Tuesday 8 May 2012

postheadericon Blogging ~Refined Wild~ : Elysium Hynes

      
 Elysium finding a message in a bottle.

Elysium Hynes was assigned to be one of my bloggers for the Relay for Life Fantasy Faire this year. I was quite impressed with her blog when I was introduced to it, and I was undoubtedly impressed by the work she put into documenting my project and my items, both for the Faire and otherwise.
You see, last year I wasn't all that impressed with how my items were covered by my assigned blogger. In fact, it was my only qualm with my experience of the Faire. It felt like the blogger was only really doing it to fill up their blog, pad out their content and really didn't want to have any fun with it. Elysium completely re-instilled my faith in the bloggers for the event, and absolutely won me over with her creativity.

Now, I'm not really an individual who's 'into' the Second Life blog scene, but I've seen my share of good Second Life blogs, and really awful Second Life blogs. Elysium is apparently very new to the scene, with her Second Life fashion blog 'Sium', but she's already been grabbing quite a bit of attention. I can understand why. She documents well, and her 'SLtographs' are absolutely amazing.

Take a gander at the beautiful images she created using my Mesh items:

From her blog post here. I am wowed by this image.
It doesn't even look like Second Life anymore!

Elysium really did a wonderful job capturing more of what I hoped the
'Paper Boats in a Paper Sea' display would have looked like, in the end. Of course, 
I was unable to use Second Life's regular water for the display, so even if it 
had turned out with this many boats, it still would have lacked the beautiful reflections.

And I'm not exactly sure how she sets her shadows and lighting,
but it makes heavily textured items look intense!

I really think, as a blogger, Elysium went above and beyond anything I had expected for the Faire this year. She took what I had, had a blast with it and turned around with exciting and visually-delicious content. I really hope she'll want to work with more of my stuff in the future, if just for the fantastically lush photos!

Once again, check out her blog: Sium. She's going places. You'll want to be there when she gets to her destination.
    
Tuesday 1 May 2012

postheadericon Paper Boats in a Paper Sea : Fantasy Faire 2012 Wrap-Up

     
 Fantasy Faire 2012 Poster.

The Relay for Life: Fantasy Faire 2012 is now over and everyone must wait a whole year for the fun to begin again! We managed to raise over $25,000 this year, which I believe is at least a couple thousand more than last year, and we certainly broke (and set!) a couple of new records this time around.

As many of you know, this year I did a public art piece called "Paper Boats in a Paper Sea" that was integrated into my shop's display. I collaborated with Meth Federal, a mind-blowing abstract movement artist to create one of the most beautiful features (in my humble opinion) of the Faire this year.

Information posters for the art project.
  • Even Jackie Mondalimare wrote a short story surrounding the little paper boats, to my absolute amusement! 
The response and feedback for the project was really astounding.  I didn't get nearly as many boats back for the display as I had sold, but I certainly got enough boats to fill the pond enough to the point where I was completely satisfied with how it turned out. The boats that did sell raised a good L$30,000 (about $110 USD) and combined with the beautiful abstract art that Meth sold, we raised a really decent amount of cold, hard, cancer-curing cash! Which is always impressive, especially when you're selling a combination of art and Faire-specific items.

 The tiny Paper Boats in their little Paper Sea.

Everyone who painted their paper boat to take part in the project did so with such admiration, love and care. We had drawings, memorials, and poems; even an advertisement and a public statement about the health of the earth and how to process your trash! I really wish more people had the time to customize their boats and have it take part in the display. I know that a couple of people had a really hard time writing or drawing anything out, as it was so incredibly emotional for them. I admire that they managed to submit anything back to be displayed. It really does take a sense of strength to put a piece of yourself out there for the world to see.

Bird-eye view of the display. 
It was a little hard to take photos, with the shop's structure getting in the way.

In the near future, I will have parts of the display for sale. It might take a bit longer for the hanging net (as I forgot to take it back into my inventory after I was done taking photos!), but I will also release along with it a skybox (yes, a skybox!) of the sandy display, itself! Unfortunately, it will lack Meth's "Eclipsing Ripple". However! You can certainly obtain it from his Second Life Marketplace.