A Taste of Second Life comes to the Cahners ComputerPlace at the Museum of Science, Boston

As Alizarin Goldflake, Second Life(R) avatar of Martha Jane Bradford, I am designing a digital-virtual art exhibit for the Cahners ComputerPlace at the Museum of Science, Boston, in real life. The exhibit will further visitors' understanding of digital image creation and manipulation (http://www.marthavista.com/). It will also introduce people to the idea of making virtual art. The physical design of the exhibit will be an immersive installation employing sound and video projection to simulate the experience of being inside one of the immersive art environments that I create in Second Life. The Museum is currently accepting applications for a Technical Designer Internship for this exhibit: http://www.mos.org/visitor_info/about_the_museum/internships&d=4367. The designer will research the technology and equipment best suited to realize the artist's vision, culminating in a technical design for the project.

The picture above shows the latest SL mock-up of the design for the exhibit's visitor-interaction area. The kiosk in the center is an easy interactive - it allows the visitor to select various colored underpaintings for an upper layer containing a black-and-transparent digital drawing comprised of lines and tones.

The kiosk on the left provides the visitor with graphic elements to assemble into a finished digital collage, introducing the aesthetic decision-making process.

The most difficult interactive on the right will allow the visitor to experiment with a digital drawing program and with a virtual reality environment, using Open Sim local.

The backdrop to the kiosks is a video of Alizarin's SL immersive art, "The Maze," and it is framed by panels displaying two of her digital collages. The mock-up of this proposed visitor-interaction area can be found in Second Life at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Lie/205/175/1201

The overall proposed exhibit, “Digital Art – Martha Jane Bradford,” may also include some or all of the following: a display of framed digital drawings with wall text explaining various aspects of creating digital drawings and collages, framed SL photos of Alizarin's immersive art, LCD screen presentations, videos of virtual art displays in Alizarin's SL studio, pod casts, video casts, and live demonstrations. An introduction to virtual reality via Open Sim is also being considered.

About the Cahners ComputerPlace: "Glimpse the Future; Encounter Cool Stuff; Engage Computers, Robots, Communications; Inspire Active Learning; Talk Tech with People." Here teachers, students, and visitors explore many aspects of computer science, technology, engineering and math via personal hands-on learning experiences. The exhibit space receives over 350,000 visits annually. A brief video of the visitor-interaction area can be seen below: Links:
DIGITAL ART: Martha Jane Bradford Web Site: http://www.marthavista.com/
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/
MJB Blog: http://marthajanebradford.blogspot.com/
VIRTUAL ART: Alizarin Goldflake, Second Life avatar of Martha Jane Bradford Atelier Alizarin (Second Life studio): http://slurl.com/secondlife/Lie/222/189/35
AG Blog: http://alizaringoldflake.blogspot.com/
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alizaringoldflake/

YOUTUBE VIDEOS:
Acquarella: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-lo6JosN0M
Anza-Borrego Oak: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s_KRMi55v8
Metempsyche's Garden: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfQGuNXWvLo
The Maze: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEa9rtEiINE
Atelier Alizarin Studio Tour: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDjrLmPpopA
The Mysterious Forest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6Xv_pAf0Qc
Museum of Science Project Concept: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93YYMJANpZs

New Video Up on Youtube!

"The Mysterious Forest" documents my contribution to the Interactive Collaboration of the Caerleon Artists Collective. Artistide Despres was the project leader, and the CAC is hosted in Second Life by Georg Janick/Gary Zabel of UMass, Boston. I did the filming, and Cobalt Zeplin/Alfred M. Ajami did the editing and sound remixing. The film features soror Nishi, along with Cobalt, Viridian Nightfire, and myself.


The scenery is derived from my digital drawing "Anza Borrego Oak," which can be found on my RL web site at http://www.marthavista.com/DigiDrawHoriz1.htm (scroll down to the bottom row of images).

PARTY to celebrate my NEW SKY STUDIO

I will host a party celebrating my new sky studio on Saturday, Saturday, March 20, 3 pm PDT.

The studio features 6 square galleries for Immersive Art best suited to midnight and two oblong galleries for work best seen in daylight. Each major build has its own dedicated space, but because of the way the doorways between galleries are offset from each other, glimpses of other art invite exploration. Although the studio is now consolidated on one floor, it actually consists of many more square meters.

Immersive Art is the featured genre, but many builds are flanked by the RL drawings that were their inspiration (available in RL at http://www.marthavista.com). A case in point," Acquarella" is surrounded by The Big Pixels drawings recently shown at PiRats.

In the center of the new sky studio is an atrium with an elaborate grillwork dome. The visitor area, with seating, champagne, candles, flowers, and teleporters, is situated below. The gorgeous tropical plantings are courtesy of Juanita DeHaro's WATER,PONDS, RIVERS, WATERFALLS in Svidler.

The land music, classical guitar and flamenco as always, is provided by an iRadio Tunie HUD, available from Zenvendof Zeno, and goes really well with the salsa animation in the dance HUD.

FREE bouquet of lupines to celebrate the first day of spring!

"A Conversation with Artist Alizarin Goldflake" by Nazz Lane

A really super interview of me by Nazz Lane hit cyberspace yesterday: see http://laneslist.blogspot.com/2010/02/conversation-with-artist-alizarin.html

We toured my newly redesigned sky studio (come look!! http://slurl.com/secondlife/Lie/205/183/301) and talked about the art. Nazz has developed consummate skills as an interviewer, and although our conversation flowed naturally and spontaneously, I feel the interview thoroughly covered the all important aspects of my virtual art.

This was Nazz's 299th post on his blog "Lane's List: Nazz Lane's List of the ordinary and extra-ordinary people and places in the metaverse we call SL." He is a prolific prose artist, writing for many SL media and the author of a novel in-progress about Second Life titled "Borders of our lives."  I am eagerly awaiting the next chapter!

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Links:

DIGITAL ART: Martha Jane Bradford
Web Site: http://www.marthavista.com/
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/
MJB Blog: http://marthajanebradford.blogspot.com/

VIRTUAL ART: Alizarin Goldflake
Second Life avatar of Martha Jane Bradford
Atelier Alizarin (Second Life studio): http://slurl.com/secondlife/Lie/222/189/35
Blog: http://alizaringoldflake.blogspot.com/
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alizaringoldflake/

YOUTUBE VIDEOS:
Studio Tour:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDjrLmPpopA

"Metemspyche's Garden:"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfQGuNXWvLo

"The Maze:"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEa9rtEiINE

Marthavista News (RL)

Available in Second Life, my latest hanging scroll, "Hermione," has now been published in Real Life, too, and since Marthavista is at long last transactional you can buy it online! Click here to purchase: http://www.marthavista.com/dayfornightshow.htm

About Hermione: from January 2008 to the present I have been working in a direction that is entirely new for me, constructing digital collages out of sections of my digital drawings using a creative approach I discovered in Second Life. The method is similar to process art in that the final image is not envisioned at the outset but emerges as a result of assembling, layering, and composing visual elements.

The physical presentation of the collages was inspired by Japanese art, specifically paintings which are displayed as hanging scrolls called kakejiku. The collages are printed in separate panels on Epson canvas with an Epson 4000 ink jet printer. The panels are varnished and then glued together to complete the image. The wall hanging is constructed with a pockets for hanging rods, and the finished art is meant tobe displayed unframed.

The digital drawings that are the source material for the wall hangings are drawn just like traditional charcoals, lithographs, or pastels except that I use digital tools, including a software program called Corel Painter 10 and a Wacom digitizing tablet and stylus. I create a file of the right size and resolution to produce the final image desired and select a paper texture, a brush-tool such as “Charcoal” or “Flat Pen,” and a color. As I draw, the tablet and stylus electronically translate the motions of my hand into virtual brush, pencil, or pen strokes which I can see on my monitor real-time. I do small, limited editions of the finished drawings using archival inks on fine art rag paper. On the splash screen of my web site (see the links below), there is a downloadable PDF that explains in detail how to do a digital drawing.

Links:

DIGITAL ART: Martha Jane Bradford

Web Site: http://www.marthavista.com/
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/ search "Martha Jane Bradford"
MJB Blog: http://marthajanebradford.blogspot.com/

VIRTUAL ART: Alizarin Goldflake
Second Life avatar of Martha Jane Bradford

Atelier Alizarin (Second Life studio): http://slurl.com/secondlife/Lie/222/189/35
Blog: http://alizaringoldflake.blogspot.com/
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alizaringoldflake/

YOUTUBE VIDEOS:
Studio Tour:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDjrLmPpopA

"Metemspyche's Garden:"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfQGuNXWvLo

"The Maze:"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEa9rtEiINE

The "Day For Night" Show at the Art Conservatory

A show of hanging scrolls and new digital drawings by Alizarin Goldflake will open on Saturday, January 23, at 3 pm PST in The Art Conservatory.

slurl: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Gowers/139/185/72

This is a show of many Firsts. It is the Grand Opening of The Art Conservatory at Sapphos Commons, featuring RobertSteven Smythe (of Artemisia fame) as the curator. All of Alizarin's digital drawings are seen in Second Life for the first time. And also for the first time, all of the work inside the Conservatory will be avaible in Real Life at http://wwwmarthavista.com/dayfornightshow.htm

Centerpiece of the digital drawing installation on the second floor, the "Day for Night Series" consists of scripted images that change their time of day before the viewer's eyes. These four variations on a an image are of a summer cottage overlooking a wildflower meadow, with a glimpse of the ocean in the distance. They come from a RL series of digital monoprints in which the black & white drawing is constant throughout the two dozen prints, while the color is unique to each individual print. The four scripted drawings are accompanied by a selection of four new non-scripted images.

Alizarin's hanging scrolls are on display downstairs (also outside in the park as wind-interactive banners). These scrolls represent an RL direction that is recent for the artist and uses a creative approach she discovered in Second Life. The physical presentation of the collages was inspired by Japanese art, specifically paintings which are displayed as hanging scrolls called kakejiku.

Lastly, Alizarin's popular "Metempsyche's Garden" graces the pond outside where boaters can mingle with the giant white particle drawings blowing in the SL wind.  Exit from the other door and you will come across the artist's "Sunrise Sunset."

Links:

DIGITAL ART: Martha Jane Bradford
Web Site: http://www.marthavista.com/
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/search "Martha Jane Bradford"

VIRTUAL ART: Alizarin Goldflake, Second Life avatar of Martha Jane Bradford
Atelier Alizarin (Second Life studio): http://slurl.com/secondlife/Lie/222/189/35
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alizaringoldflake/

YOUTUBE VIDEOS:
Studio Tour:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDjrLmPpopA

"Metemspyche's Garden:"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfQGuNXWvLo

"The Maze:"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEa9rtEiINE

Acquarella Story Contest Winner

"The Princess Who Would Never Take a Bath" by Laurel Leavitt

Once there was a Princess who would never take a bath.

“Please,” said the Queen.

“No,” said the Princess.

“You can have bubbles,” offered the King.

“No thanks,” said the Princess.

“She is filthy,” whispered the servants.

So, the King called in his wisemen and said, “ Please think up a plan.”

The wisemen hired a carpenter to build a fine aquarium, with jewel sprinkled sand and plants with lacy leaves. The royal chemist poured in water from the clearest, purest well, and ordered fish in all the rainbow colors. Then the Royal Wizard cast a magic spell upon the Princess, so that when the Queen said, “Time for a bath,” the Princess turned into a tiny mermaid, and the Queen picked her up and plopped her into the aquarium. “Whee,” said the princess, as she dove and splashed and swam. But, when the Queen said, “Time to get out now,” the princess said, “No!”

“Please,” said the Queen.

"No, never," said the Princess.

“You can have cocoa,” offered the King

“No thanks,” said the princess.

“She will drown,” sighed the servants.

So the King and Queen called in the Wizard and said “Send us in, too.” And the Wizard cast a magic spell and plopped their tiny bodies in the water and they dove and splashed and swam.

“Time to get out now,” cried the servants.

“No, it's beautiful here,” exclaimed the Queen.

“Come home right this minute,” called the cooks.

“No, it's peaceful here,” shouted the King.

“They will starve,” warned the Wisemen.

But the royal cooks cooked food for them and ground it up and dried it and sprinkled it in the water where the royal family waited.

“How about roast beef? said the King.

“Send us peaches,” begged the queen.

“ I want chocolate,” said the princess.

And one young kitchen helper, whose name was Acquarella, heard the Princess ask for chocolate and threw in a whole candy bar which crushed to death the King and Queen and Princess.

"Oh no," said the wisemen.

"Alas," said the wizard.

"I'm sorry," cried the kitchen helper.

But the aquarium was built so sturdily that even after all these years, you can see a piece of the chocolate bar and hear the voices saying “Pleeeeease” and “Noooo.”