Friday, June 1, 2018

Raglan Shire Art Walk Does it Again


For a Lucky 13th Round

By Klaus Bereznyak

Open to be enjoyed until June 17th, The 13th Annual Raglan Shire Art Walk serves up an impressive cross-sectional variety of artwork for all tastes sprawled and nestled across four sims: Raglan Shire, Heron Shire, Morning Shire, and Athen Shire.


This is one of the highlights of the year hosted by the Raglan Shire tinies community who just entered their 11th year together. For five weeks, their home territory is inundated with biggies, stomping all over the place, and we are grateful they continue to host this event. Somehow Artwalk Director Karmagirl Avro, and her assistants Kayak Kuu and Shadow Marlin, ensure that the work of over a hundred artists is seen to be enjoyed. It's a "walk" so take your time.

Anyone can sign up and display their work: all levels of artists may show their works, and the only thing that seems to be excluded is photographs of real-life crafts. Artists arrive early on May the 11th to grab some hedge space and set up.


The variety of styles and subjects to be seen all at once is therefore one of the most striking things about this event. Here real-life photography by SimiXiamara1 faces SL photography by Lo. Coeur.


It would be rare in this world to see digital and real photographic work side by side along with real-life watercolours and manipulated Second Life pictures. This picture shows adapted SL photography by Free Dawn Voix and fractal work by Kraven Klees.


Several tinies have contributed exhibits to the mix. This picture shows 'My Tiny Life', a series by Kitty Huang, along with a watercolor by SkyBlue Earthboy.


Visitors can wander from sim to sim through the maze of levels, travel on a slow-moving 'hedgiepillar', or use the teleport boards provided to hop to the different areas, but it's easy to miss something. Each time I have been back in the last week, I have spotted something new. Most of the art displayed is for sale at prices fixed by the artists and ranging from 5L$ up into the thousands. There's something for all tastes and income levels.


The 2D work is concentrated on the network of hedge walls on the Raglan Shire Sim. Wild animals keep an eye on things. Here, a giraffe gazes hungrily at Tea Gupte's vegetable paintings.The 3D work is found mostly in the woods and along the water in Heron Shire, where it brings a magical aspect to the landscape.


Through the trees here can be seen the glitching triangles of Gravity by Elle Thorkveld, Stillpink's (pink) Memorial Tree, and Head + Brain by Otcoc.


Further along, with their feet in the water, can be found a build by Asmita Duranjaya, housing reliefs of carved Bactrian figures, alongside Terra Merhyem's Constellation of the Shaman.


Crossing over into Morning Shire, the visitor walks a path flanked by the canvasses of Kayly Iali and works by Giovanna Cerise before it opens out into parkland with more 3D installations such as the sculptures of Alander Starostin and SkyBlue Earthboy's immersive Healing Color Temple.


More 3D spills over into Athen Shire, where the eye is greeted by kienetic light sculpture by Slatan Dryke and iSkye Silverweb's Marble Dancers and purpose-built ArtWalk 2018 ColoursTower.


With so much on offer, it would be very hard for me to pick favourites. I blew my stipend pretty quickly, favouring affordable work by artists who were new to me and perhaps not seen every day on the grid. Filtered SL photography is probably represented more than any other approaches. However, close to where I first landed, I am glad I did not miss the portrait treatments by Caissa Amat.


The 13th Raglan Shire Art Walk is open until 17th June.

SLURLs:

Raglan Shire Art Area #1 - http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Raglan%20Shire/34/221/77
Raglan Shire Art Area #2  - http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Raglan%20Shire/68/148/58
Heron Shire Sculptures - http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Heron%20Shire/125/132/22
Morning Shire Sculptures - http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Morning%20Shire/206/166/22
Raglan Shire Art Area #4 - http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Raglan%20Shire/75/245/23
Athen Shire Sculptures - http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Athen%20Shire/69/245/23
Raglan Tree Art Gallery - http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Raglan%20Shire/122/59/59

Klaus Bereznyak


1 comment:

  1. thank you for this article featuring Artwalk! We had the highest percent of first time to artwalk artists ever, 35%. So over 1/3 of the art you see has never been in our artwalk before! 10 of the 28 sculpture artists are first time Artwalk participants as well. So much new art to enjoy & experience.

    We also had a large area for art added to the ground level of Raglan Shire called Art Area #4. It is not accessible by our hedgiepillar ride, but there is a blue button on the teleport kiosks. here is the slurl for that: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Raglan%20Shire/75/245/22

    In addition to 2D art, this area features a couple of sculptures as well as something I've never seen in SL; augmented reality sculptures! Natalmari72, as she is known in Second Life, is Ukranian sculpture artist Natalia Marynenko. Her works are based in real life but can be seen in Second Life thru use of an android app called Magic Murti Lila. If you have not seen this, it is not to be missed!

    The last two weeks of Artwalk will still have lot of events, including our regular events, as well as some live music acts. For more information, our calendar of events is here: http://raglanshire.com/events/

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