, and a galleried bedroom reached by ladder, and which has a lovely little balcony opening off of it, sitting above one of them.
Inside the LAQ Decor Picturesque cottage and (inset) the bedroom balcony
For those with modest tastes, the Quaint Cottage offers a single-storey, two-room home which is again charmingly designed and which can offer more than comfortable accommodation – although while it will fit on a 512 sq metre parcel, the prim count / LI of 76 may make it more suitable for at least a 1024 sq m parcel when considering the question of furnishings, etc.
Both cottages include some additional features – window blinds which can be set to CLOSED for visual privacy and a house controller which includes a security system, a radio and options to “light” / “extinguish” the fire.
For those with more expansive tastes, Winter – again via the LAQ Decor brand – also produces mixed mesh / prim houses as well. As the time of writing, these comprise a mansion and a Spanish “castle” villa.
The mesh / prim mansion by LAQ Decor with (inset) the swimming pool
The mansion is the larger of the two, requiring a minimum parcel size of 2240 sq metres. With a prim count / LI of 497, it is also the “heaviest” of the house builds examined here – and also potentially the most unusual, featuring as it does a large swimming pool occupying what might otherwise be considered the grand entrance hall.
The Spanish-style villa offers three floors of accommodation, including a ready-to-be-equipped bathroom off of the main upstairs bedroom and two balconies as well as an outdoor water feature.
The LAQ Decor Spanish “castle” villa and, inset, showing the internal lighting
I have to admit the latter two are a little too big for my tastes – but then I’ve been known to live in a tin can :). However, for those seeking a large property, either may well be worth consideration.
Along with the houses, Winter produces a range of furnishings and outdoor items, some of which (walls / fences) can be seen in the photos here. All of them are, when one considers they are COPY, very reasonably priced.
The LAQ Decor furnishings are certainly worth a look at, and again a solid demonstration as to what can be achieved in mesh with a little care. The bedroom, lounge and dining sets all represent very good value considering the low prim count / LI of each, the colour options, animations, etc. I particularly like the fact that the furniture is all built more to a decent avatar scale than perhaps some other brands tend to be.
LAQ Decor furnishing represent good value for money – low prim count / LI, colour-changing, multiple poses and options. The bed and beside tables (with working lamps / candles) shown in the main picture and the lounge suite inset
Whether you’re looking for a house or interior furnishings, LAQ Decor is more than worth a visit, be it via the Marketplace or a trip to the in-world store (and I very much recommend the latter).
For my part, I’m so enamoured of the Picturesque Cottage, I’m going to be hard-pressed not to go out and find a suitable parcel on which to locate it. And then, of course, I’ll need the bed, the lounge suite and the bookcases, and the … 🙂
May 5th through May 26th will see the annual Raglan Shire Artwalk take place across the regions of the Shire, allowing visitors to wander along leafy roads and paths, taking-in the builds and in particular discovering and admiring the pictures, painting, sculptures and models on display.
