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.
Toy explains how the experience of being an artist within Second Life aided him as he made his way to his first real world art exhibition:
“Another valuable outcome for me was the validation I received about how much of what I learned, developed, and evolved as an Artist in SecondLife® was a huge value-add as a foundation when I transitioned / expanded my Artist role into the Real World. All the important tips and tricks I learned from all the SL art galleries I have exhibited at. The development of my “Artist’s Comment” notecards for each artwork. Learning how to present / display my art at a gallery. Promoting and advertising art events. All of these were huge value inputs to prepare me for my first real world exhibit.”
Toy’s post also contains some very good feedback from those who enjoyed his exhibition and this sort of feedback is invaluable. That is certainly worth reading if you have the time. Toy concludes:
“In conclusion, I cannot be more happy how my first ever real world art exhibit went. The experience for me was invaluable and will be one of those highlights in my life. I am so grateful for this corporate art committee giving me this opportunity. I can now say that I have been an Artist that has publicly exhibited my art. ”
What we’re seeing here is yet another good use case of virtual worlds, in this case Second Life. How support from a group of people the world over can be obtained via a virtual world and how people can learn new skills and experiences that provide them with an opportunity to enrich themselves outside the virtual world. All good stuff and most importantly, well done Toy.