The beautiful rich world we choose not to connect to: Strawberry Holiday

There are times when I long for those Wednesday mornings when Second Life® would go down for maintenance and I'd be forced to step away from it all and plug back into Real Life. I sometimes wish there was an enforced day-off for all virtual worlds, so that my will power wouldn't have to be exercised.

Strawberry Holiday took a close look at the relationship between our Real Life and our propensity to plug into everything technological when she created Disconnected, which she unveiled today. I asked her about that and also learned a bit more about what's been keeping her unplugged from our pixelated world.





It's great to have a new Strawberry installation, especially when we know you've been so busy in your Real Life. What's going on there?

I've been working as the director of a preschool and toddler center. As part of that, I teach a preschool classroom and art lessons to preschool and kindergarten age children. While love this part of my life, I'm really starting to feel that I'm not contributing as much as I could be and I'm itching for a change. With all the changes in the country and so many states working to make early childhood education, namely preschool, part of the public education system, I've decided to go to law school and help influence the laws and decisions that actually impact children instead of just being a cog in the works.

Were you an artist before you joined Second Life®? If so, what were you doing and are you still doing it?

I have a bachelor's degree with a focus in visual art. I explored the art of light in college with enough credits for a minor in Neon. I've also done small metal and jewelry work as well as 2D drawing and painting. Now most of my art is done in-world, except for some limited drawing and painting and the lessons I do with the children.



Has your increased distance from your own Second Life helped you to gain some perspective or insight that led to the concept behind this work?

Besides the decision to go to law school, there's another aspect of my life that has been taking up some of my time. I've been spending more time with the love of my life as we prepare to move in together after nearly two years of dating. We met in a club in Seattle but after dating for only about six months I moved away up to the beautiful island of San Juan near Vancouver BC for my current job. So the majority of our relationship has involved a sundry of vehicles, cars, ferries and seaplanes to taxi us back and forth to each other! As I'm considering Law Schools, we're also preparing to move in together in Seattle. All these changes, both happy and stressful, really have caused me to realize how lucky I am to be at this stage in my life.

The last few weeks, between when I took the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) and before I received my scores, I really wanted to focus on building. I did want to make sure that I was keeping time for my Real Life and not getting overwhelmed by Second Life so I could keep enjoying my love and the anticipation of the LSAT close to me. (Strawberry has since learned that she not only passed but also scored very high). Working on this balance kept bringing to mind a picture I drew back in 2005 of a woman surrounded by technology but a close-up into her brain showed that she wasn't plugged in.

And that's how I came to the concept for this piece. In Second Life, it's so easy to show concepts that I could never really capture in paintings. The image of the woman alone in her space surrounded by the flashy images and noise of technology (that all seems the same) while not connecting or living within herself is powerful. Especially with the soothing trees and calm grass that surrounds her. Just outside her walls is a beautiful rich world that she chooses not to connect with.







Did you have any collaborators?

The first challenge of this build was finding space, which Truthseeker Young has generously donated for the duration of the build. WendyOfNeverland Fussbudget provided production support, doing tedious things like updating scripts in dozens of prims, or deleting every other blade of grass, or sanding and activating scripts as needed! Without her this would have been impossible. And Moongold Munroe was commissioned to develop the sound scheme for the build. They complete the build!

Your new grass is sumptuous. How'd you go about making it?

My grass has developed over the last 6 months. Originally inspired by the wheat at AM Radio's Wheatfield, it was first used in Throes of Rapture, a collaborative build with the Fallopian Fighters. This particular version of the grass is different because while the graphic is in the shape of individual pieces of grass, what is masked over it is a photo of a field of daises in the grass, giving for a much more rich texture. Not possible in real life, I know, but its green, and on the ground so our minds read it as grass!

Teleport directly from here.

At the root of the matter...

In every culture around the globe, the tree is weighted with heavy symbolism. For some, it is the synthesis of heaven, earth and water. For others, it can symbolize life, the feminine principle, the matrix and knowledge.

AM Radio continues to confound us with his radio-driven mysteries, but the centerpiece this time is yet another tree, albeit a dead one. His "Beneath the tree that died" installation was created using traditional prims (teleport directly from here).




This photo of the telegram than can be found on the table, by AM Radio. Please click to see large

Thanks to sculpties and megaprims, trees and most botanicals in Second Life® resemble their Real Life counterparts more while costing just a few prims.


Cel Edelman's 48 prim trees (each) are still very much alive (teleport directly from here)



Strawberry Holiday's trees that use particle systems for leaves have been delighting us for several months now, but none has come closer to the organic beauty of her new 26 prim Oakey Tree, available here.

Says Strawberry, "Trees and other natural objects offer a portal from the place in your brain that requires the concrete, reality of every day life to a virtual reality where anything can happen. Words can fall like leaves and headlines can wave in the wind like grass."

Strawberry Holiday's "Throes of Rapture" - A sneak peek

Working only with 550 prims and textures by dozzydolly Biziou, Strawberry Holiday has mounted a show that is both electrifying and painterly.

She began the enterprise by asking herself "what does heaven look like?"


Strawberry puts the finishing touches on 'heaven'

"Throes of Rapture" opens today at 1pm SLT at AngelGate, as part of a collective show (teleport directly from here).



Production credits are as follows:
Strawberry Holiday - Prim Design and scripting
Dozzydolly Biziou - Textures
Moongold Munro - Sound
Carbon Chaffe - Scripting
Egidius Eel - Production Photographer
WendyofNeverland Fussbudget - Project Administrator

Second Lifers' love of wheat translates to *four* real cows - To celebrate, AM Radio announces a writing competition

On September 22, 2007, AM Radio set out some plots of wheat for sale on the land where his own, much celebrated virtual wheat field in Second Life sits, known as The Far Away. Teleport directly from here.

Now AM Radio has announced that he is sponsoring The Far Away Writing Competition. Participants are invited to write a story or poem, and then post it in the description field of their photograph to the Wheat Field Flickr group. Only one entry per Flickr account is permissible, and all entries must be received by March 7, 2008.



There will be one Grand Prize consisting of $10,000L, one Eton American Red Cross FR250 radio (a real one), and featured placement of the winning submission on The Far Away (with the winning entrant's permission) for 8 weeks. Rules can be found directly at the Far Away.

All this is in celebration of an important milestone. From day one, AM has taken all proceeds from every sale and forwarded them to Heifer International, an organization that works to end hunger and poverty by providing livestock and environmentally sound agricultural training to improve the lives of people who struggle daily for dependable sources of food and income.



Today and 250 generous donors later, these sales of virtual wheat have raised very real money - $2,000US in fact - and enough for Heifer to purchase four cows.



What is it about the Far Away that moves us so and compels us to return again and again? It is hard for me to put it into words.



On paper, it sounds conventional: a field of wheat, grey skies, a rusty old train, a table... but in our pixelated reality it is a comforting riddle that has gripped the imagination of thousands of its visitors.

Strawberry Holiday put it this way, "The Far Away is my favorite place in Second Life. I go there almost every day - usually once when I first log in by myself... and once before I go to bed with Wendy. It calms me.... not just because it's an amazing build, but because I see the time and effort AM puts into it. There's always something new to discover. Tonight, Blueberries! And I always meet really great people there... or bump into friends. It's become my place of peace in Second life, like coming home."

For Darkle Sands, "the Far Away is not just some 'SL Build.' It's a piece of art. AM is an artist and prims are his paint. Everything in the Far Away makes you feel immersed, and the placement off unusual things in the landscape really makes it very abstract. To date it still rates in my top favorite places to be in Second Life." Spiral Walcher agrees with Darkle, and adds: "It is the perfect example of when reality meets virtual reality."

Whenever I stop by the Far Away, I hope to find a gentle person and frequent visitor there by the name of Hitomi Mokusei. I asked her via email how the Far Away makes her feel, and her reply came easily and eloquently: In the Far Away there is a feeling of peace, safety and constancy, but it is touched with an underlying emotional resonance that permeates everything in it... a tinge of nostalgic longing for what once was but is now gone. It is not a static place. Not all is revealed on the surface. Exploring it in more depth reveals secrets, that can fire the imagination... touch the heart... or make one think in a new way."

What does it mean to you and how do you feel there?


Life is bittersweet. Less than five months ago, I received an urgent IM from dedicated adventurer and NPIRLer Matthew Kidomen, alerting me to his discovery of a most extraordinary build in the sky above a sandbox. That finding turned out to be momentous, and the build was called The Far Away. Two days ago, Matthew wrote to say that he is leaving Second Life to do other things. I can never thank you enough, Matthew. "May good luck be your friend in whatever you do and may trouble be always a stranger to you."

Strawberry Holiday gets Seussian

Strawberry Holiday, who once gave us The Journey Begins upped and made this last night. Teleport directly from here.

Strawberry Holiday' sends us on our journey

It was a pretty invitation... luminous, with sweet particle stars.



"On Their Journeys" by Strawberry Holiday - which opened today - is a girlish, diaphanous installation that encourages daydreaming. Teleport directly from here.

The pathways are interactive... you might be enveloped in a translucent cloud, or see the steps twinkle beneath your feet.



Her "fractal trees" will surely please fiddling Flickrites as much as they did me. I don't have PhotoShop... yet... but this is one place that begs playfulness with the resulting photographs.



Here is the raw pic... Heh, as you can see, I still have a looong way to go before I can call myself a photographer.



The colors, particularly from this perspective, made me think that we need a recreation of Monet's garden at Giverny in Second Life.



In a few weeks, "On Their Journeys" is expected to join other interactive art at the much anticipated opening exhibition for the new NMC Aho Museum, curated by our very own Tayzia Abattoir.