window shopper

I do a lot of window-shopping, in SL that is. I do it for real too and it’s for similar reason in both cases, I’m poor, both in SL and RL, plus I’m also fascinated with the whole art of the shop window; and it is art. It’s something that’s usually overlooked, taken for granted or not even seen at all.

I think they influence us more than we think, even if you think you haven’t paid any attention to it, I reckon, at the very least,  you’ve probably registered it at some subliminal level. It’s the first thing people see on approaching a shop or wherever it is, not just the name of the shop but how the outside looks, is dressed, and the window-display is all part of that.

I can’t say I know what makes a well-dressed window, what elements make it work, but I know when I see one if it’s good or not, or if someone’s made an effort, been creative, clever, imaginative, and also who they’re appealing too. I especially enjoy Christmas time for this. Some go to amazing lengths to make a window that draws you in, even if it’s not a shop you usually or ever go into, their display can still be a feast for the eyes.

It’s something I find the online world just hasn’t got to grips with and can’t quite do anyway in the same way. Most homepages, which is like the shop window equivalent, are so often dull, bland, or over-crowded, messy, with way too much going on, or confusing or simply useless. In SL, window-displays are not as common as you might think, not many people seem to bother with them. Sure, they have signs and such, but actual window displays, something to initially grab your attention, are lacking. I’ve found a few on my travels and I know there are more but one has to rely mostly on chance to find them.

By extension, I also know window-shopping can simply be browsing instore without actually buying anything, but the term itself has come from the window-display, almost a digest or summary of what that store is all about.

I’ve posted a few photos here of window displays taken during my window-shopping travels, and I’ll be doing more for future blog posts. Rather dimly of me though, I forgot to label what shops these actually were, so in future I’ll try and remember to do so. It’s important to capture the moment as some displays change regularly, and once they’re gone, they’re gone.

 

© Anan Eebus

free cookies

I’m not sure this should be a blog at all, being that all I’m going to say is as I haven’t been hugely active on SL of late, even though I log in every day it’s only mostly briefly, so I haven’t got much to blog about, so here I am telling you in a blog I haven’t got much to blog.

It’s not I don’t want too spend time there, as such, though right now I haven’t really felt that driven too, particularly as my RL is so all-consuming right now. It even makes me think back and wonder how on earth I managed to spend as many hours of every day that I did, and managed to come through all the stress I seemed to put on myself in the process. In fairness to me though, other people were often to blame for that stress, which is, from my point of view at least, not the point of SL or in fact should be for any online game/world/alternate reality.

It should be like in western movies when a gunslinger enters a new town to be told that all guns have to be handed in before he does, and that he’ll get them back when he leaves. Or more simply, when you insist someone takes their shoes off to come into your house. Well, similarly with SL and suchlike, before entering you should leave all your RL hang-ups at the door/login. Although I don’t meet as many people inworld as I used to, even though I still do on and off, I have a feeling that generally this is more the case now, much less grief going on. Either that, or I’m very good at avoiding it. It could be a phase though, SL, like anywhere and anyone goes through them, good and bad.

I wonder if, for a while, SL for me was like a crutch at a time I was going through a rough patch (which is a polite way of putting it, lol). Perhaps not all ‘rough’ as such, just difficult and was looking for ways out, or time away somewhere where I wouldn’t have to deal with the hassles and stress. It didn’t really work. That, I suppose, is the twisted psychology of it, even though there were periods at the time when I convinced myself it was. In fact, what did happen was my life became that little bit more complicated because I’d now added SL. Not just this but I’d also inadvertently ended up taking on responsibilities here when actually my aim was to have none.

I can’t help it though, seems it’s in my nature to take things on. I don’t know why or what compels me, again maybe it’s just my nature and that’s something that very tricky to get your head around, even though a lot of it is going on in your head, or actually most of it.

I did say at the start I had not much or nothing to blog; seems I was wrong, in part at least. There’s not much about SL in this, I admit, but that’s because, like I said, I’ve barely done anything lately inworld, that is, aside from setting up two art exhibitions at two different galleries which actually just involved me hanging my artwork and a little decorating.

So, ho hum, I’m sure you’re bored now, even if you’ve even bothered reading this far. But if you have, well done, you get a gold star and a freshly-baked cookie, plus a nude photo of me! That last one’s a joke, by the way, the cookie might be too because I just checked and I’ve eaten them all.  

 © Anan Eebus

 

live and let bite

 

Well, it’s a new year here in Second Life and I enter it with two exhibitions going on at two different art galleries and I’m hoping to be hanging some new works at both very soon. Welcome also to my first blog here of 2022.

I used to have a little hideaway but wasn’t any longer able to afford it, even though it was really cheap, almost peppercorn, it was still tricky, so am once again effectively homeless in that I’ve nowhere I can call my own. This doesn’t really bother me though, it’s been a while since I was a nomad, of a sorts, and I quite like it, plus I don’t have to work about that weekly bill for rent. I did like my little skybox but needs must and change happens: one just has to go with it, such matters economic are still a hard reality, even in SL.

I’m still a vampire, and a few others things too, artist, photographer, mermaid, model, explorer, pole-dancer, and I’m still head of my own vampire clan, veiled Fang, which once upon a life was quite active yo-yoing in numbers depending on the whims of vampires who have just as many whims as non-vamps.  I set up Veiled Fang years ago after having spent a lot of time growing in other clans the length and breadth of SL and we’ve done okay, although now not exactly dormant as resting in peace for now as most of its members, I’m pleased to say, seem quite content with, especially as the majority are no longer active either on SL or in vampire roleplaying terms but have chosen to remain in Veiled, something I’m also heartened about and happy they have.

I probably suffered a bit of burn-out a few years back when pretty much hyperactively running the clan. I felt enormous pressure to keep up with other clan and what they do, and more importantly in what was expected of me by those in the clan as the leader or head. Not many realise what a huge responsibility it is to do so, and even fewer would take such a role themselves even though they complain when something isn’t being done to their satisfaction. Of course the buck always stopped with me as I had and took overall responsibility of all clan affairs and its member, that is until I realised, hey, everyone is their own person, or vampire, and as such are responsible for themselves, even if they are in my clan, I can’t hold them to account. This is SL after all where fun comes first and aggravation, last, or not at all.

I used to spend so much time worrying about people, fielding complaints from some people miffed about this vampire did that or that vampire did the other and instead of talking to them and them taking it on the nose they come to me and it was usually, pretty much always, so blah-blah trivial. Eventually, having gone through what I’d call a year or two baptism of fire- yes a very long baptism indeed- I had a lightbulb moment: this shouldn’t be this stress, so I stepped back slowly one step at a time to the point where the clan now no longer even has land, or a home, or Sanctuary as we used to call it. We are now just a clan bonded by blood, not by property, not by hassle, not by commerce, not by anything other than simply being, which I believe is something that should come naturally to a vampire, simply being.

I’m a much happier SL’er these days even though SL itself and even the vampire games I play have changed a lot through the years, and how others in SL perceive them. I’m much happier because I rediscovered its core: fun. It’s easy to just walk away from people being annoying or pushy or petty or basically just stupid. There are many stupid people in SL as there are in RL and because it sometimes harder to get away from all the stupid people in RL then it’s good to know that when I log into SL I am totally free of it to be a fun-loving cuddly avi-vamp that I am, and don’t stress over losing a little blood to me, be flattered, after all, one, you won’t even know it, two, it might even tickle, and three, I’m very choosey about who I suck.

© Anan Eebus

 

"lingua abstractica" art exhibition

{This exhibition is now over, thanks for taking an interest}

Welcome to another art exhibition of mine I've been lucky enough to be offered an opportunity to display at the Sisi Biedermann Gallery & Gardens in Second life. 

Through this collection I'm attempting to extract the fundamentals from what is often overlooked in an increasingly distracted and distracting world, to rediscover the tangible through simply being in a space without being bombarded by all the peripheral noise. 

I hope this collection of my paintings can make you think or maybe even take you away for a short time from the craziness of the world and of overthinking and help find a still place inside yourself. Through these images I'm offering one way in which to navigate the madness of pandemics, lockdowns and divisiveness.

 

 

 

‘broken songs’ art exhibition

{This exhibition is now over, thanks for taking an interest}

 
Good news!
I have a new collection of artwork on show at Yr Helyg gallery in Second Life (SL).

I’ve always drawn and sketched and doodled, and a few years ago I took up being a life model for local art classes and recently with lockdown and all I decided to brush up on my own canvas skills, so, with the help of an online art course as the pandemic restrictions at the time made it impossible for face-to-face classes to even run it became one of my personal lockdown challenges, to get some formal training in it.

I’ve been doing more abstract art for years and photography, for which I’ve also had some SL exhibitions, and some design work inside and outside of SL but now I thought there was time to get some more proper training in actual painting and this collections is some of the results. They are watercolour on canvas and I’ve entitled the collection “broken songs”, a theme loosely-influenced by how music evokes memories and transports us back to important or special places and times in your lives.

I hope you might find time to visit the gallery and enjoy your time there. You can visit them at the slurl, http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Vinefields%20Paradise/92/96/22
where you’ll also find artwork from other artists in this brand new creatives gallery.

Anan~x

pixel pixies

 

Yet another of my favourite shops in SL has closed, land abandoned, sims dissolved. It follows the fate of so many I’ve been fond of over the way too many years I’ve been here, all consigned to the primyards to be disassembled, composted, and one hopes at least eventually to be repurposed as something else and not just rotting away in some sl’andfill.

Then there’s my friends list, my avatar’s and my Bloodlines online profile. All those I’d bitten and all those who’d bitten me, all those still in my clan’s bloodline, of a sorts, where are they now?

As with these, alongside my list of friends, so few are even here anymore, more gone than not, less are active than not, some most likely not logged on for years even if they could remember their passwords, or their names. Their avatars exist now only as ghosts: there and not there, so transparent they can’t be seen at all and yet there they are still lounging in my lists.

That’s life, even Second Life, time and people move on, change, die, my friends list reading more like a memorial to lives past than present, rows upon rows of gravestones overgrown with lichen and ivy, missing presumed. Occasionally one will suddenly appear after years, an IM (instant message), usually sent when I’m offline to be found like a message in a bottle washed up on my shore to be uncorked and read, quite often beginning, “I don’t know if you remember me, but,….”, or a more succinct “I’m back!”, sometimes leaving me scraping my brain as to who they are. I usually remember though, weirdly I’ve always remembered more detail than I would’ve thought, on how we first met, or something particularly notable we did, even if it was only the once. So strange how all we pixel pixies leave an echo however brief the acquaintance may have been, a different kind of byte caught in these memory banks.

I sometimes look through my list and think, I should purge this a bit, tidy up, as I do every now and then with my bulging inventory, which by the way keeps bulging no matter how often I sieve it. It’s actually a shame more of this stuff we accumulate isn’t set as ‘trans’, as in with transfer permissions, because it would be brilliant to be able to do the preloved thing and instead of throwing things away, pass them on. As for my friends list, I’m reluctant delete those names long gone or forgotten or those I haven’t heard from in years, they are people after all. At the end of the day they aren’t just pixel pixies but real people beyond their screens even if they aren’t inworld, so to speak, anymore. 

In a way I’m a carrier of part of their story, even if it’s a part they’ve long left behind.

© Anan Eebus