Anachrotechnofetishism

A show at the Suite 100 Gallery in Seattle, Washington: Anachrotechnofetishism – artifacts by pioneers of american steampunk

Long before the age of the internet, and well before the cold efficiency of the assembly line, existed fantastic and terrible machines, run on hope, sweat, and steam. It was a time in which form and function lived in sin, and everyman was a revolutionary.

These are 13 American artists united by broad geography and narrow aesthetic.

Marrying narrative and nostalgia to design and technology, they imagine the triumphs of the past overriding the failures of the present to create from the ruins and detritus a dazzling future-perfect.

March literary salon

As I am each third Tuesday, I will be at home tomorrow for conversation. The March topic is drawn from “The beauty of life,” an address delivered before the Birmingham Society of Arts and School of Design on February 19, 1880, by William Morris:

‘HAVE NOTHING IN YOUR HOUSES THAT YOU DO NOT KNOW TO BE USEFUL OR BELIEVE TO BE BEAUTIFUL.’

What is the relevance of this “golden rule” to our first or second lives?

Please join me at Ormsby Hall, Caledon Murdann, on Tuesday 18 March, from 5:00 to 7:00 pm SLT.

Victorian decorative arts

Mr Expedition Offcourse and Miss Persephone Gallindo were kind enough to give a presentation Saturday evening on the Victorian decorative arts. It was held in the Gaiety Theatre in Caledon Penzance, which was designed and built by Miss Gallindo. The event was held in voice, occasioning a bit of technical difficulty at first, quickly overcome. (It is clear to me that practicing with the voice function of the client should be on my list of tasks.) Mr Offcourse had a series of technical misfortunes, but he skillfully covered in such a way that participants were not inconvenienced.

Mr Offcourse outlined the broad artistic movements affecting Victorian decorative arts, showing an example from each movement and explicating some of the distinctive elements of each. Miss Gallindo then spoke about the process of building in SL, encouraging her listeners to be constantly looking, both in SL and in FL. Mr Offcourse then gave a short practicum on creating custom textures and sculpties. 

New home at Dragon Hill

17th December, 2006

This is the Rockridge, a prefab Craftsman bungalow. It was an absolute breeze to put together (there’s a box that rezzes and positions (and repositions) everything. I’d like to change the shingles, but I need to find the right texture. The darker shingles I have are too small at the same size as these are (and these are a bit too small–it makes it look like it’s brick). I took out the kitchen cabinets and accessories to save prims (and really, who needs a kitchen in a SL house?), and then I needed to redo a wall. Well, I got to know it a bit better that way.

Wallpaper

Here I am with my first attempt at making Arts and Crafts wallpaper.

It’s William Morris’s willow bough. The repeat isn’t square (or 1:2), so I couldn’t just resize it and let SL tile it. I used The Gimp to make a 1024x1024pix TGA file, which I applied to a large panel.