PinkSpider

Yesterday I wrote about the sim of feast, and to the northwest lies the sim of PinkSpider, a homestead that looks to be cut into four parcels, all open to the public and quite lovingly designed. I'm somewhat hampered by my inability to speak Japanese, which seems to be a common thread among the sim's owners, but the northwest corner is the Cafe Bluebird (not really a cafe, but you'll see), on the northeast corner is C-Amber (where you can rez things for a few minutes), on the southeast is feuille, and on the southwest is Isha no ie.

Each of these quarter-sim parcels is surrounded by water and elegantly landscaped. I'm always impressed with what's possible with 937 prims. I assume these are private residences, and it's a great gesture to leave them open for everyone to enjoy.

feast

Somehow my images of the sim feast have made the place look far darker and more brooding than they should, because the place is awash in bright colors. (I guess it was just my mood, ruminating on flickr's new interface.) With the slurl here you'll land in a large field of flowers—poppies, cosmos, dianthus and others—surrounded by magnolia, ginko, apple and other varieties of trees. These are all items for sale in the nearby shop of Miki Morigi and her alt Mikatsuki Matova, forest feast.

To the south is the sim Aught, and on the border between these sims is an overgrown area (top and bottom photos here, click to zoom) co-created by Miki and Alirianna, who has a branch of her shop, alirium, here as well. They remark, "People should accept the invasion of green. Because it is a correct recovery." And so it is: we see nature gently destroying what had once been the human footprint. The region as a whole is very graphics intensive, and getting everything to rez cooperatively can be a challenge. My friend Padani, who was also in the sim exploring, quipped, "It's not a place for people in a hurry." He's right, but we agreed it well worth the visit.

The Naked Sky Gallery

For the longest time, Jessica Belmer kept wondering why someone was purchasing just about every image she set out for sale in her gallery—after all, most people have only so much wall space in their homes to display artwork. The answer, as it turned out, is that collector The Cat (or Catredivivus) has plenty of space for them at her gallery, The Naked Sky Gallery, on the sim Naked. The Cat says, "None is for sale, it's just a celebration of artists high in the sky above SL's most elegant nudist resort. No need to be naked to view the gallery!"

It's a pretty impressive survey of Jessica's work, and the gallery is nicely designed, providing good lines of sight and ample space for each object. Also on display here is a smaller collection of works by Harbor Galaxy and a space devoted to images by Mi (Kissme). You'll also spot works by Amona Savira, Anita Witt, Andy Burroughs, Kato Salyut, Ivoni Miles, jerideana Francois, Morgana Nagorski, Winter Nightfire, Jeanette Janus, Milly Sharple, Jim Slater, Hillany Scofield, Moni, Van Caerndow, CaraMia Quan, Crystal Rehula, Freyja and others.

Gehena Vampire Clan

Both ARnnO PlaneR and Juno Angerona nudged me to visit Gehena Vampire Clan, and I'm thankful that they did. Designed over the past several months by LouLou Teichmann with some recent assistance by Neva Crystall, the mysterious feeling island sim opened this week and boasts a sumptuous landscape, richly detailed at every turn. You'll probably need more than one trip to fully explore all the area has to offer.

A dark castle towers over sim, perched on a rocky outcrop to the southwest. Save for a small nightclub, which features a swimming mermaid, the region evokes a time from perhaps a couple hundred years ago, an "old world" sort of feel, and affords many opportunities for photography. In case you're one of those who aren't fond of vampires: although it's a vampire sim—complete with a cemetery, decaying church and bats—one has the sense that visitors are very welcome here, and no one accosted me during my several visits.

Bryn Oh at the Vienna Museum of Natural History

Tucked away on the sim Forum Europe is Das Naturhistorische Museum Wien, or Museum of Natural History Vienna, and it's something of a relic, seemingly untouched for quite a long time. The second floor is the location of an exhibition of works by Bryn Oh, and she tells me the curious steampunk animals and insects on display are among her first creations. The exhibition, which opened in late 2007, was to last for a month, but now more than five years later the artworks are still on display, sort of frozen in time along with the museum itself.

The very 2007ish backgrounds on the walls don't make it easy to grab images here, so I'm not sure these photos will do the works justice. The objects bear Bryn's unmistakable imprint and style, all but one of them (the Steamclock) some sort of animal. Save for the largest assemblage, =^.^= (second photo here—a cat sculpture, not surprisingly) they're all for sale.

Don't miss the rest of the museum. Aside from a gallery full of dinosaurs (well, it is a museum of natural history!), there are some really fabulous trompe l'oeil rooms that I greatly enjoyed. Designed by Marso Mayo, they must mirror the museum spaces in real life, but the experience of moving through them is delightful and fascinating. So be sure to see those as you explore. (Photo below, but you really have to move through the spaces to see what I mean.)

Whiskey Monday at Kelly Yap

Opening tomorrow, Wednesday, May 15 (no specific time) and continuing through July 15 at the Kelly Yap Art Gallery in the mainland sim Healy is a modest but very worthwhile exhibition of recent works by Whiskey Monday entitled E-SCAPES. If you don't know Whiskey's work, you should, and one of the best places to experience it off-world is her flickr stream. She also sells items commercially and maintains her own gallery, The Viewing Room.

Whiskey tells me, "SL is my escape, and these are my landscapes...The landscapes themselves are meant to evoke solitude, but not so much the quiet and pensive kind. More the restless and intense kind. But I decided to just let everyone enjoy them as they see them, rather than impose my own mental meanings."

Miuccia Klaar at Colore Art Gallery

Opening tomorrow, Tuesday, May 14 at 5 pm slt is an exhibition of works by Miuccia Klaar at the Colore Art Gallery. This is a photographer whose work is almost painterly and always evocative, with a command of her palette and sense of composition. Works featured in this exhibition include landscapes and portraits, but even in the portraits the landscape competes for our attention. The gallery has posted a video previewing the exhibition, and you can enjoy Miuccia's work on her flickr stream as well. The show will continue though May 28. And there's more...

...because two other artists who are resident at the gallery, Lookatmy Back (middle image in this post) and La Baroque (lower image) have extensive images on view as well in three additional galleries. So there's a considerable amount of material here to see. All items are available for purchase, and there's an opportunity to contribute to the gallery as well.

Bates Motel Apocalypse

"Shriek! Shriek! Shriek!" go the violins. Who doesn't love a good murder mystery now and then? If you do, then stop by the old Bates Motel, where Norman will be waiting for you right behind the counter—you can catch a glimpse of him in the bottom photograph, eager to book you into Room 1, the convenient one right next to the office. It's dark outside, with a big old foreboding house looming overhead. So just step in and, well, take a shower.

And it's all here, the hotel, house and '57 Ford, faithfully recreated. I'm not going to say whether there's blood in the bathroom, or whether you'll run into Marion or Mother, but at least Norman is here, reading some interesting magazines tucked under the counter. The entire scene is Bates Motel Apocalypse, created by Soulkeeper Dreadlow, and the house itself is available for purchase via his marketplace store. Oh, by the way, you might get attacked by a few zombies when you arrive, but they're relatively harmless. Maybe.

It all starts with a smile

This morning, Kaelyn Alecto mentioned on Plurk that her sim, It all starts with a smile, will likely close on May 15, the unfortunate victim of the recent changes in the ToS. It's not that the new terms prohibit her from operating the sim, but that (if I understand correctly) the cost of the sim was being underwritten in part by an employee of a third party Linden dollar exchange business that has had to suddenly close. I visit quite a few sims every day but had never visited It all starts with a smile, so I finally did today.

It's a pretty place, with lots of natural scenery—ranging from sandy beaches to fields of flowers and more—and a tidy row of shops and storefronts tucked in the southwestern corner. (There's nothing for sale—it's not a commercial sim.) As you can see from this flickr group, it's a popular spot for photography and socializing. If you'd like to see more of Kaelyn's work, she and her partner, maxxster (who is also co-owner of the sim and a photographer), blog at SweetSexyCrazy. I'm sure contributions to help keep the sim afloat would be very welcome.

Ocho Tango

I pulled up Honour McMillan's blog the other day (which I do every day)—Honour's Post Menopausal View (of Second Life)—and there were some lovely images of Ocho Tango, which had been on my list of places to visit for a long time. I gather that it had temporarily disappeared and has been rebuilt, and that's a good thing because it's a serene and delightful place. Its centerpiece, not shown in these images (as usual, click to zoom in, and I'll post more on my flickr stream), is the Ocho Club, a dance hall with a distinctive exterior, and I hope to get back when a crowd is there (dancing tangos no doubt).

Surrounding the club on all sides are the pampas, where the fertile fields produce tall grasses through which you'll discover a number of paths and this and that. If you'd prefer, there's a bicycle rezzer. And if you're in the mood to dance outside, there's a little area for that as well, shadowed by the towering power lines that cut across the plains. (Somehow, here in Second Life these power lines look evocatively romantic and appealing.) Way overhead all of this is the shop DaD Design, where you can find things for home and garden, including some lovely tropical trees.