Light Waves' statue at the Garden

June 27 Update: Seems polysilox Apogee had also discovered Light Waves' sculpture, way back on May 17th! polysilox had been photo blogging and was checking for the names of content creators for attribution when she made the discovery.

Every time I think about Light Waves, I find myself grinning. There is something about his personality that simply inhibits any other reaction. Beyond the fact that he is the creator of many, many of the creations we most admire in Second Life®, including his groundbreaking (sometimes literally!) sculptures...


This photo of Starax statues taken by Amalthea Blanc

...and the magical wand - and everything it rezzes - back in the days when he was known as Starax...




These photos by Wellington Bahram

...to the lovable Greenies at Greenies Home Rezzable when he emerged as a new avatar by the name of Light Waves...


This photo, "Bella meets the Greenies," by Bella March

...and his elegant and mysterious Black Swan sim today...



Beyond all these staggering accomplishments, it turns out that Light Waves is quite a likable dude. Yes, I don't think I'd known him but a couple of minutes before I'd called him a curmudgeon, but he always cracks me up and always keeps things in perspective. What I'm trying - badly - to say here is that, despite the fact that he is quite possibly the most revered artist and scripter on the grid, Light Waves is a grounded, earthy kind of guy. Some might (do!) call him crusty :P

Anyways... a few days before the Garden of NPIRL Delights opened to the public, I IM'ed Light Waves asking if he'd like to make us a little something for it. The next day, you can imagine the extreme rush of pleasure and excitement I felt when there was an inventory offering from him waiting for me called simply "Something for the Garden."

Did I have to go to a sandbox just in case it was very large, I wondered? I couldn't wait. I rushed to my inventory and rezzed it - quite breathlessly - to the ground... and waited what seemed like an infinite number of seconds for it to rez... Later, Light Waves told me he had wondered if I was going to laugh or cry when I saw it, LOL.




I guess I did a little of both... the crying and laughing, I mean. I know that Light Waves is very busy these days, so I was astonished to receive anything at all. But this little naughty gnome! Taking a tinkle on our Garden, no less! Harrumph!

Fact is, I'd give my right arm to be able to make anything as well done as this just once... and to think that he made this simply as a joke. What a talent!

My brewing mind quickly came up with a plan: I'd extend the joke to everyone who visited the Garden. Knowing that I'd be taking a break from Second Life for several weeks, I shared the news of the gnome with the very talented Nectere Niven and entrusted her with it, asking that she move it around, if necessary, to keep people looking for the famous "Light Waves" sculpture. She did better than that. She rezzed it in plain view and even created a little park-like setting around him.



Later, I added a few of artoo Magneto's surreal 3D trees...



... and there he sat, for the duration of the Garden. The only person I know who found him was Selavy Oh.

Hehe... and so it goes.

Lumiere Noir - The best teacher you never knew you had

If Second Life® has an aristocracy... meaning an elite group of people who act behind the scenes with an interest in benefiting the entire population, then Lumiere Noir is a true aristocrat. Yes, there are people who are perhaps better known... limelight-happy, if you will... but I've come to think that many of them reflect rather than generate light.

He didn't invent the tools, but Lumiere (who's name means "light" in French) has single-handedly taught thousands upon thousands of Second Life's residents (and probably you, dear Reader) how to build via his Ivory Tower of Prims (teleport directly from here).



A model of the first Ivory Tower of Prims above; and below, the actual Tower
The trouble with interviewing Lumiere Noir is that he is too good a conversationalist, and so our talks, which spread out over a number of days, strayed off to many unrelated and engrossing topics. To give you some idea, I have over 50 pages of logged conversations and notes! He is - at once - fascinating and fascinated with all worlds, both virtual and real, and well read, and curious as all get out.



Tell us about the man behind your avatar.
Lumiere Noir: I'm Vince Frost, I live in Plano, Texas, which is close to Dallas. I'm an English-as-a-Second-Language teacher at a high school in Plano. I teach 12th graders world literature, and I've done that for about 11 years now. My background is in art, but I discovered teaching after I graduated. I love teaching.

What is your favorite book to share with them?
Lumiere Noir: Pygmalion... I see them all as Eliza Doolittle! Their story is a little similar and language is what holds them back in this country, just as Eliza's accent holds her back, but I don't see myself as Henry Higgins! They are mostly Spanish speakers, from Central and South America, as well as a lot of Chinese. I specialize in the Chinese, and Mandarin is my second language. I mastered in art, and when I was about to graduate, I fell in with the Chinese community at my university. Through them, I got some connections, and went to Taiwan. I had planned to go for a year and learn the language and culture, and wound up staying almost four. I taught English to support myself and studied Chinese, and traveled a lot in Asia. This was between 1988 and 1991.

How did a man with this background end up in Second Life, on… Christmas eve! (Rez: 12/24/2003)
Lumiere Noir: I came here via The Sims Online, which I liked but it was so limited, and later There.com. What I loved about that world is that there was so much to explore, but most of it was made by the creators of There. One could create things but it was expensive. I hated being nickel-and-dimed to death... How do you say that in the U.K.? I made several things in There, mostly clothes… very eccentric things. Then I started hearing about this place. I tried Second Life in early Beta but I'm afraid to say I hated it. It was just so awkward, so I stayed in There until late 2003.

You were in Second Life earlier then?
Lumiere Noir: That was as a different avatar. SwenKong Wu I think... I can't remember the password :-) Probably no longer exists. (Note: It doesn’t). I was Swen_Wu_Kong in There, and Wu was available here at that time.


The Ivory Tower of Primitives today

How did the Ivory Tower of Prims come about?
Lumiere Noir: I love to make things, and I love to teach. Making the Tower was a natural thing for me as a teacher. I taught myself to build, and my first impulse was to turn around and teach it to others, but I quickly found that I didn't like teaching in-world very much.

So you created the tutorials instead! Have you held anniversary parties at the Tower?
Lumiere Noir: I have....I used to do a lot of things here. Unfortunately (or fortunately) I'm on to other projects at the moment. I tend to work on the Tower in the summers. It sort of lies fallow, except for maintenance work until the summer, and then I go through and add new things, and revise.

In an interview with Hamlet Au, back in June 2004, Lumiere described the Ivory Tower by saying, "[T]his is a user interface about a user interface. I like it when there are layers of reality and simulated reality that go in layers like this... I've interviewed a lot of master builders to get tips and tricks and experience and building methods that go beyond my own."

Lumiere Noir: It’s now pretty current, except it doesn't cover sculpties. That's okay with me on the whole because you have to learn about sculpties in conjunction with the 3D modeler you use and there's no way for me to cover all of them. Sculpties are a lot like scripting. It's best learned on the web. I can't cover Blender, Maya, Studio 3D Max and all the others :-)

Featuring a series of self-taught, self-paced lessons on how to build with prims, the Tower, is a lively place filled with newbies, doing what newbies do. Some are lost in concentration, while others are discovering gestures or editing their appearance.



It must take incredible patience to be Lumiere Noir. While standing at the Ivory Tower for about 20 minutes the other day, I was offered unsolicited, undiscussed friendship twice, and asked for help another three.



Earlier this month, Torley Linden made another one of his terrific videos, this time featuring a tour of the Ivory Tower of Prims and its sandbox.



Lumiere Noir: I got hooked on Second Life when I rezzed my first prim. Up until then I thought the world was interesting, but chaotic and a bit trashy. Then one day I accidentally rezzed a prim and I was amazed.

Accidentally?
Lumiere Noir: Yes! I was trying to ride a motorcycle away, missed hitting “ride,” and hit “create” instead. Newbie me! I became so fascinated with that prim. I learned everything you can do with it. I think I still have it somewhere, but I did so many things with it, and began learning about scripting with it.

That same prim???
Lumiere Noir: Yes, for two weeks it was me and my prim! Not long after that I met Starax. We started about the same time, and we both worked in Morris, the greeting area at that time. We were friends and friendly rivals. We took very different directions over time, and don't talk as much as I'd like to, but he's one of my dearest friends here. He'll hate me for saying this, but under all that crust beats a heart of gold. The crust is there to protect it.

So you and Starax were working at Morris, and you were with this one poor prim…
Lumiere Noir: Yes, I saw all these crazy things he was doing, and I was learning and experimenting. He'd build something, and sometimes I'd build my own and he'd get mad because at that time mine was better. Except maybe he did his in an hour and I'd spend a couple of weeks on mine. But he's really the genius of this place!

I was playing with architecture, virtual of course. My style was always pretty weird. The thing that always distresses me about this place is that we have so much available to us to create with, but most people seem to make the same everyday airplanes, cars and buildings. I realize that a lot of that has to do with comfort level. We like what's familiar, but we can do so much more.


The first dome for the Tower


The second dome

Lumiere Noir: Back then land was very cheap and I got all the land I could in one of the last landgrabs. The Lindens used to release land for a $1L per m2. I don't think there were more than 20 or 30 sims when I first arrived and, oddly enough, that seemed large. (I) got most of Natoma over time, and started getting land in Noyo. Noyo was a busy sim because it had a telehub - back when we had to travel telehub to telehub - so I first built the library there.

Do you pay tier for this land that the Tower sits on?
Lumiere Noir: No, but I had the pleasure of paying a lot of money for a couple of years. The Lindens now sponsor it, and I'm very thankful for that.

As well they should! It would be a scandal otherwise.
Lumiere Noir: I've never asked for contributions. Most of the people that use the place are newbies. Word got out that I'd only ever had two supporters in the history of the Tower, about the time I put up the new Tower, maybe two years ago. They posted that on forums, and people started contributing a lot. A while after that the Lindens became sponsors. I gave over all my land here in Natoma and they left me in control of it.



How closely do you work with the Lindens? An official FIC, huh?
Lumiere Noir: Lol....screw the FIC and the anti FIC! I just do my work... hang out with close friends; I really don't care about the rest. Truthfully, (the Lindens) are like silent partners. I almost never hear a thing from them. I know they keep an eye on the place. I've got to tell you about my partner in crime here, Avi Arrow. She helps a ton with this place.

She never said a word about it! What is her role?
Lumiere Noir: I don't see how I could do what I do without her. Avi heads up the group Ivory Tower Dwellers, which she keeps running smoothly, and they help us keep watch over it. I mostly keep my nose down and make things. I have my own way of looking (after) them, but Avi keeps it together.

“Lumiere is a dear and trusted friend - my best friend in here, really. I've known Lumi for 23 months, yet much of what I know about him, I've been told by others (usually in the form of how much Lumi had influenced them). Lumi is a very innovative builder, primarily through his modular building exercises at the Ivory Tower. He has helped many residents who have gone on to do great things in here... from architectural building to making avatar attachments. His legacy in-world is one of being generous and tirelessly fun.” – Avi Arrow

The Ivory Tower is just one of the many projects that Lumiere has up his sleeve. There are his mostly extra-terrestial vehicles, which you can read about here and here, and his Planet Mongo, a Flash Gordon-inspired sim which we'll be talking about again soon... and his avatars...

Time Out!

By golly, a new record... my fourth blog post of the day and so much to say!

NEW WINDLIGHT VIEWER WITH FIXES!
Get that baby here now, and like Pastrami Linden says, if you have an ATI card, be sure to download the latest drivers.

SPECIAL REQUEST TO ALL INVITATION MAKERS
If you are seeking wide distribution of your invitation, kindly make the invitation and all its enclosures (notecards, landmarks, etc.) full perm so that they can be distributed via notice.

SPECIAL REQUEST TO ALL ARTISTS:
Whether you sell your art, or give it away, collectors will bless you many times over if you *add your name* to the name of every art piece you ever make. It's a misery trying to find things with obscure names in inventory.


That said, let's talk art...



If you like sculpture - and I do mean really_great_sculpture - I highly recommend that you make your way over to the Time out of Time show curated by Tayzia Abattoir at her Crescent Moon Museum. It has a very short run... opened yesterday, and ends this Sunday.

I've just been and there were three important pieces by Starax that I had never seen before: Rivals, Sore Love and his Clock. The more I learn about his work, the more I understand the depth of his legacy to art in Second Life. The Crescent Moon now sits on a Havok 4 sim, which seems to be disagreeing with the script for the clock, but it was behaving when I was there.

There's one incredible piece by Savi Seyes (look for it on the top of the little mountain just outside the museum). I understand Savi died last year and that some were not aware of her passing. If you are learning it here, I am so sorry.

Look for several sculptures by Bryn Oh. This new artist has me in a tizzy... her clockwork mechanisms and insects! I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot more from her.

I found two works by Cheen Pitney , just outside the museum to one side: his Sax Man - featured here earlier today - and his Bear Dancers.

There are only two copies in-world of Fire 'n Ice by Aiden Seraph, and Tayzia has rezzed one of them.

So many other inventive, special works, many new to me... a gorgeous sculpture - Bold Caution - by Lash Xevious, Stella Costello's Primolution, Sorrow by Androclese Antonelli, and Determination by Neobokrug Elytis... many more. In fact, I think I need to go back and look again!

Again, recommended. Teleport directly from here.

The King is dead. Long live the King! Starax Statosky is gone, but Light Waves carries on

Someone needs to say it, so I might as well be the first, and I do so after careful consideration and with great admiration for the man in question. Like the Phoenix - that mythical bird that dies in flames and is reborn from the ashes - Starax may be gone, but in his place stands the extraordinary Light Waves.

I spoke at length today with the British man behind these two avatars, and found him to be warm, approachable, and unpretentious... not at all like the sardonic fellow I'd read about.

Light Waves has already been in touch with several of the most dedicated collectors of Starax sculptures, as well as many, if not most of the owners of his legendary magic wand. These people have kept quiet... have been walking on eggshells, out of respect for their monarch of builders, and possibly a fear that he might disappear again. I think that is a safe assumption. I hope I'm wrong, but I propose that we enjoy him and celebrate him while we still have him within our sights.

At any rate, it is all true. The man who was Starax and is Light Waves today told me that he closed Starax for many reasons and that, despite rumors to the contrary, the wand had been just one of them and not even the most important one.

What is all this fuss about, you might be asking yourself? A little history for those who, like me, were born in Second Life after his abrupt departure...

Many people have come and gone from Second Life and more than a few have been missed by the friends they left behind, but when Starax Statosky vanished mysteriously in June of 2006, hundreds of people grieved. In fact, his departure cast a pall over the art and builders community of Second Life that is felt to this day.

As of this writing, when you Google Starax, you get back 25,200 hits, and there is only one Starax that comes up. The Friends of Starax group in Second Life pays tribute to him even now - 15 months later - and their charter reads "because Starax was so beloved, we form this group in remembrance and appreciation of his unique gifts and talents."

Note that this shrine to Starax sits on Governor Linden's land.

Starax Statosky was born in Second Life on December 23, 2003. His profile reads: "Nice weather out!" The only group Starax is still a member of is the Magic Wand Society.

In October of 2006, the NMC held a retrospective of art by Starax, which can be seen in this Machinima produced by RacerX Gullwing.

Then, on July 25 of this year, Morris Vig's Oyster Bay gallery and NPIRL'er Tayzia Abattoir's Crescent Moon, the oldest museum in Second Life, launched Hidden Starax!, "a spectacular rotating exhibit that celebrates the Second Life of the master of SL sculpture, Starax Statosky." The show presented 20+ rare Starax pieces over the course of 6 weeks and free, copiable editions of some of his works were also rotated, encouraging visitors to take copies for their private art collections. I've made a point of dropping in frequently, and now own four sculptures by Starax.

Fact is, Starax made prims do unnatural things. He took the unwieldy cubes and spheres and molded them as if they were putty in his bare hands to create sculptures that take our breath away.

And then there was his wand... Aenea Nori did a great job of documenting both its capabilities and the things it rezzed on this slide show.

Speaking for myself, I was introduced to Starax's wand in April when a pair of young boys showed up at Hobo Village on the Calleta sim and put on a show that I shall never forget. As I told Light, it was a transformative moment. As far as I am concerned, a person's Second Life can easily be split by the BW (before-wand) days and the PW (post-wand) days... or that moment when you realize what SL can be like when taken to the maximum of its potential.

Most everything Starax created was not transferable, including the wand. Even Light Waves' wand by Starax is no transfer, or so he says.:P In fact, Light Waves was quick to point out that he doesn't own anything by Starax.

So there you have it. I think we can all now conclude that Starax's creations are the true artifacts of Second Life.

"Any chance you will make another wand?" I asked hopefully, to which Light Waves replied, "I doubt I will make another wand. It was just too expensive. I felt uncomfortable selling it to people who didn't really feel it was worth it, or to people who couldn't really afford it."

So how did I find out? I won't tell all, but really, if you look hard enough, the bread crumbs leading to Light Waves are all over the place. I will say this... getting to this point, this conclusion to my quest, has been more fun and intriguing than any Myst game could ever be!

Aenea Nori was on to something when she blogged about some of the things found at Greenies Home Rezzable, saying they were built "by an av named Light Waves (whose profile appears to be that of an alt, and may or may not have been Starax — hence the discussion of whether he-who-has-disappeared has returned."

While our very own Pavig Lok is the lead creator of Greenies Home Rezzable, working together with NPIRL'er LittleToe Bartlett, it was Light who made the graceful ballerina, the fanciful canary escaping from its cage, and it was he who begat the very droll and adorable Greenies.





So what is Light up to today? NPIRL'ers had a preview yesterday of a whole new sim which he began less than a week ago. Dearest readers... the beauty of it brought tears to my eyes! It is everything you would expect of a builder of Starax's stature and more. I won't give out the landmark nor publish photographs of it until it is complete, except for these two pics. For those who knew his work, the whale and the bird here are testaments to the fact that Starax and Light Waves are one and the same.


And what does Starax look like now? Well... the day I met him he looked sorta like this - a greenie! - though obviously this isn't him:

Finally, I had to get his opinion of sculpties. "They're umm... okay, I guess :) A bit wobbly and a lot of hard work to make. But then everything is hard work to make these days. People expect so much more. I miss the days when I could just make something from raw prims and people would like it," was his reply.

Light shared that he is using Mudbox, Cinema 4D and Maya and then he added, "but I've just seen Modo 301. That looks rather nice, so maybe it's time for a change :)"

I would have to agree with you, Light. I'd say it's definitely time for a change. And Light? Welcome home! Want a cookie? A glass of milk?