Art and SLife - Lacy Muircastle reporting....

The art community within Second Life is as diverse as its real world counterparts.  Is art an embellishment or ornament of life though?  

I read that “psychological investigations have revealed that art is the supreme centre of biological and social individual processes in society, that it is a method for finding an equilibrium between man and his world, in the most critical and important stages of his life.”  This view therefore completely refutes the approach that states that art is purely an ornament. Art is at the leading edge of the consciousness of any community. The possibilities of the future, for art as well as for life, are inscrutable and unpredictable and that holds very true for Second Life as much as it does for real life.

Meet Luke N Fortacos, a gallery owner and artist in SL.  He hails from Northern California and lives relatively close to Linden Labs.  His curiosity was piqued as to what they did some three years ago.  At the time he was playing another online 3D game with a friend who had started playing Second Life and who in turn introduced him to SL.  His initial foray into our virtual world did not gel with him.

Then in RL he hurt his back and was laid up for over a month.  With time to kill he decided to try again.  A couple of ladies helped him with the look of his avatar and he began taking classes at Builders brewery and Caledon Oxbridge.

He spent some time building a house and some other bit and pieces, but he desperately wanted to combine mesh with prims, which led to Blender and Blender Classes.  He said “I could not understand what is was, but everyone spoke of it "like Photoshop"."

Luke also took photography classes at Caledon Oxbridge and with Kajia Chrome, at Blue Nile. He tried to get around the Photo shop expense with freebies like IPiccy, Pixelator and Gimp.  He says they helped but to get where he wanted to be he had to subscribe to the Adobe Creative Cloud.  He said “its been terrific.....$10 per month, includes a file management program called Bridge that might be worth the $10 alone.”

I went on to ask him why he wanted to own galleries in SL.  He said “I started my first gallery at Xaara to get feedback on my art - what I was doing. It is still my main objective. Artists in SL, where I opened my 2nd gallery, I wanted to do the same thing with different kind of art. Xaara is a BDSM sim with several galleries representing a wide variety of artists.   The owners of the sim wanted the art to keep to the theme.  Artists in SL also represents many artists, some of which also do Adult, but I wanted to do like many others and explore portraits and SL Life pictures.”

He added that the galleries aren't going to make him rich, but they can be self-sustaining.   He enjoys owning them as a means to obtain feedback and from the people he meets.

Luke has a Gallery at SSC Coffeehouse, where he displays his own and work by other artists from Xaara. The Coffeehouse is also at a "Lifestyle" type resort and he has brought over Elbereth Exonar, HisOne Desire and Carley Noonan to display their art too. He plans to expand the gallery throughout the coffee house, he said “it’s going to be a very exciting art venue when it is finished.”

His mission is for the SL art community and those that support it to get to know his brand ‘L Fortacos’ as a place to get art for your SL Home or Club.   He said “I believe as art improves, and it is really good these days, more customers will buy more SL art for their homes or Clubs.   Rather than using RL imports, which is cheating and more than likely a copyright violation.  For instance, part of the draw of a place like Fogbound are the pictures of patrons taken by Serendipity Dyrssen.  I would like to see other clubs at SL Artwork showcasing unique styles of art.  Art that showcases all that SL has to offer.”