I went to the CRATER NEW YORK: a lunar drawing contest last night and took some footage.  Had a good time; I guess my own artwork, which I did about 10 days ago, didn’t make the final batch that was voted on for a plot on the Moon’s Lunar Surface.

That’s OK, it was all done in fun, but those plots on the Moon are supposedly real … meaning if you get to the Moon, you might be able to claim your land and build on it…but then again, you might make it to the Moon, but your probably not coming back if you get that far….

I meant to write about this earlier – I’ve always wondered if Second Life could be used to recreate Great Paintings and then move around in the painting.  One of the all time favorite paintings is Van Gogh’s Starry Night – I wonder how that would look in Second Life.

I suppose this is the closest thing to that idea that I’ve seen (above).

Life is so crazy; haven’t been over to my studio to paint for almost two weeks – but I will spend the better part of Saturday and maybe, Monday, painting – and I have on my mind a still life, sorta like a Paris Still Life, to do.

Which reminds me that life has a way of repeating itself as 20 years ago, when I went to Paris for the first time, I also painted a Paris Still Life – but it was a much more drawn out painting – and I remember selling – it was a commission, for a 1000 bucks.   Here’s the Paris Still Life I painted – and I remember it took me a month to painting and I did quite a bit of over painting on it.

I think the painting was 30″ x 40″, or something like that – oil on canvas.

 I don’t think in terms of money, but I did then – I could think of little else as I was always worried about not having enough.  I barely made it to Paris 20 years ago, and all I did was hang out in the city and speak to American Woman – no one else would speak to me.  

Thankfully, the upcoming trip won’t be a repeat exactly as I am going with people, or meeting them at any rate.

But the Still Life in my mind, if I get to do it – will, probably be one, or at most, two sittings and include the World View of Paul Cezanne and the Journal of Eugene Delacroix as well as a book on the South of France…and any other bric a brac that I can find at the studio.

Which reminds me, I bought some Art Supplies to take to with me tonight – some very oily Oil Pastels and two sketch pads … I need little else as what I’ll paint is much as I paint here – pastels are much faster and less messy … and they are much quicker to work in – and require less commitment in terms of setup and finishing up, cleaning, etc.  But then again, I’m pretty messy with my art supplies, once I start using them.

With out forgetting to mention it – I did go to a great opening last night at the Fuse Gallery in the East Village – and wrote it up on Webmetricsguru.com – here it is – Lifelogging event – Destroy Television – Jerry Paffendorf, Christian Westbrook – Fuse Gallery NYC.  I even put 7 YouTube movies in the post so you can see for yourself what the opening was all about (hint – Second Life and Art).

Some people are telling me that Second Life is not that important – and maybe they’re right – I tend to go with what I think is important at the  moment – and honestly…I don’t know who I am anymore – pulled in so many directions and wanting to contain them all.

But I started out – as an artist and I remain, fundamentally, an artist; a painter.

I wrote a bit about what I listened to and who I interviewed today at the very first Virtual Worlds Conference(ever) taking place in New York City on the 28th and 29th; I’ll be going back on Thursday for the morning and afternoon.

Here’s what I think as an Artist:

1. It’s fair to say that Television and Online 3D worlds are beginning to merge creating a 4D Environment that’s neither pure TV or pure Online 3D game, and this also offers Artists an opportunity to forge ahead on a new Artform.  Examples are in my Webmetericsguru.com post on Keynote – Viacom’s MTV Networks and Nickelodeon   where MTV clips from last year’s Laguna Beach where shown and what the show / online community is morphing into. 

What is being created by the big media companies using broadcast media and Second Life should also be something Artists can begin experimenting with on their own – as it’s within the means of many to do so.

2. Advertising is much more effective in 3D Virtual Words than in the real world – up to a 100 times more effective!  So is Branding and so could Artist’s promoting their “Brand” though their own Virtual World(s) which are getting more accessible to build.

However, I became aware of something both profound and scary today – while Brand Marketers were rejoicing about the possibilities of ramming more advertising down our throats in a 3D game environment – it’s also possible we can’t tune those advertising messages out as easily as we can in the real world because life in 3D World had much less “noise” than the real world.

For example, if I pass a Pepsi sign I don’t need to engage with it if I don’t want to – there’s a zillion things all around me to distract myself with – but if I’m in Second Life and pass that same Pepsi sign – I have a 95% chance I’ll interact with the sign, one way or the other.  My mind does not know how to tune out an advertising spot in Second Life – I bet yours doesn’t know how to do it either.

That worries me.

3. To the extent that your work in Second Life mirrors life in the real world – it’s more likely to be successful.   Think about it ….. when the Ancient Pharaohs died and were entombed in the Pyramids, they took all kinds of stuff with them in their tomb – the things they had in life.

Tired, need to go to bed.