Second Life artist Toysoldier Thor has blogged about his first ever art exhibition outside of a virtual world. Toy exhibited 40 works of art at a corporate campus between October 26th – December 3rd and feels very happy about the experience.
This was not just a first for Toy, the corporation who invited him to exhibit were also experiencing their first exhibits by a digital artist. Financially this was a burden for Toy because unlike the digital world where you can upload an exhibit for L$10, printing artwork to canvas is a tad more expensive, to say the least. However whereas Toy wasn’t financially better off after this exhibit, the event was far from a failure, as Toy explains:
“Well I can tell you now with the conclusion of the exhibit, the response was simply amazing. More importantly, for this being my first ever real world art exhibit, the value I received from the experience was beyond my expectations in many ways”
Toy did make sales, 16 pieces were sold, which compares well with other artists who have exhibited at this location, the previous exhibit sold 2, whereas others have in the past sold a lot more, so for a first exhibit Toy did well.
However overall this was a very rewarding experience from Toy, taking the skills he’s learnt in Second Life and taking them to a RL exhibit was a huge step forward, not just for Toy, but also for other digital artists who can now see an example of how art can exist inside and outside the virtual world.
Toy started on this journey as a digital artist in 2010, he was of course already artistic and had commercial work to his name, which obviously helps, but he was a relative noob in the virtual world art scene. Spurred on by his friends in the Second Life art community, Toy gained more knowledge and skills to bring his work to life.
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