This morning I visited Distance, by Mich Michabo…

… I was straight away captured by the gorgeous 70’s decor…

… this whole, tiny, gallery space is beautifully constructed…

… wonderfully complimentary to the excellent work on display, here…

… all this work is for sale…

… I just need to find some space in my home for them…

… and I will be back to buy a few (:

Witchy enjoyed her first helicopter so much, she upgraded to a more expensive beast…

… and, once more, we were chopping through the ether, this time in a bigger, prettier, more cruisy ride…

… exploring more of the islands near where Witchy lives…

… it seems unlikely a ship would ever go astray, here, unless it actually became confused at the sheer number of lighthouses in the region, but we were still drawn to the bigger ones…

… even if it was just to slingshot around them…

… and head off in another direction…

… near yet another lighthouse, we saw this gorgeous seaplane, and had to swing in for a closer view…

… like all it’s kind, this aquatic aeroplane was a work of art, and we enjoyed finding it here…

… we had been adventuring for about half an hour, before the chopper developed an engine problem entirely unique to SL; it’s rotors stopped spinning, even though we were still flying. This totally ruined the potential for good pictures, as the blades would always have been in the same place, in every picture. We decided to land, power down, then restart the engine, in the hope this would fix our problem. Witchy expertly landed us on an island airstrip, powered down to a complete stop, then restarted the engine, and lifted off, into the sky, again…

… the rotors were spinning, albeit oddly; the entire rotor assembly was jumping around on the roof. Within a few seconds, SL had kicked Witchy out of her own chopper, in fact it had crashed her viewer, and I was stuck in a pilotless helicopter I had no control over. Witchy logged back in but, even with a TP from me, she was unable to get back into the aircraft. I tried to TP home, and wound up in some bizarre, distorted SL twilight zone for several seconds, enough time to actually get photos, before I managed to successfully TP home. So, this chopper ride, while fun, ended badly, but, hey, no-one got hurt!

Witchy’s partner, Nat, and Nat’s mum G Xaris, own Artemis. Artemis is part of the SL wrestling community, of which I knew nothing till I met Witchy. Witchy told me, the other day, that Nat had suggested I might want to set up a gallery there. As I really enjoy setting up a new space, of course I said yes. This morning, Witchy showed me the spaces I could choose from. These wrestling people seem to favour medieval/Roman/Greek style architecture, so all the spaces pretty much looked like dungeons, but I saw I could do something with such a space…

… this is the entrance to the space I eventually chose…

… I thought the sign I use outside my home gallery would fit right in, here…

… I first fitted plain white ceiling panels, to both lighten and modernise the space. Timeless, luxury carpet added instant colour and warmth to the worn old flagstones, and ‘full bright’ versions of my works solved the issue of lighting them, as well as providing more colour…

… my most opulent armchairs worked perfectly to create the rich comfort I was going for, here…

… I actually had to go shopping for the much-needed exit sign above this door…

… I love my new space (:

In a gesture of solidarity for all people homeless and displaced in RL these days…

… and as a gesture of inclusiveness to any homeless SL avi’s…

… Djehan Kidd has built a homeless camp in Hangars Liquides…

… any homeless avi can come here, choose an empty tent, rez a few belongings, and ‘squat’ here…

… I found most of the sitting poses to be pretty pensive…

… if not downright depressed…

… which, I guess, kinda goes with the territory…

… but, if you have to live in a homeless camp…

… having Hangars Liquides to explore would totally help relieve the anxiety of displacement…

… and not all the ‘sits’ are depressing, this one, ‘maybelinefux’ is a totally gorgeous little, hands-behind-back, hip-swinging, cute-as-a-button delight, guaranteed to make you smile (:

I visited ChicLand, today. I went with the ‘shared environment’ lighting, which I found a bit anaemic, to start with, but really liked the fast-moving clouds, as clouds are very much a part of all my picture compositions. Eventually, I grew to actually like the soft colours, as well…

… they definitely add to the mise-en-scene, giving an almost oil-paint richness in their own soft way…

… ChicLand is well worth a good explore. There is a perfect mix of country and urban environment to play in…

… the background scenery is beautiful…

… there’s humour…

… cuteness…

… nice perspectives…

… and a lovely, coherent, architectural theme…

… as I was leaving, this bat-wielding avi IM’d me and said ‘Hey, come back, we’ll make a picture together’. As this is the first time, EVER, in 11 years, that another avi has asked me this, I put aside my initial caution about people swinging blunt objects around…

… and came back and posed with her. She sent me one of the pictures she’d taken, thanked me, and told me she thought I looked cool. Moments like these are absolutely why I adore SL (:

My idea for our second helicopter excursion was one of Skye’s wonderful islands, Skye Neist Point…

… the main feature, here, is this stunning castle eyrie…

… this time round, Witchy went for for the serious chopper pilot look, and had added pontoons to her machine, in case we ran out of fuel over the vast ocean…

… the castle attracted us like moths to a flame…

… and we inspected it quite thoroughly…

… marvelling at it’s gothic splendour…

… and it’s sheer size…

… then we headed away…

… flying low down a valley…

… and back out to sea.

Witchy took me for a ride in her new toy, today…

… I’ve never been in a helicopter, before. This was wonderful, seeing all the pretty islands and atolls passing beneath…

… there’s so much to see, when you start exploring out over the sea, in SL, like this…

… for a first-time pilot, Witchy was very fluent with her new machine…

… I felt perfectly safe as we cruised around, sight-seeing…

… we came across this delightful scene, and I asked her if we could get closer for some pictures…

… she deftly brought the chopper down to the level of the water…

… so close, the rotor downdraft was kicking up spume off the water…

… I was very impressed with her skill…

… but not so impressed that I forgot to keep my camera drone rolling…

… I’m already thinking where we can go, next (:

I bought myself a superhero outfit, yesterday. Well, more of a super-bimbo outfit, but, hey, it looks really good on me…

… just have to concentrate on leaving the ground…

… and, voila!…

… floating effortlessly into the ether…

… gravity cannot hold me!…

… perhaps I should take my glasses off, so my friends don’t recognise me? At the very least it’ll mean I can’t recognise them (:

Today, I visited Future Fossils. The premise, here, is that of a frozen explosion, creating a ‘memory of what once was’…

… what I actually found was a powerful gravitic anomaly…

… which was destabilising pockets within the house…

… making it quite difficult to move around inside…

… without joining the various items of furniture/decor that were levitating/tumbling about in the various pockets of this anomaly…

… it got a bit disorienting…

… I was never sure which way was up; I felt like I was in a Jeremy Geddes painting, half the time.

Yesterday, I visited Orange, Feint and Bone… *edit* I have realised, since my visit here, that I forgot to use ‘shared environment’. Hence, my images of ‘Orange’, are not orange! That being said, I went back and checked to see what I’d missed, and I actually prefer my images, taken using ‘mid-day’ windlight. *edit ends*…

… this build is pure whimsy and fun…

… from some angles, it can appear a bit ramshackle/chaotic, but if you choose your sightlines with care, the crazy jumble of objects turns into wonderful elements placed with zen-like precision. I loved this big, shell-like thing…

… it’s patterning, size, and shape instantly reminded me of a Chris Foss spaceship…

… my favourite thing, here…

… was this wonderful guy! I loved his size/shape/colouring, everything, he’s perfect. The sim owner/creator, Livio Korobase, said hello to me, as he’d seen me wondering around and obviously setting up shots, I must have been there for at least half an hour at that stage. We got chatting, and I told him how much I loved this fish… and he gave me one! Totally made my day…

… I spent at least another half hour, here, setting up shots, and waiting for favourable cloud formations. Even stood in the rain to get some good shots…

… I just loved it, here. There is such a lovely balance of space/shape/placement here, when you find the magical angle to resolve it…

… such a delightful collection of seemingly disparate objects…

… that form a fantastical whole…

… I very much enjoyed myself, here (: