I'm in the book!

I should be in bed. I just spent all of yesterday cleaning up my old place, and all of the previous day moving. But I'm too excited so I'm blogging instead.

I got two messages from Gracie Kendal's mass mailing bot:

"Hi Opal! We did it! More than one thousand avatars have posed for Gracie Kendal's 1000+ Avatar Project. Thank you for being part of this project. You are all amazing, creative and soulful people. I am honored you chose to participate."

"Now for the good news! I have collected the first 1000 Avatar portraits into book form and, if you are receiving this message, your portrait is included! Check out my blog for more info www.1000avatars.wordpress.com"

I'M IN THE BOOK!!! *jumps up and down"

Go check it out. If you hurry, you get a $5 discount, which you can use for shipping instead. And if you pre-order through her, she'll even autograph it for you.

I haven't seen it yet, but I think it won't be the runaway bride picture. :)

Runaway bride

Gracie Kendal is building a collection of pictures of avatars for "a project on identity and anonymity."

One of her friends took her to my glass house to view the morphing portraits and she invited me to pose for her. She thought I was kidding when I asked, "The question is how you want me to look... with a mermaid tail, with legs, darker skin, fair skin, red hair, blond hair, dark hair, formal, casual, ethnic, strange, masked, tattoos? Do you want my alts too? My alts don't have as many choices."

*grins*

Well, I decided on wearing the Mer Betta Pasithea and made a pose for the shoot, which we did today.

When I did my interview for MODA Spotlight, one of the tasks was to wear something that I felt represented me, and I wore the Pasithea then too. And here's why: I created the first bridal mermaid in Second Life. Ironically, Opal has never been partnered. In fact, only one of my alts has ever been partnered, and then I put her in hibernation immediately after, because it really was just a symbolic partnership.

Now, the intriguing aspect of Gracie's project is that all the avatars are facing away from the camera. And one of the photos she took of me with the custom pose looked as though I was swimming away from the camera. I remarked that I looked like a runaway bride, and I thought it was so appropriate.

One of my "rules" is that Opal will only be partnered in SL if I am engaged to the same man in real life. But I have long-term commitment issues in real life. Ergo, the runaway bride.

Gracie took more pictures using the poses in my Kamihitoe AO, so I don't know if she'll eventually use that runaway bride shot. But the project is on display as she continues to add photos to the collection. And not all the photos show up in her blog or Flickr, so check it out inworld.

Two and a half years

I met Blue Tsuki at a sandbox in 2006. He was wearing an ornate texture for skin and he was building a stepped pyramid.

That Christmas, he gave me one of his works as a present. I've acquired many of his works since then, but this particular one is special because it's a gift.

It's a picture of a man wearing a hat under a big yellow rose. You can view it at the upper level of my glasshouse here. Because he gave it to me with Mod/Copy permissions, I have it up in my workloft as a triptych with the left and right side tinted red and green respectively.

As I was working on the vendors for my new mermaid tails, my brain was just pondering the fact that I love colors and the colors of that triptych matched the colors of the tails on the vendors. Then, a light bulb lit up....

The picture is beautiful by itself, and there was a certain ambience about it. But I never understood the connection between the man and the rose... until now.

I thought the man was a traveller because of his hat and what seems like a globe in front of him. He could very well be a traveller. But I thought he was taking his hat off (at the end of his travels) or putting it on (to start his travels), but the rose didn't quite connect.

It didn't occur to me that he could be tipping his hat. He was tipping his hat to the rose!

If that's what it is, this picture is one of the best executed compliments I've ever received!

And it took me only two and a half years to figure it out. :D

THANK YOU, BLUE!

I need your vote!

No, no, I'm not running for president. I'd much rather be dictator-for-life in a virtual country with a population of one.... Oh, wait, I already am. ;)

Anyway, my picture "Looking into the Abyss" has been chosen as one of the finalists, out of 200 contest entries, for the front cover of a book "Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human" by Tom Boellstorff (SL: Tom Bukowski) to be released on April 2008.

It is currently on display in the Elektra Spark Gallery in the Cetus Gallery District (http://slurl.com/secondlife/Cetus/199/68/33), along with the other finalists. You might have to SLURL it again when you get there, because the gallery itself is far from the landing point.

Mine is the one of the blue mermaid, of course. :)

HOW TO VOTE: Simply send IM to Tom Bukowski or send email to tboellst@gmail.com, and say something like, "I vote for Opal Lei's 'Looking into the Abyss'." Be sure to send it before Sunday August 19, 2:30pm SLT. That's it!

Oh, btw, the next time you come by and visit my 512 sqm landlocked country in the northwestern corner of Aglia, check out my new mermaid business. Er, my virtual country's newest export. ;)

Vulnerability in Second Louvre

Headman Taringa recommended Second Louvre. The building itself is a very impressive recreation, although the statues outside the second floor startled me more than once in a who's-that-looking-in-through-the-window way.

There are sculptures and paintings and photographs. But I'm partial to sculptures, so I noticed those first.

I've seen large sculptures throughout SL before, so the huge warrior "Achilles - 2006" at the entrance didn't quite generate a "wow!" reaction. But, hey!, it was worth a photograph with me sitting on his left shoulder. I didn't much like the Sully Wing displays either. And the first floor of the Richelieu Wing had technically impressive, but emotionally barren, displays.

But the Denon Wing had a few thought-provoking treasures.

And the single piece that touched me the most was on the first floor of the Denon Wing, the first sculpture on the left as you face southwest. It is a woman fully covered in armor, which was sliced and folded open at the chest revealing human skin. And she holds out what looks like a can opener. It was created by Starax Statosky. Something about this sculpture held my attention, and I stood in front of it for a long time, searching for why it resonates with me. I knew it had to do with vulnerability, but exactly what? Is it that, by being vulnerable, our humanity is exposed? By offering the can opener to the viewer, is she inviting us to slice open the armor around our hearts too? Or does that can opener represent SL, which allows us to be open and vulnerable in-world, even as we wear our armor in the real world? Or does the armor represent our own avatars that hide our identities but expose our emotions?

Other works worth mentioning are Stella Costello's "What to Expect When You're Expecting Utopia", Heidi Herbst's sculpture recreation of "The Birth of Venus", Meleni Fairymeadow's swan sax, Koee Few's interpretation of Icarus' fall, Abraxas Alphabeta's photograph "Next Dance for Me", and Saeya Nyanda's abstracts.