The Art Farm

By Gemma Cleanslate

When I stopped by the LEA welcome center to see if anything new was going on I found a billboard for the ‘Art Farm.’ The name was intriguing so I hopped over to the region to see what it is. I found the sim divided into four areas with eclectic installations in each. I was happy to run into an artist working on her gallery, Elle Thorkveld. She filled me in on what she was doing and gave me information to help me understand the concept of the region. This is a coop art project involving all the group members of the Vaneeessa Blaylock group, (anyone can join) VB Friends. I would call it a work in progress for sure . It will be evolving and changing all the time for the next 6 weeks.

 There are four “lands” in which to play, they say. 

“MUGA - Medici University Gallery of Art - Exhibits & Classes. There are some galleries there to visit with many lovely pieces of art to view. I spent some time going through them . Director - Myra Wildmist and Jade Ravenheart (Cynn Blackrain)

WARD81 -WARD 81 is the studio space for artists with places to hang out / documentary photo Director - Oona Nostra (msbluerasp)

BABEL INFCALYPSE -Babel is the sandbox for all the artists to use and create. Director- Neeva Torok
 
LOW FIDELITY - Low Fidelity is for machinima and virtual performance art. Director - Newton (Lex Perdide)

Ward81 is a tribute to Mary EllenMark who passed away in the spring. and the artists are invited to live or hang out there and create as they wish. You will find tower in Babel and if you are into machinima, or art performances, you might like this area Low Fidelity. In Muga if you like to teach or learn go there. Stop and try the tai chi while you are roaming... very relaxing. For me, it brought back memories of my early days in Second Life when I went to do it at  Hosoi and Apollo. Sigh. I stood and watched Gwynie Beaumont (Gwynach) work for a while with her sculptures in front of her gallery. 

This creative activity rose out of a past work that I somehow missed. I spent some time talking to another artist that I had met in the past at Burn2, Veyot.  She explained it all to me and told me that it came from the Medici University ,  http://mediciuniversity.co.uk/  . This was new to me also , which appears to be an online university for arts and more. Edie1943 made the proposal to Medici University to use the region for this purpose. I found the proposal on the website and you can read it all there.  It all looks like so much fun and sharing for anyone who joins the group. If I could  build I might be tempted . If you can , why not try it all out and see what LEA provides for creative residents. “Come Play!" they say and mean it !Myra Wildmist was also very helpful in sorting me out with the directors names and checking my backstory. Check it out! 

I took a tour of the whole four areas on my segway to see what is there now. Veyot told me that some artists would be creating items short term during the whole exhibit so I plan to go visit often during the next six weeks to see the changes. http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/LEA28/108/119/22  is a starting point near the galleries. a good place to begin your tour.

Gemma Cleanslate 

Edit: we goofed and accidentally titled it "Ant Farm" at first.