More great Oyster Bay photos

I ran into Texanna Schumann at the Playboy sim while setting up for DeepSexyCool: CultureBeats, and she told me that she had taken a couple snaps from Oyster Bay and posted them on her blog. How nice!

Origin Rang, from his amazing performance:

And Cheen Pitney’s golden eagle:

Thanks, Texanna!

All set up for DeepSexyCool: Culturebeats!

The better part of the day has been spent in the Playboy sim, working on the DeepSexyCool: Culturebeats show.  I’m tight on time, so I asked Isolde Flamand to take some quick snapshots to set the scene for this evening’s party….

Starax’s studies in horses

Crescent Moon and Oyster Bay dig deep into the Hidden Starax! inventory for 2 pieces from February 2004 – BLACK HORSE and WILD. The 61 prim BLACK HORSE appears to be Starax’s first attempt at the horse figure, which morphed into the 247 prim (more than Achilles!) WILD. WILD captures a woman trying to tame a wild horse. The tension of the challenge is deftly sculpted by Starax Statosky. Some impressive work, indeed!

Admire these works – and get your free copy of Starax’s SAMSON (only through Weds.!).

[Special thanks to Daedalus Young for the great snapshots!]

“When Worlds Collide”

Cypress Rosewood had me on his show – which featured great ambient music and….wait, who’s the bald guy in the back? (Hee hee – none of my prim objects, like hair, would rez!) The crowd was really strong, including friends like Jordan Morgenrote (red hair).

It was a fun discussion and went REALLY fast! When the podcast is posted, I’ll offer a link. Thanks to Cypress Rosewood for the opportunity to talk about Oyster Bay and the SL art/music scenes, and to Isolde Flamand for the photos!

Sasun’s March ’07 ArtTalk featured in SLArt Magazine

ArtWorld Market offers a condensed transcript of Sasun Steinbeck’s acclaimed Oyster Bay ArtTalk on 20 March 2007 as the cover feature of the Summer 2007 SLArt Magazine. What a wonderful surprise!

While it’s been a few months since the event (Ina Centaur’s photo from the ArtTalk above), the discussion outlined in the article rings true. The introduction of sculpted prims aside (and it is a VERY significant development that warrants further discussion elsewhere), Sasun’s comments that scripted artwork are the future of SL art remain true and likely will for the foreseeable future. It’s motion, texture, sound, immersiveness and interactivity that makes SL art so fascinating – and all of that is done through scripting. There will always be a place for great prim-based artwork (the popularity of the Hidden Starax! show is a fine example), but I’m seeing so much more innovation and growth in the script-based community.

Stepping out(side Oyster Bay) this week

It promises to be an interesting week for yours truly as two public appearances will raise the profile for Oyster Bay within the Metaverse and, perhaps, within Real Life.

Monday night (7-8PM SLT), Cypress Rosewood will host me on “When Worlds Collide,” a weekly live avatar interview that broadcasts live over the air into Nashville, Tennessee and from their inworld studio in Jarang. Notable notable past guests include a couple friends of Oyster Bay, sculptor Cheen Pitney (podcast) and musician AldoManutio Abruzzo (podcast). This is a rescheduled appearance, and while I’m grateful that Cypress was able to squeeze me back in after my Real Life went sour for a patch….I really have to wonder why he wouldn’t take advantage of the opportunity and bump me from the schedule altogether! Seriously, I’m looking forward to it and will do my darndest to make the hour interesting.

Right on the heels of Cypress’ show is a really interesting bit of exposure for the Second Life art scene – a 4-hour art show at the Playboy sim during DJ Doubledown Tandino‘s weekly “DeepSexyCool” show. On Tuesday from 6-10PM SLT, the partiers will get to check out a fantastic array of 2D (read: wall-hangable) art and 3D (read: sculpture) pieces. This is an INCREDIBLE opportunity to expose SL residents to the incredible art resources at its disposal; Doubledown’s shows are popular, and the overlap between the traditional Oyster Bay visitor and the DeepSexyCool partier is quite small…so we can expect a lot of fresh eyes for this show.

I’ve spent about a month acclimating myself to the 2D scene, adding some fresh faces (at least to me) to known artisans like Finny Yates and Isolde Flamand. In fact, I believe one artist is making their SL debut at the show!

On the 3D front, plan on seeing some familiar names, like Sabine Stonebender, Sasun Steinbeck, Breeze Winnfield, Zero Ball, Syler Piccard (and me) – but augmenting pieces that have seen the light of Oyster Bay with other pieces from the artists’ inventory. Plus, as I set the show up, I expect to dig a little into my private collection of sculpture aquisitions. It’s somewhat exciting to have 8,000 prims at my disposal…not that I’ll come close to using them all!

Cool art, GREAT music from SL’s best DJ and a really nice beach party atmosphere…this should be a GREAT time. (And for the squeamish among you, please know my instructions on this show were to keep nudity to a bare minimum and refrain from offering erotica.)  Hats off to Doubledown for making art a cornerstone of this great SL show!

On the home front: Hidden Starax! continues at Oyster Bay, with a new piece on the “featured” platform tonight, and new pieces on both the featured platform and a new FREE, copiable Starax sculpture both rezzing on Wednesday night. Talk about exciting!

SL’s Saturday night party of parties: Drama Libre!

Isolde Flamand published her recent interview with Peachy Sassoon and Xerxes Sismondi, co-organizers of the weekly Saturday night costume-themed dance party, Drama Libre.  It’s a great read and a terrific way for people to blow off steam after a long week…and share a little creativity with regard to the theme of the week.  I make a point of attending most every Saturday night event (there’s a Thursday night event for those who have early bedtimes); if you’re not busy and are looking for a good CLEAN time, swing by Drama Libre!

Drama Libre runs from 9PM-midnight SLT every Saturday.  You can get their ever-changing weekly LM by looking them up in Search-Events.

Oyster Bay’s broken “Light Mill”

Here’s a hard question: If you own a gallery and a scripted piece is broken, what do you do if the artist and owner of the piece is no longer in-world?

Do you remove the broken piece, knowing that it will never come back? Or do you leave it up, imperfect as it is? The piece still has value – its texturing is still as great as ever, its form is smooth and flowing…but its script is broken. The wind tosses the propeller to and fro. So sad.

Second Life misses you, Pakito Kawguichi.

TallGuy Kidd show recap

At long last, the TallGuy Kidd recap! Here are a few photos and comments on Wednesday night’s show:

The “have a friend write the recap” thing works so well that I asked the show promoter, Isolde Flamand, to briefly share her thoughts. Here’s what she had to say:

• The music had something for everyone–some fast, some sad, some mellow, some funny.
• TGK seemed to have as much fun as the audience, laughing and playing into the following hour.
• It was the kind of evening that used to only happen on summer nights in the backyard, when out of town company shows up and brings a guitar, singing songs after a barbeque.
• It had a kind of energy–seemed almost like we were participating in the concert, instead of just listening.

The thing that I noticed about TallGuy Kidd (besides the incredible number of women in the audience – guys, if you’re wondering where all the ladies in SL are, you’re clearly not at a TallGuy show), is his level of skill in performance.  He’s got a classic combination of clear, accessible lyrics and acoustic guitar prowess.

I listen to my share of real life singer songwriters like Shawn Mullins and David Baerwald, and TallGuy/Dale fits right into that mold. Yet TallGuy’s songs are perhaps a little more reflective than the two I mentioned. He has some incredibly heartfelt songs, such as “The Water is Wide” (which is written over a classic religious hymn), interspersed with the very funny “Yahoo! Song” and the kazoo-laden “Analog Guy in a Digital World.”

Like Mullins and Baerwald, TallGuy/Dale is a very strong performer who keeps his rock-solid fanbase happy while making a great first impression on TGK newbies. I think he made some new friends and fans on Wednesday night. Thanks to Isolde for putting the show together, and thanks to everyone who came out and enjoyed!

Oyster Bay by WindLight

Oh, Torley, you tease….

If you haven’t seen it yet, this is Cheen Pitney’s Bullrider. Of course, Torley’s using Windlight…and we can’t right now…so this is as good as you’re going to see it. Oh, I can’t wait. I had a taste of WindLight in the prior FirstLook viewer – it was SO choice!