Hey! That’s MY Bus!

Sometimes life is simply too funny in how it all comes together in one perfect moment. Yesterday was the opening of Prandi Capalini’s photography exhibit at The Small Gallery in Shengri La. I know am boring but I was working at landscaping and building. I didn’t really feel like I had time to take off to play. But I have learned that play (and SLEEP) are actually VERY necessary if I am to keep functioning. Or semi-functioning. So I headed off to the opening party.

Several good friends were there as well. We were chatting and discussing the photos (which were great, by the way). Suddenly I saw my name in chat. Dale was saying “I believe that is Ahuva’s bus.” My bus???? I strolled down the gallery to look. OH MY GOODNESS!!!!! MY BUS!!! IT WAS MY BUS!!!!! The bus under which I originally threw myself a year ago. The bus that changed my life. *grin* The bus under which I am currently pinned around the clock. LOL. Yes, I love it. Well, despite Adricantfarm’s comments on Dale’s blog, I do not find that bus scary at all anymore. (Okay, maybe a little at times.) The general consensus was that Night Bus had to come home with me. *grin* And it did.

Prandi has many lovely pictures that are NOT buses set to run you down. I think my favorite was Druzy, a wonderful soft and touching portrait. Had I not seen “Night Bus”, “Run for the Roses” would be hanging on my wall now. But I am severely limited these days by lack of wall space and lack of prims!!!!

Be sure to head on down to the gallery. Prandi was delightful (LOL – we were all burying him under a flood of IMs) and the photos are very enjoyable and intriguing. And check out “Night Bus” – although my view always seems to be from underneath, Prandi got a much better angle on it!

Happy Rez Day, Oura!

Oura had her first rez day this week! We celebrated by hitting as many events as we could in a limited period of time. We both love live music and dancing so you KNOW there was going to be a lot of that!

We started the evening at the Art Box. Dale blogged about this recently. It is a wonderful build and a lot of fun! Oura had been there earlier in the day and enjoyed it so much she insisted we go back so that I could try it. We picked Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks. One of the many nice features of Art Box is the background/description they supply for the pictures.
A Sonnet of Love / Rob Hefferan.
Rob Hefferan is an extraordinarily talented figurative artist & portrait painter, born in 1968 in Warrington, Cheshire, England. For Hefferan, realism is about bringing an awareness of the everyday in a very beautiful and optimistic way. Specialising in the female form, he says “”I aim to capture the character and soul of the sitter and to freeze that moment forever”.
Nighthawks / Edward Hopper
Edward Hopper, born 1882, was a prominent American realist painter, his piece ‘Nighthawks’ being generally considered Hopper’s most famous painting, as well as one of the most recognizable in American art. Painted immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941, it reflected the sense of gloom prevailing in the country at the time. However, the portrayal of modern urban life as empty or lonely is a common theme throughout much of Hopper’s work; he said, “unconsciously, probably, I was painting the loneliness of a large city.”
The Art Box ‘Nighthawks’ set was used in the creation of a machinima film intended to capture this sense of isolation in 3D. The film is on YouTube here: Nighthawks

From there we jumped to the Gallery of Light at the Crown and Pearl. Bailey Dazy is displaying her photography there this month and the opening for the show was that night. Besides being a fun person, gorgeous Neko and great dancer, Bailey is a resident of Angel Square and a DJ at the Crown and Pearl. About herself she said: “Second Life photography is a passion; it’s something I truly enjoy. When the mood strikes, I shoot… and I often enjoy what I see.” You can see Bailey’s photos at the CnP or on her Flickr site. Much as we wanted to stay and keep partying at the CnP to the tunes Bailey Longcloth was playing, time was working against us if we wanted to hit the live performances.

So it was off to Noma Falta rocking SL from Wiseguys. I love some of the dance balls I encounter. I don’t know about you, but I have NEVER done backflips or splits while I am dancing in RL. In SL, however, I can bend like Gumby. Better. So Oura caught these pics of us dancing on our heads. It helps when there is no law of gravity. By the way – if you notice the improved photo quality, that is because Oura took all these pictures. *grin* The difference is immediately apparent. Yay Oura!

While we were at Toby’s I found out that my friend Bob was DJ’ing at Ruby’s, rocking with the blues. Okay, I love the blues. I wanted to hear Bob DJ’ing. So although it hurt, we left Noma early and went to Ruby’s. I don’t think I’ve ever been there before. I like the dance floor and the synchronized dance balls. Faust had caught up to us at that point and he was partying alongside us. *grin* I think I’ve mentioned my good friend Faust before. Check out his cool hat.

We were having a great time at Ruby’s, dancing up a storm. But we were racing against the clock still and needed to make Von Johin’s concert at Ruby’s. *grin* Never a dull moment in SL. Von was great as ever. Faust saw someone wearing a green dragon on his shoulder and fell in love with the dragon. Faust IM’d the gentleman, who told Faust that the dragon was found in a hunt. I mentioned this to Oura. LOL. Oura not only KNOWS everything, she probably HAS everything in her inventory. In this case, she did NOT have the dragon, but she did know which hunt and which store. I am happy to say that Faust was able to track down the proper hunt and find the prize and now sports a dragon on HIS shoulder. *grin* It takes so little to make some of us happy. My dear friend Nat often has a bunny on HER shoulder and it always makes me smile.

The evening was getting long at this point. Von’s sim was full and Jonah couldn’t tp in to join us. I decided that perhaps it was time for me to call it quits – I’d already done quite a bit of adventuring on the road earlier in the day. So we timed it well and I tp’d out and Jonah was able to tp in and join Oura and Faust. I headed home to get tucked into bed and sleep, in preparation for a new day of partying!

Happy Rez Day, Oura! I hope you had as much fun as I did! I’m so glad we’re friends! Ahuva <3 Oura.

I LOVE the Rabbicorn

Love, love love the Rabbicorn. I WANT the Rabbicorn. I NEED the Rabbicorn. I tried repeatedly to steal the Rabbicorn from the exhibit. I told Tez and Bryn that I wanted a gift shop at the end of the exhibit so I could buy my own Rabbicorn and take her home with me. *grin* Merchandising IS where the money is, no? Oh yes. And I LOVE Bryn Oh and I LOVE Tezcatlipoca Bisiani.

This is MY blog so I get to talk about the exhibit from my point of view. *grin* First – if you like total surprises, stop reading now. I will do my best not to tell/ruin the story, but you may get hints anyway. Second, I want to tell you how powerfully the exhibit affected me and so it will be “about me”.

I confess – I didn’t want to go to the opening last night. I’d spent the RL day down the shore, soaking up the sun and the surf. I was TIRED. I was also a bit “put-off” by Tez’s description of the exhibit: “Bryn Oh’s new build The Rabbicorn tells the melancholy origin story of the title character, an original robotic being in the Bryn Oh universe.” I am NOT into “melancholy”. I’m really not into “Art”. In my family – I am definitely the Philistine, the one on whom great Art is wasted. I am that horrible person: I know what I like. But when I IM’d Tez to make an excuse, I realized that I was going. Jonah had aleady said he would like to go too, so I pinged him and said “We’re on, kiddo.”

We tp’d to the landmark. It was sparkly and noisy and dark and confusing. I am easily confused in SL. I never quite understand directions that are, apparently, obvious to eveyone else. I don’t see what I am supposed to touch, where I am supposed to tp, where to position my camera. As an example – I had to ask Bryn, who was greeting arrivals, how to even get out of the entryway and to the start of the exhibit. *grin* Other people seemed to be finding their way with no trouble. Jonah had to come back and practically drag me to the first stop.

I hated the first stop. I already hated being confused, hated being tired, hated the constructs which looked creepy. I didn’t realize until after I struggled to read the text on the table that I could have TOUCHED it and read it with no trouble. (After a year, in SL – wouldn’t you think I’d KNOW that?) I hated the story. It sounded creepy and violent. I already had “melancholy” stuck in my mind. So I whined at Jonah, he gave me explicit directions on how to find the teleporter and we went to the 2nd stop.

I still hated it. Same reasons as above. And it was TOTALLY black when we arrived. Sigh. I fixed that by turning around. But at least I was beginning to figure out how to move about, where to find the storyline, what I was supposed to be seeing in the build. At least I was no longer totally baffled. Just cranky and anticipating melancholy and misery. Then we got to the 4th stop. Where I finally SAW the Rabbicorn (she’d been there before, you know. I simply didn’t recognize her). I understood who the main character was, what she looked like – I finally started to connect. I have to say that I’d been IM’ing poor Tez as well as Jonah. I begged Tez back before the first stop for clues on how to navigate and an explanation of WHAT I was supposed to be “getting” out of this. But here at this stop- I began to “see” the Rabbicorn.

The Rabbicorn is adorable. I love her. I looked at her face, her ears, her horn, her legs, her feet. I love her. It was that simple. Now as we moved through the story I got ANGRY. I didn’t want anything bad to happen to MY Rabbicorn. I IM’d Tez and warned him that if Bryn allowed anything bad to happen to the Rabbicorn, I would NEVER go to another Bryn Oh exhibit. Ever. Tez merely sent back a non-committal emoticon. I raged at Jonah. I don’t LIKE bad things. My Rabbicorn was endangered. Oh SPARE me that a good story line needs conflict, suspense, tension. Don’t hurt MY Rabbicorn!

Bryn herself appeared at this point. We told her how much we were enjoying the build. I told her that I was going to be extremely unhappy if anything happened to my Rabbicorn (yes, I did indeed have the effrontery to call her MY Rabbicorn. I don’t think Bryn minded.) Bryn told me to have faith. THAT did indeed pick up my spirits. I trusted Bryn. I lost the last lingering crankiness ( I really did NOT want to be manipulated into “bad things”). Poor Jonah. I became totally immersed in the story. Poor Tez as well, who was also suffering a running commentary.

I took dozens of pictures. *grin* Jonah and I spent hours in the story, talking and exploring. At one point when we couldn’t find the Rabbicorn (and be glad I was NOT IM’ing YOU at that point) we had to fly, cam, search hunt, I went a little, um, extreme. *grin* I bet that surprises you. The build is so clever – until you found the Rabbicorn – you didn’t find the tp to the next spot. Without Jonah I’d never have found her. I had the right idea, but didn’t take it far enough. For those who like me need help – think UP. WAY up.

At the penultimate stop, there is a TV. Click the TV to get the backstory (part 1) of “The Rabbicorn”. It is a short video – less than 10 minutes. Bryn told us that The Rabbicorn is part 2 of a 3 part series. I can’t wait. I love The Rabbicorn. It is a wonderful, exciting, joyous, fulfilling experience. It took me out of cranky reluctance into refreshed joy. Please go. I will be going back and back and back again, taking all of you.

Thank you Jonah, for being such a fantastic companion. You are patient, good-humored, fun, clever and you put up with my dramatic proclamations and exclamations. It was a better experience for being shared with you. LOL. I’m not sure that YOU can make the same claim.

Thank you Bryn. Thank you Tez. Thank you for sharing your visions, your creations, for making the effort to bring art and beauty and fantasy and vision to everyone. Thanks to the IBM Exhibition Space. Without such sponsorship, there cannot be art for everyone to enjoy.

THE RABBICORN by BRYN OH

Let me confess right up front – I am lifting the details about the exhibit from my friend Andrew Sempere (Tezcatlipoca Bisiani). Andrew is an artist in his own right, with many RL exhibits around the country. But as usual with the friends I mention here – Andrew is much more than that. He is intelligent, funny, kind and generous. He has a passion for the arts and for making art available to the rest of us, who may not be as connected or as informed. He serves as curator for many institutions, including the IBM EXHIBITION SPACE (IBM 3, Secondlife). The IBM space (for which Andrew deserves a great deal of credit for both the concept and the actuality) opened last month with a stunning exhibit by Glyph Graves – truly phenomenal. I mentioned it here and I do hope you saw it.

Friday, July 10, 2009, the second exhibit opens at IBM 3 (slurl IBM 3 (55, 50, 23)), Bryn Oh’s The Rabbicorn. “The Rabbicorn tells the melancholy origin story of the title character, an original robotic being in the Bryn Oh universe. The Rabbicorn exists in a world of poetic narrative, subtle ambient sound and beautiful visual artistry, part Gorey, part Poe, part Velveteen Rabbit, but with an original take that is uniquely contemporary, and uniquely Bryn.” Andrew’s post has more details about Bryn’s style and technique. I urge you to click through and read it.

I am including the publicity photos, courtesy of Bryn Oh and Andrew. Thank you both very much for providing/sharing the photos.

I was totally blown away by the first exhibit. Jaymin and I had a wonderful time exploring that together. I cannot wait for tomorrow night to see Bryn Oh’s work and lose myself in the art and the story. Ping me and let’s explore this exhibit together. It’s more fun with friends. *grin* Always.

Juxtaposition

Calli has a new show opening tonight. Another prolific friend. But one who always has time for fun and teaching. I showed you Calli and I playing on her Stylish Carriage. I now have my OWN shopping cart. More to come on THAT. So I’m not really sure when Calli has time to take the insightful and provocative photos that I love so much, but I guess if you never sleep, you have time to work AND play. And teach friends about AOs. *grin* You are great, Calli! I will do my best to make that opening but oh my – that is LATE for me. Especially as I am writing this at 2am SLT.

Juxtaposed: verb -placed side by side, often for comparison

Juxtaposed – an exhibit of unretouched SL images by Callipygian Christensen and Bakersfield Kidd.

Two SL photographers using the same set of tools – the SL interface snapshot function and windlight graphics, with no post production. While one might expect similar results, one look at Calli’s rugged cliff face in Error, beside Baker’s rugged boxer’s face, with its bruises and cuts will dispell that notion. The two styles are very different, and juxtaposed they demonstrate the flexibility the SL graphics functions provide.

Bakersfield is an SL photographer, Live performer, Writer and Blogger.

” My style in photography is more of a Pulp/ Trash Art blend that is heavily influenced by cinema and comic books. Ive worked professionally, both as a writer and photographer for most of my adult life, its a passion that i try my best to transcend into my work here in SL. I shoot raw ‘in World’ captures. Everything you see in the pics is exactly how i see it on my screen when i shoot. I really suck at Photoshop, to be frank about it. So, I do my best to twist and tweak and accelerate the interface of SL, and the rest is just lighting and compostion that ive learned in real life. I get alot out of shooting this way both cause it suits my abilities naturally, but also i like showing people what is still available if you want to shoot raw, no photoshop’n and no post production.”

Callipygian has been shooting images in SL for almost 3 years.

“I’ve come full circle it seems. I started out with images using no post-production (Photoshop was not part of my vocabulary back then , but I learned to use Photoshop to create windlight skies and skin tones long before they existed in SL. Now that windlight exists, I still use Photoshop to ‘cleanup’ a lot of my images- taking out the odd angles and sharp points created by SL poseballs and avatar mesh, tweaking the images for depth of colour and realism. Windlight has let me revisit unretouched images, and I am enjoying the exploration of what can be done to create glorious sunsets and lush landscapes within SL alone.”

Juxtaposed will be on exhibit at the Museum of SL Photography from June 19 through July 12.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Fashionista/189/99/21

An opening reception will be held on Friday, June 19 from 8 – 9.30 PM, SL time. Join us for live ‘lumpy’ jazz as Kyle Beltran plays his unique blend of original, classic and contemporary favourites, start some lively discussion and view some beautiful art.

Calli’s Second Look

Calli has opened a new art exhibit. I was fortunate enough to “sneak in” for a preview. Quite honestly – these may be some of the best photos I’ve seen from Calli. They are simply great. Each time I thought I’d found my “favorite”, I moved on to the next and thought “Oh wow, I HAVE to have this one, this is my favorite.” It’s a great, great show.

*Grin* Calli is wonderful and talented and beautiful and generous and intelligent and funny. BUT!!! As stupendous as Calli is, and despite all the wonderful things I could/should say about her….. hey! This is MY blog. *grin* It’s about ME. LOL. You know – it’s ALL about me. (Although I have at least 3 friends who hold the erroneous belief that it is all about THEM.) So… since this is about ME – can you guess which photo is my favorite??? And now back to the featured star of this post and her invitation to you:

Callipygian Christensen invites you to enjoy ‘A Second Look’, 12 brand new images of Second Life now on display as a guest exhibit at the Untold Ark.

A second look can mean many things; as I go through the images I take I often set a number aside as not usable, but as I look through the ones I am about to delete some part of the image jumps out and demands a second look; sometimes as I look at various locations I don’t ’see’ an image but later, whether minutes or days, I might be there again with a different time of day or different windlight setting and on second look, an image is there; I guess every image taken here is actually a ‘Second look’ as well , and the 12 images in this exhibit, two of them totally unretouched snapshots, are images I feel deserve a second look through your eyes as well as mine.

The exhibit is at Untold Ark from June 4-30. http://slurl.com/secondlife/New%20Vice%20City1/15/74/22

GO!!!! You MUST see Glyph Graves exhibit

I have no words. I HAVE 90 pictures. This exhibit is phenomenal. Fantastic. Fun. A love story. A sad story. Maybe a hopeful story. Unbelievable. I do NOT want to hear that you have no time, blah blah. GO!
http://slurl.com/secondlife/IBM 2/165/17/22

AS usual, Bettina Tizzy writing for “Not Possible in RL” has the best description/explanation of the exhibit. And excellent pictures as well. Read her post.

I feel like a total newbie again. I am overcome with awe, wonder and joy. I am transported by the creativity and imagination. I have difficulty navigating 3D space. I cannot comprehend how Glyph can not only imagine this but create it. Incredible. Wonderful. Glyph, Tez – thank you so very very much.

I was lucky enough to explore with my good friend Jaymin. It’s much more fun with someone else. He saw so much that I didn’t see. And when I got stuck or fell through things – he was there to tp me back to where I should be. *grin* Thanks Jay!!! I have uploaded my photos to Flickr. I’m sorry – there are way too many pics of me in there – but I was trying to get some sense of proportion/perspective. I also thought that I would edit myself out of most. I had no idea I was going to end up with 90 pictures. So just ignore me…..

Art in SL

This is one of those weeks where I am a bit busy and don’t have much time to be creative on my own. So today I am lifting a post from my friend Andrew, who has introduced to me to soooooo much art in SL. He is an art curator as well as an artist in his own right. Andrew’s blog also has one of the best blog names that I’ve encountered: A repository of ten thousand indignities and the harbinger of God knew what. LOL. It is certainly evocative, no??

Andrew’s avatar, Tezcatlipoca Bisiani, my favorite purple avatar, is curator for the new two-sim IBM Exhibition Space, located on IBM2 and IBM3 in Second Life. The inaugural exhibition for the IBM Exhibition Space is Strangers Also Dance by Glyph Graves. Glyph is a Australian based artist whose interactive works incorporate sound, elaborate visuals and narrative.

I could lift all of Andrew’s blog, but you can click here and read it all for yourself. Even better – meet me there Saturday, May 23, 2009, 6pm SLT and we can all be part of a new, exciting SL experience.
http://slurl.com/secondlife/IBM 2/165/17/22

And as long as I am stealing from all my friends – *grin* – don’t forget that you should be checking out Chestnut’s weekly recommendations as well – she ALWAYS knows what’s happening and where to go.

AM Radio’s The Red and The Wild

I don’t know about your circles of friends, but it seems that everyone *I* know has made it to AM Radio’s latest build, The Red and the Wild. The absolute best write-up that I saw (of the many, many that are out there) was Bettina Tizzy’s on Not Possible IRL. Go there and read it.

Last night I took time out from scripting and building. (oh, B, I KNOW I am behind on the scripting…. I will get the touch event done today, I promise.) My brain was simply mush. As I sat there wondering what I was going to do with myself, my fellow bunny-hopper zazek pinged me. We last went egg hunting over 2 weeks ago. So after teasing about WHICH of us had been negligent in pinging, we decided to go check out The Red and the Wild. We had the great pleasure of meeting AM himself, as he rezzed into the farmhouse kitchen as zazek and I were sitting at the table chatting.

My photos, as you know, are not very good, but I hope they convey some of the warmth and fascination of this build. Go see it yourself. Look at Dale’s photos – he takes better pics than I do. He has several up on both his blog and Flickr. zazek and I had a good time, you will too.

Reminder: Fun things to do

Shengri La celebrates turning 3 tomorrow! Come and join in all the festivities! Of course, since this is MY blog and life IS all about ME…. don’t forget to come see the dancing fairies at 7am SLT on Saturday morning.

There is new art from Callipygian Chrstensen! Images by Calli invites you to The Gallery at Shengri La for the opening of the spring exhibition. There are two ‘Opening Reception and Meet the Artist’ times:

Friday, April 3, 12 noon to 1:30pm SLT
Friday, April 3, 6pm -8pm SLT

As always a new rotation means a new build of the gallery – 4 gallery spaces wrapped around the cliff, with a new collection of images of SL avatars, landscapes and still lifes. Bad boys smoking, lighthouses lighting, Monet-style impressionist pieces..the usual variety

Location: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Shengri%20La/242/128/60

As part of the Shengri La emergence festivities Calli has a restrospecitve of images of Shengri La, in the Small Gallery, and a collection of images of Spirit – the FRI opensim development project. Spirit is brand new and on the leading edge of OpenSim development. The images are located at the Information Centre in Shengri La and will be on view from noon on Saturday.

And thanks to Chadd!! He came by this morning to help me start the day out right! I realize that while I have LOTS of coffee, I am woefully short on vittles. But I managed to find a box of donuts and a piece of Kiwi cheesecake. How nutritious.