August 11, 2008 · Comments Off
Beauty Lain Bare
Photography by Michelle Babii
Words by Edna St. Vincent Millay
On exhibit at The Small Gallery, Shengri La from August 14 – September 28
Artist Opening 7 PM SLT, Thursday August 14
Artist’s Statement: Of all the visual wonders in both Real Life and Second Life, I have always found great beauty in stark and simple images; scenes that are not complicated yet have just enough detail to evoke a strong feeling. While I am looking at different scenes, I tend to gravitate to images that create feelings of loneliness and sadness, a certain quiet and pensive mood, and even to those that invite a bit of uneasiness.
Edna St. Vincent Millay, a famous American poet well known for her sonnets, had created quite a reputation as an outspoken, unconventional, austere, and even grim writer. In my mind, her stark emotional words seemed a match for the simple beauty I found in Silent. Pairing phrases by ESVM with each photograph seemed to be unfair to direct the viewer toward a particular story or mood rather than letting them come to their own conclusion. But then again, as we don’t respond the same way to visual cues, we may not interject the same emotion into the written word.
I understand the images will be a departure from the vividness, details, and color of Windlight but that is exactly my intention. A laying bare of beauty, if you will, devoid of the accoutrement offered to us by Photoshop and Windlight. The only tweaking was to cause the sky to be a shade of white in order to enhance the black and white quality in some of the photos. All photos were taken in the black and white sim called Silent. Any colored textures seen in the photos are what occur in the sim and are not post production additions.
Michelle Babii is a well-known and accomplished SL photographer, who has specialized in unretouched SL images. She is also co-owner of the Manzanillo Artists’ Enclave.
Categories: Fashion Research Institute · Shengri La · art · secondlife
Tagged: art, Callipygian Christensen, Edna St. Vincent Millay, exhibit, Michelle Babii, Shengri La Peace
June 20, 2008 · Comments Off
Charlot Dickins will be showing her bespoke sculptured prim sculptures in the Fashion Research Institute’s corporate headquarters in Shengri La Peace. This show will run from June 20 – July 27. Artist’s Opening is 5-7 pm SLT, June 20. Please come meet the artist and see this beautiful new show! Artist Statement below.
Artist’s Statement:
“Charlot Dickins – by request”
Charlot Dickins is the virtual alter ego of a really unkown real female person, who was fascinated with 3D for ages, but never could afford a decent software programme to try it out, nor did she see the use of making 3D builds -never to be watched by another eye of another living soul other than the ones she would be able to force- which would be, moreover, a great burden to her hard disk, that at the time had the size of one Mb. So for the sake of her bank account, a pleasant family life and a longer computer life, she left the 3D dreams where they belonged and forgot about them for a long, long time.
At the sight of the Second Life building tool, the real woman behind Charlot Dickins went wild, the slumbering 3D urge awoke and a process of unchained, neverending and addictive prim twisting and turning had begun. Moreover, Charlot Dickins does not like short sentences and therefore only writes very long ones, and just like Madcow Cosmos she likes to speak about herself in the third person.
This exhibition only shows sculptures Charlot Dickins made as a commission and gives you the opportunity to see them in one building, no need to wear out your prim shoes and go and look for them all over SL – if you might happen to detect that strange need deep in your inner self- and was an idea of, and made possible by, Callipygian Christensen, to whom she expresses her gratefulness. Thanks also go to Shenlei Flasheart of the Fashion Research Institute for providing the location.
To keep a certain uniformity and prevent the public from thinking that Charlot Dickins is a very unstable minded, mentally disordered and inconsequent avatar, the sculptures that are shown here are made for only three commissioners: Alexandar Vargas, Intlibber Brautigan and Jade Vandyke, to whom she also expresses her gratefulness.
Last but not least she would like to thank Carlbotd Truss, for giving her the opportunity to build as a very new born avatar and for supporting her building addiction.
Categories: Blogroll · Fashion Research Institute · Shengri La · art · micronation · secondlife
Tagged: art, Callipygian Christensen, Charlet Dickins, commission, exhibit, sculpture, Shenlei
