Category: Reviews

Coffee at a forest retreat in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Le’eaf Forest Retreat, September 2023 – click any image for full size

Earlier in September I received an invitation from Teagan Lefevre to visit her latest region build at Tilheyra (see: An everglades autumn at Tilheyra in Second Life). At the time, I noted from her Profile that she and her SL partner Cayleigh Lefevre (Cayleigh Aurelia) also had a new (at least to me) location on Heterocera where they’d set-up another picturesque setting for people visit, with the attraction (again, at least for me, of being home to a coffee house).

Occupying a 5,520 square metre parcel to the south-west of the continent (itself home to a fair few of the cafes I’ve written about in these pages), Le’eaf Forest Retreat is – as is always the case with designs by Teagan and Cayleigh – picturesque, engaging and – as if it really needs saying – exceptionally atmospheric and decidedly photogenic.

Le’eaf Forest Retreat, September 2023
Once a bustling train depot of adventurers, the Le’eaf Forest Retreat has been reclaimed by Mother Nature and of course caffeine. An umbrella waits for your arrival as you wander through the rain, seeking shelter and a warm beverage.

– Le’eaf Forest Retreat About Land

Sitting in the arms of the junction between Atoll Road and Mock Heather Road, Le’eaf Forest Retreat is marked to the south by a stream tumbling downslope from the mouth of an old tunnel and into the formal lines of a canal just before it is in turn swallowed by another tunnel. Just a little up from this, with what remains of the old railway line mentioned in the About Land description, most of it now gone and replaced by roughly hewn trail which may – or indeed, may not – mark where the tracks might have once lead.

Another natural trail climbs gently upwards from the canal, crossing the one which may have once carried the single line track as it paralleled the water, and then continues up to what remains of the depot building itself – the largest structure within the parcel. Bordered on one side by what remains of an old ticketing station and another spur of train track, the old depot now sits as a café boasting strong coffee for those seeking it and with plenty of seating to be had for patrons – including bench seats which look as if they might have originated as seating within cabins on a first-class rail carriage.

Le’eaf Forest Retreat, September 2023

To one side of its length, the café connects to the old ticketing hall via an old ticket office-come-waiting-room, now clearly no longer used as such but which has a couple of Japanese automated ticket machines – most likely brought to the old depot to act as décor more than anything else. Above the ticket kiosk and on a small mezzanine level overlooking the rest of the café is a further seating area where a large wall mural and posters celebrate rail travel and the allure of visiting far-away places.

For those who don’t mind getting a little wet once they’ve purchased their refreshments – Le’eaf Forest Retreat sits within a rainstorm of near tropical rain forest proportions – what’s left of an old brick outbuilding has been converted into a cosy snug, complete with movie projector and a brazier alive with the flames of a warming fire.

Le’eaf Forest Retreat, September 2023

All of this sits within a landscape which has been put together to suggest both the encroachment of nature on humanity’s endeavours and also a wild, but still managed garden with blooms of colour and little corner delights tucked away and awaiting discovery by those who can to brave the humid downpour to wander the short paths around the depot, perhaps meeting some of the local wildlife along the way.

Such is the design of Le’eaf Forest Retreat that it really doesn’t require much of a description here – it speaks for itself from the moment you arrive. And if you happen to be someone who has not previously visited designs by Teagan and Cayleigh, do be sure to accept the note card which is offered on arrival, as it has a lot of information on their other builds together with  their partnership with The Nature Collective and about live events they host.

Le’eaf Forest Retreat, September 2023

All in all, a pleasant pace to spend time, the rain and mist giving Le’eaf Forest Retreat a sense of isolation and introversion which is as engaging as the physical aspects of the location.

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A Triple Sweet Café in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
 Triple Sweet Café, September 2023 – click any image for full size

I’ve been back on my café-hopping again of late, with a recent stop being that of Triple Sweet Café, designed and operated by Nisha Nebula (StarfireNebula).

Located within a Homestead region and sitting on the largest of five islands located therein, the Triple Sweet Café would – but for the trees which form the island’s major occupiers – offer a commanding view out over the waters towards two of the other four islands. It would also provide a broke of the island’s foreshore, where a dock points out from the land, a place where rowing boats await those who fancy taking a trip out on the water. However, should you opt to do so, please note that with the exception of the little island closest to the café’s (and linked to it via a humpbacked bridge), the small islands are private residences, so please do not approach or explore without permission.

 Triple Sweet Café, September 2023

However, as noted above, the café is screened from the westward island by trees and they climb up the rugged hillside to its flat top, giving the café and its aged terrace and foreland a cosy sense of privacy and detachment; marking them as a place where people can come and forget worries and upsets and simply relax and let the time pass without care.

The converted cottage in which the Triple Sweet is located is the only building on the island. It offers a snug main room complete with a counter where coffee and pastries might be purchased and comfortable armchairs and sofas sit around an open fire – something likely to prove popular with visitors as the nights start to drawn in here in the northern hemisphere.

 Triple Sweet Café, September 2023

A second little snug space sits above, on a half-floor reached via a spiral stairway. Should the main room, with its armchairs and tables and chairs prove to be a little busy, a connecting hall offers the way to a glass-roofed side room. This also offers comfortable armchairs before a fireplace, together with counter seating. It’s a genuinely warm, friendly place, whilst the old terrace outside the front door has seating for those who enjoy coffee and sunshine.

The café shares the hilltop with a wooden deck presented as an event space; dances are available for the romantically-inclined, while tables to one side offer further places to sit and enjoy a drink and a nibble.

 Triple Sweet Café, September 2023

Nor is sitting in or close to the café the only options for visitors to the island. Follow the steps at the front of the café’s grounds to the lowland area, and it will not open lead to the small dock mentioned above, but also opens the way to most of the other places where people can sit and cuddle or chat and pass the time. One of these – the little campsite – has a path curving away to it to where a second set of steps descend the hill from the café to reach the stone bridge as it hops of the water to the little island I also referenced above.

Low-lying and circular in nature, the island is home to ruins of an equally circular form. What they may represent is up to the imagination, but with the surrounding trees and flow of vines over the stonework, it forms another place of romance for dancers, the fountain at its centre completing the attraction of this quiet location.

Triple Sweet Café, September 2023

Like many places in Second Life, Triple Sweet Café is dressed for the Autumn / Fall, with many of the trees around the café heavy with leaves turning brown, gold and red, while some of the leaves having decided to make the jump for the ground, where the colours also reflect the time of year, even as racoons and squirrels roam. Also given the time of year, the trappings of Halloween have started to appear, both indoors and out.

Highly photogenic and finished with a fitting local soundscape, Triple Sweet Café makes for an inviting and engaging visit. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a coffee and a cinnamon roll with my name on them 🙂 .

 Triple Sweet Café, September 2023

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Art and a coffee in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
LiThO – The Tiny Art(ist) Gallery

Two of the things I can appreciate in life are coffee and art. When it comes to the former, I take pride in being both an appreciator and a creator; I very much believe in the “old” saying life is too short for bad coffee, and always enjoy a well-made cup and genuinely enjoy making my own from beans to cup (by way of automatic prosumer coffee maker or a Cafetiere / French Press or a Moka pot, depending on mood / company). When it comes to the latter, however, I’m strictly an appreciator because I can neither draw nor paint. 

However, with LiThO Gallery I’ve found that I can enjoy both – and can combine my coverage of the arts in SL with my occasional series of cafés and coffee houses in Second Life whilst also making my way back to the Corsica South Coasters community, which I’ve also written about on numerous occasions (most notably in covering exhibitions at NovaOwl Galleries). Sub-titling itself the tiny art(ist) Café, LiThO offers a neat little play on words whilst also fulfilling its primary purpose: a place to relax and enjoy art.

LiThO – The Tiny Art(ist) Gallery

The play on words – as the notes from owners Lizzy Swordthain and Tom Willis available from the café’s terrace explain – first off takes the short-form of lithography, the planographic method of printing developed by author and actor Alois Senefelder, and most frequently used initially for musical scores and maps. In the second, it is a tease on their SL names. It occupies one of three parcels the couple have developed, the one alongside the café offering an open-air event space (although the café also has one of its own up on the roof and reached via stairs to one side of the building). The reaming parcel, to the rear of the café, is a private home, the two separated by the gully and bridge – the latter marking the limit of public spaces.

As a gallery space, the café hosts modest exhibitions in casual boutique style. Pieces from the invited artist are displayed the the two covered wings of the terrace and on the walls of the café’s rooms. At the time of my visit the gallery was playing host to an exhibition of Second Life landscapes by Michiel Bechir  – an artist whose work is always worth seeing. It opened on September 3rd, 2023, so has a while to run for those wishing to visit without feeling rushed. The select of pieces – 15 in total are well-suited to the ambience of the café and offer engaging views of some of Second Life’s most popular public regions, past and present.

LiThO – The Tiny Art(ist) Gallery

Cosy and nicely presented, LiThO makes for an easy-going visit, and the trails and paths around it offer opportunities for exploration.

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An everglades autumn at Tilheyra in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Tilheyra, September 2023 – click any image for full size

In May 2022, I visited Tilheyra, a Full region leveraging the private region land capacity bonus and designed by Teagan Lefevre as a means to showcase her TL Designs brand. It’s a place blogged about here – but that was spring 16 months ago; time has marched on, and those of us in the northern hemisphere are watching autumn stride towards us, and Second Life being what it is, Tilheyra has also marched forward.

I was recently made aware of this by Teagan herself, who invited me to re-visit the region and view its latest redressing. In particular, the estate has been extended with the additional of a Homestead region, which Teagan and her team have called Kuulua. It has been combined with Tilheyra to form a continuous landscape modelled after US swamplands.

Tilheyra, September 2023
Fall unfurls its colours in such splendour, we are but forced to take notice of it. Tilheyra, welcomes you to wade through the everglades, tour the swamps by foot or by boat, and taste the delicious flavours that autumn in the bayou brings.

– Tilheyra About Land

Given this description, and as one would expect, both of the regions present a low-lying landscape rich in trees and cut through with water as it forms natural channels and pools. Some of the latter are open, others increasingly choked by reeds and wetlands grasses, the greenery providing – if any were needed – perfect cover for local alligators as they prowl the shallows.

Tilheyra, September 2023

Sitting solidly towards the centre of this setting is a town. It is a place of indeterminate age; some of the buildings within it have the appearance of belonging to a grander setting whilst others – well, perhaps not so much; however all are showing signs of being past their prime. Roads, tracks and trails spread outward from the town, some of them crossing the water by means of bridges, all of variable designs and solidity – including one which started life as railway carriage! It a network of trails and paths which might be seen as a web spreading out through the swamplands, the town being the spider so often at the heart of a web; only rather than waiting for prey, the town awaits visitors to get caught in the unusual beauty of the landscape and itself.

During my May 2022 visit to Tilheyra I noted that while most of the region was open to the public, it also presented a number of rental properties. This is still the case with this latest iteration, with houseboats and cabins available for rent. All are clearly signed as private, so the risk of trespass should be minimised.

Tilheyra, September 2023

Those wanting to explore will find a lot to see, from places to eat to hangouts for passing the time – there’s even a corner memorial to pets that have passed on, tucked away in a corner. For the more adventurous, there’s a small dock on the shoreline of Kuulua, offering rowing boats and little Culprit speed boats for those who wish to explore the waterways.

Caught under the reds, greens and golds of autumn and framed by a sky in which both the Sun and the Moon might be found, the Tilheyra wetlands avoids the clichés often found within swamp-themed regions (such as an over-abundance of alligators or a “haunted” cabin or two), and instead presents an engaging and very natural setting, available for those seeking a home, and a destination for explorers and photographers.

Tilheyra, September 2023

My thanks to Teagan for the invite!

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Elvion’s ode to Nature in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Elvion, September 2023 – click any image for full size

It’s been a good few months since my last visit to Elvion, so when Cube Republic sent me a link to an image showing the region’s current iteration, I realised it was high time I dropped in again.

The work of region holders Bo Zano (BoZanoNL) and his SL/RL partner, Una Zano (UnaMayLi), Elvion has tended to shift between Homestead and Full regions, but whichever it has occupied, it has never failed to offer settings of intrinsic natural beauty rich in detail and thoroughly photogenic.

Most often the builds are focus on very pastoral settings, rich in flora and fauna, and sometimes with a lean towards fantasy environments. Some iterations, however, have at times touch on more rural environments – such as with the design the couple presented back towards the start of 2023 (see: Elvion’s coastal retreat in Second Life). With the September iteration, Bo and Una take the region in another direction, offering a setting reflecting the ecological threat of climate change / global warming and the effect it is set to have on the likes of coastal cities and towns.

Elvion, September 2023
With rising global temperatures cities become less habitable. Nature is taking back and people are migrating to the country. Except some, who find peace and see the beauty.

– Elvion About Land

However, this shouldn’t be taken to mean this current iteration of Elvion is in any way a treatise on the threat of climate change and rising sea levels. Rather it is a visual ode to the fact that nature has a way of taking care of her own and redressing the balance when it comes to humanity’s claims on the land, even after those claims may have resulted in the land being ravaged beyond hope.

Elvion, September 2023The core of the build suggests the outskirts of a city or town, probably coastal in nature, and where an elevated freeway once provided rapid access to the heart of the conurbation without a lot of tedious mucking about navigating the gridwork of edge-of-town streets or dealing with locals, the broad lanes of the road instead being raised away from all that to run alongside the rail tracks which once carried goods trains on their backs.

However, the traffic carrying days of both rail and road have long passed; the freeway is in almost total collapse, the rail lines similarly broken and incapable of carrying. Even the buildings rising above or visible from the elevated roadway have clearly been long deserted, with some showing signs of being close to joining some of their brethren in collapse. At ground level, streets have largely vanished, becoming overgrown with weeds and grasses or lost under pools and channels where water has naturally taken command.

Elvion, September 2023

Exactly what has happened here is open to interpretation. Did the sea levels rise sufficiently to start drowning the town, resulting in its abandonment? Did it suffer the battering force of one or more hurricanes or typhoons so severe, abandonment rather than recovery was seen to be the only sensible option? was it broken by the force of a tsunami which originated across the seas but spent its fury here? The story is yours to decide.

What does appear to be clear is that whatever happened, it occurred long enough ago for Nature engage in the long, slow process of reclamation, and is now a good way along that path. The hardtop of roads and parking lots is being taken over by weeds and grass; vines hang from the sides of shops and the barriers guarding the edge of elevated road sections; a children’s play area is now little more than a rusted hulk, its tone matching the majority of the remaining vehicles scattered throughout – some of which are sprinkled across the freeway as if they were, for whatever reason, deserted in a rush by owners and passengers alike.

Elvion, September 2023

Elsewhere the presence of water along some of the depressions caused by former roads is such that little island have had time to be established and freshwater ponds form, offering homes for a range of waterfowl and wildlife. Even the wrecks of vehicles have become so accepted that they are now little more than perches from which heron can watch for signs of passing fish in the waters around them. Bear and beaver are equally at home here now, as are deer, whilst geese find the setting more than acceptable as a stop-over during their long migration flights.

Also scattered throughout the setting are signs that not everyone has fled this place; to the south, for example, someone has created a little homestead for themselves. A wind turbine provides lighting for the simple shack, chickens and goats are being reared, horses looked after (including one that will rez rideable copies of itself, and a canoe is kept in good order, presumably for fishing trips.

Elvion, September 2023

This is not the only sign of human habitation. Elsewhere, someone has built a raft while boardwalks and decks and scattered around on and over the waters, and at least one tree appears to have been felled to create a makeshift bridge over a water channel.  But whether this is all the work of those living at the homestead, or whether it speaks to a little community of people holding-out among the ruins is for you to decide. And given there are these signs of habitation, so too can be found places to sit and pass the time, and appreciate the beauty of the setting.

As always with Elvion, there is a tremendous amount to see and appreciate with this build; far more than either my wittering here or meagre images herein can convey. As such, and as always, a visit is highly recommended.

Elvion, September 2023

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Melu’s Horizons and AI ladies in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Melusina Parkin, September 2023: Horizons

Melusina Parkin has been expanding both her main gallery spaces and her exhibitions of late, with the former now presenting two individual gallery spaces above her main store, which she is using to host a total of four new collections of her work, three of which see Melusina dip her fingers into the world of AI art.

Both of the gallery spaces can be reached via Melu’s landing point, which also provides access to her art deco store and annex, or can be reached via the individual SLurls provided below, with galleries and store locations also being linked via teleport disks as well.

As an entirely arbitrary decision on my part, I’m starting with the Black Gallery. This is in fact split into two independent levels, also linked by the teleport disks, allowing it  to host two separate exhibitions. The first is Horizons, located in the Black Gallery 2. Taken from within Second Life, it presents a collection of 20 images captured in Melu’s familiar minimalist style.

Melusina Parkin, September 2023: Horizons

As the title of the collection suggests, each of these 20 images offers a unique view out towards a horizon. From deserts to views out over open waters, from fields of ripening crops stretching out into the far distance to looking across coastal sands to where the water takes over (or conversely from the shallows of the water back across the costal sands, these are all expressive pieces suggestive of a vast openness – even the one showing the sand/grass dappled flatness of a region awaiting the touch of terraforming tools.

True, some include evidence of life – a fence separating land from sea; a bench awaiting tired legs to lighten their load for a while; a train line cutting a horizontal divide beteen observer and distant horizon. But these only serve to heighten the sense of vastness inherent within these images. But “vastness” does not necessarily equate to “emptiness” – and to think otherwise would be a mistake.

With her photography, Melu is a storyteller. Or perhaps a better term might be story prompter; within all of her photography it is what isn’t seen that captivates; the suggestions of stories hovering just at the edge of the frame as each picture prods us to see beyond the literal. For example:  what might come thundering down that train track, shattering the peace, and who or what might it be carrying a to where? What is the promise of the far side of the sea, or what new adventure await beyond the broken horizon presented by the approaching foreshore? What might yet be raised from the flat evenness of an untouched region, and who might one day explore its wonders? The opportunities to create stories and tales is as vast as the spaces Melu presents within these 20 pieces.

Melusina Parkin, September 2023: 100 Retro Ladies

On the level below, is the first of the three AI related collections Melusina is currently presenting. Entitled 100 Retro Ladies, it comprises four sets of 25 images apiece. Each set is framed by a colour, and all are built around a theme of fashion at the height of the Art Deco era in Europe (early 1920s through early 1930s) – a time when women started to embody a new boldness and drive towards self-recognition, greater expression and more social freedom.

Each set of images – each named for the tint which largely defines them: Red, Teal, Black and Ivory – presents itself five pictures as a time around the gallery walls (so a total of only 20 images is displayed at any given time. To see the remaining images within each colour set, click on the white panels on which each group of pictures is mounted.

Sitting between the Black Gallery and Melu’s shop is the Minimum Gallery, home to two further exhibitions of AI-based art: Broken Mirrors and Kisses. both again present women who, in terms of look and style, might be seen as being draw from the 1920s.

Melusina Parkin, September 2023: Kisses

As noted above, and thanks to movements such as the drive for emancipation in the early 20th century, coupled with (in Europe at least) the need for women to take up functions and work normally the preserve of men as a result of the Great War, the 1920s was a period where women in the western world were starting to spread their wings and seek greater and more open freedoms from the strictures imposed by society. Kisses is a direct reflection of this, depicting and reflecting a period when a part of that greater expressiveness took the former of more open displays of affection / love / sexuality, be it in the form of a simple chaste kiss on the lips through to something deeper and indicative of desires beyond friendship / affection.

On the upper level of the gallery, Melu presents the most  – for me – compelling of the three AI-related collections, Broken Mirrors. I say this not to diminish Kisses or 100 Retro Ladies is any way, but because within this collect is a rich narrative depth which naturally attracts  whilst also giving out something of a challenge. Within them, we are encouraged not not to just see images of women before broken mirrors, but to contemplate how we might better understand the myriad facets of personality and self, and how we might find a more integrated life by doing so, as Melu notes in the introduction to this collection:

Mirrors are fragile and it’s very easy that they get broken. Nonetheless, even a broken mirror can be helpful. Try to look at your image on a broken mirror. You could be frightened or intrigued:  you can think that the fragmented image you see says that you are overwhelmed, destroyed, cut in pieces by your problems, trauma issues. Or you can see those fragments as different parts of yourself, and seeing them can be helpful in knowing each of them better, and trying to make them live and interact together successfully.

– Melusina Parkin, Broken Mirrors

Melusina Parkin, September 2023: Broken Mirrors

All individually engaging, the AI collections presented within Broken Mirrors, Kisses  and 100 Retro Ladies are a new an interesting extension to Melusina’s art, one which offers something of a unique approach in using AI toolsets compared to some other artists experimenting with the medium. Meanwhile, and for those who prefer, Horizons demonstrates Melu is not abandoning her flair for presenting equally engaging Second Life focused photographic art.

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