Creating A Second Life
Posted on Mar 17th, 2008
by 
asecondlifediary
asecondlifediary
WHILE SECOND LIFE PROVIDES an ideal forum for creating a new life and expressing creativity, there is also a very strong spiritual component to our lives there as well.
I was reminded of this not so long ago when my 'excitement' got the better of me and I wanted to take someone else's artistic vision and use it as just a decoration in the cinema I was building on our island. I wrote to Baron Grayson, one of the many talented designers and artists in SL asking to use one of his textures (which is basically a pattern or a design used in SL to 'decorate' buildings and objects). Baron creates unique environments at his several sims, which include Intempesta and incorporate Relic, his retail outlet.
His textures and items are eagerly sought after, and I'm embarrassed now to be among the many people who failed to comprehend the very delicate and personal nature of creation. Because some things are so easy to get in SL, it's easy to be led into the "I want it, get it now!" kind of mentality.
I am indebted to Baron for bringing me back to a more loftier ideal ... I had written to him asking for permission to use a very small section of one of his magnificient drapes as a colour swatch on my cinema balcony seats. I feel quite venal now, saying that I would keep our little 'arrangement' secret if he granted me the use of the texture. But this is about Baron, not me and his reply serves as a beacon I think for high-minded ideals. Here it is:
I appreciate your asking me directly. Selling textures is historically something I do not do. I'm immensely flattered that you would ask about one of my textures but I'm very uncomfortable giving permission to release them, in any way through someone else's builds, because it was not how I had designed the texture to be used.
For me textures are more complex than just the silly graphic they are in RL. The textures are part of a story and an original artistic vision completely created by me to express myself. The items in my shop are rather like children and are a direct extension of the sim itself. When someone takes a texture from that vision, it removes it from the purpose I had intended for it and that lessens my overall design dream.
I would much rather you use another texture for your personal builds simply because if you do, it removes the possibility that this texture can be easily shared by mistake. I believe your sincerity that you would never dream of doing so, or breathing a word...but I actually am asked dozens of times a day for my textures and if I quietly and secretly said yes to each of them....my textures would spread across SL faster than wildfire. It's dangerous for me to begin making allowances to any request however much I like a person and am flattered by the person's intended use.
A few weeks ago there was someone that took a snapshot of my sim land textures and used them for personal use. She admitted it through guilt and asked for my permission in the end. I carefully composed my reasons why I asked them to remove use of the textures. I share it with you now, only to help explain my passion behind my designs and hand painted textures....not to cause you discomfort. It simply gets across the love that goes behind the sims and the designs here.
It's such an easy thing to do, take those screencaps (screen photos). The danger with doing this is with time it becomes common place and the ethics of the act becomes lessor in one's mind. What I ask of visitors is to give the experience of the four sims a value..and a protection..to preserve it. To encourage its growth and development. To realise that the magic they experience there belongs there and that it's right. To hold it safe. For each person that visits..to understand and value the meaning of it being there at all.
It's a place away from everything else. People have used it as a get away when they were in their last days, sick with RL medical problems. They've married there. They've made it a personal destination when their lives get a little chaotic. The place itself, though virtual, soaks in the experiences and the memories. It has such stories. You must feel it, if you love it so.
I ask that people slow down and remember how to keep something a personal treasure. To forget greed....to forget want and a need to have. Just enjoy it for the thing that it is...and take your stand when something is worth guarding.
The thought behind the sims is to provide a unique vision of dreams and emotion that I want to give to the public. In that way it's a living evolving artform to me. I bequeath the experience to visitors but the art itself is mine because it's a direct extension of myself and works with all of the other elements of the sim. I'm often asked if I can sell my textures but that act would cheapen the art and make it less spectacular. Less special. Common and found in other places besides the original sims it was specially created for. The meaning of the sims would be diluted if I sold parts of it away. Little chips that would eventually leave nothing left. The textures..the builds...all of the pieces to the puzzle would mean nothing without the other and my main focus is not to make money.
I hope I have not made your build design unnessessarily complex by refusing permission for this texture. That was certainly never my intent.
Sincerely,
Baron Grayson
RELIC
What I want for our Intentional Community is that this same sense of purity exists there. What Cal and I hope to create IS an artistic and philosophical expression of the journey we are taking together, and the journey we hope to share with others.
Mia
Access: PublicTagged with: Second Life, Intentional Community, Baron Grayson, Intempesta, Relic, Morality, Integrity, Artistic Vision
artistic vision
May 2008
I'm finding it hard to stay on task right out of the gate here because I'm excited to see someone who talks about “intentional communities” and is here at Gaia. Don't know why I should be so surprised but I still rarely relate many of my Second Life connections with the things that define my first life. Suffice to say, Mia, I'm tickled pink to see this side of you on the other side of the digital backyard fence.
I want to tell you what a thrill it was to read this. I certainly won't speak for Baron, because as you see he does that remarkably well for himself :^) As he mentioned in what you've quoted here the requests are constant, and sadly eclipsed by the number of people who do indeed “borrow” without asking as you kindly did. It goes beyond the notion of intellectual property, and you've done a marvellous job of conveying the spirit of creation that makes Second Life such a wonderful place for people to express themselves. Baron is a remarkable man not only in his abundant talents this way, but in the vision that drives him to create and how he connects with people through his constantly morphing digital canvas.
You've really done justice to this here, and I wanted you to know what a pleasure it was to read this. B's talked about sharing this on our web site and in our own newsletter because people so rarely understand the true motivation behind his choice not to share those textures. So, thank you and kudos for a lovely expression of this!
Keeping a warm thought,
Sue Stonebender.