Cheri Cherry Lady - December Winners of the UWA 3D Open Art Challenge

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Cherry Manga's December Winner

Bringing back memories of Buddy Holly, Cherry Manga's IL PLEUT SUR MON COEUR COMME IL PLEUT SUR LA VILLE (It's raining in my heart, as it's raining in the town) took the top prize (L$10,000) for the December round of the UWA 3D Open Art Challenge. Serendipity or synchronicity (depending on how you look at it from) struck, with her great friend Anley Piers' work, TRAVEL IN THE SHADOW OF TECHNOLOGY taking 2nd prize (and also the Summerland Special Prize). There was also a 3-way tie for 3rd place as the panel could not separate PARANORMAL FROTTAGE (Misprint Thursday), THE ILLUSIONIST (Gleman Jun) and LIGHT TOWER (Betty Tureaud).

Cherry (whose other work, FALLEN ANGEL, also took the BOSL Prize) was overwhelmed, "I could not imagine to win the first prize, there were such amazing entries this month, that I could not think that my work compared to those. Thank you so much for appreciating the poetry I tried to give in this work."

Travel in the Shadow of Technology - Anley Piers

Anley chimed in, "I'm so happy for Cherry, for myself. We have shared our work over the past few months and I am even more pleased with our cooperation today. We're a good team, we have proof now!"

Defending Grand Champion, Nish Mip's work, TURNING THE TIDE once again struck a chord, as it gained direct entry to the Grande Finale round by virtue of winning more than one of the Group Awards, taking both the SL Art Prize and the Pirats Prize. "I'm just so excited that my piece was liked so much. It means a lot to me and I'm soooo happy. I hope the environmental message from this was taken on board and wow just great thanks".

Turning the Tide - Nish Mip

The message was definitely not lost, as demonstrated by the comments of the Pirats panel in awarding the prize, "Initially we were captured visually by her work. Next it was the message of the work, great optimism in an apocalyptic world, urging us all to become aware of our role in response to changes in our environment."

A veteran of the UWA Challenges, Sabrina Nightfire's very personal and emotive work, STAGE 4, took the Odyssey Prize. We know this piece inspires everyone to fight hard to bravely face and overcome the numerous challenges life throws at us. "I am so glad to share this piece with others. It really shows how I have felt for the past year. I am so happy that it touches others."

Stage 4 - Sabrinaa Nightfire

The Odyssey panel commented "We were moved by this very powerful piece. It has everything - cleverly incorporating interactivity and participation while communicating something genuine and important. It is a piece that shares something special and that stays with you. "

Aside from the shared 3rd prize, Misprint's work, which also inspired two Machinima (by Yesikita Coppola & Apmel Goosson - links below) also took the Nordan Art Prize, "Thank you UWA for the opportunity and recognition for so much fine virtual art. It is an honor to have won 2 prize categories amidst such great work. I look forward to continued participation!"

Paranormal Frottage - Misprint Thursday

68 entries were received for the December round of this Challenge which represents a grand collaboration between major art houses and groups in Second Life. These include The University of Texas San Antonio (UTSA) led by Dr Carmen Fies, SL Art, led by Gleman Jun & Sunset Quinnel, CARP led by Josina Burgess & Velazquez Bonetto, Pirats Art Network led by Merlina Rokocoko & Newbab Zsigmond, Odyssey led by Fau Ferdinand & Lizsolo Mathilde, Show & Tell @ Avaria led by Florenze Kerensky & Barney Boomslang, BOSL led by Frolic Mills & Giela Delpaso, Nordan Art led by Flora Nordenskiold and Apmel Goosson & UWA with Professor Ted Snell, Chair of the Visual Arts Board of the Australia Council as Chair of the UWA judging panel.

The second month of this year long L$1,000,000 challenge, saw an expansion of the countries represented in the various UWA events, spanning 6 of the 7 continents of the world. Artists, Builders & Machinimatographers from across the globe are represented including Russia, Venezuela, Belgium, Mexico, Wales, Canada, the USA, the UK, Uruguay, Scotland,England, Spain, Switzerland, Italy, France, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Denmark, Holland, Ireland, Portugal, Austria, Cuba, Serbia, Tunisia, Germany, Japan, New Zealand and Australia.

A new dimension was added to the People's Choice Award, as GeeJAnn Blackadder redesigned the voting system, resulting in a huge increase in participation in the People's Choice awards. In a close contest, Betty Tureaud's LIGHT TOWER took the top honours over Nish Mip's TURNING THE TIDE. The works of ChapTer Kronfeld, Faery Sola, Trill Zapatero, Anley Piers, Cherry Manga, Tensai Hilra, followmeimthe Piedpiper, Pumpkin Tripsa, Blue Tsuki and Aloisio Congrejo all featured strongly in the People's Choice.

Other winners include MISS N by Susan Graves (Best Non-Scripted), PAINTERARIUM by Trill Zapatero (UTSA Prize), MIRROR, MIRROR by Blue Tsuki (Show & Tell @ Avaria Prize), SNAKES by Takni Miklos (Carp Prize), CREATING THE WAKE OF YOUR DREAMS by Ginger Alsop (Carp Joint 2nd Prize) THE ILLUSIONIST by Gleman Jun (Carp Joint 2nd Prize), and GANESHA by Pumpkin Tripsa (Curator's Choice Prize).

FreeWee Ling in describing the Curator's Choice selection explained, "The work of this month's Curator's Choice winner is well known across SL. I have come across his work many times in disparate contexts. And in all probability, so have you. He was a winner of the 2007 Second Life Sculpted Prim Contest, which SL used to showcase the possibilities of the then-new sculpty technology. As JayJay can testify, when I saw his entry this month I was transfixed by its beauty and technical execution. The attention to detail is extraordinary. I encourage everyone to examine his work and to find inspiration in it as I have."

The December round inspired a number of spontaneous Machinima relating to the works on display which is a pleasing development. These include:

'Spin Cycle' by NicoleX Moonwall and 'Impromptu Performance Art' by Nina Camplin as to Fuschia Nightfire's 'Forbidden Fruit'

'Covered in Black' by Yesikita Coppola and'Paranormal Frottage' by Apmel Goosson of Misprint Thursday's work of the same name

Ginger Alsop favourites from the December round

The UWA blog has also almost been turned on its head (for the good), with the introduction of 2 amazing guest bloggers in the prolific Sayumi Tsunenaga and art historian Rowan Derryth (http://www.uwainsl.blogspot.com/).

On other fronts, the UWA Virtlantis SIM, has been transformed into a space for the display of FULL SIM art, the first month of which features Betty Tureaud's ART PLANET (click to Teleport). Betty's exhibition will be on display across all of January and this will be followed by Blue Tsuki in February, Anley Piers & Cherry Manga in March, soror Nishi in April and Wizard Gynoid in May.

Jayjay Zifanwe (Jay Jay Jegathesan - Manager, School of Physics @ UWA) has been invited speak on Second Life and the use of Virtual worlds in education at the 4th Australian Higher Education Congress (7th-9th March 2011) in Sydney, where numerous Vice Chancellors of Australian Universities are also speaking. Programme is as linked, and Jayjay's presentation will close out the congress on the final day http://acevents.com.au/higheredu2011/programme.html

The January round of the UWA 3D Open Art Challenge is officially open for receiving. Artwork entry receiver is located here

WINNERS OF THE DECEMBER ROUND OF THE UWA 3D OPEN ART CHALLENGE

1st Prize: ($L10,000)
IL PLEUT SUR MON COEUR COMME IL PLEUT SUR LA VILLE ("It rains in my heart, as it rains in the town") by Cherry Manga

2nd Prize: (L$7,500)
TRAVEL IN THE SHADOW OF TECHNOLOGY by Anley Piers

3rd Prize: JOINT (L$1,700 each)
PARANORMAL FROTTAGE by Misprint Thursday

THE ILLUSIONIST by Gleman Jun

LIGHT TOWER by Betty Tureaud

Best Non-Scripted Entry: (L$5,000)
MISS N by Suzanne Graves

UTSA Prize: (L$5,000)
PAINTERARIUM by Trill Zapatero

SL Art Prize: (L$5,000)
TURNING THE TIDE by Nish Mip

Odyssey Prize: (L$5,000)
STAGE 4 by Sabrina Nightfire

Pirats Prize: (L$5,000)
TURNING THE TIDE by Nish Mip

Show & Tell @ Avaria Prize: (L$5,000)
MIRROR, MIRROR by Blue Tsuki

CARP Prize: (L$5,000)
SNAKES by Takni Miklos

CARP Joint 2nd Prize: (L$2,500 each)
THE ILLUSIONIST by Gleman Jun

CREATING THE WAKE OF YOUR DREAMS by Ginger Alsop

BOSL Prize: (L$5,000)
FALLEN ANGEL by Cherry Manga

Nordan Art Prize: (L$5,000)
PARANORMAL FROTTAGE by Misprint Thursday

People's Choice Award - First Place (L$2,500) :
LIGHT TOWER by Betty Tureaud

People's Choice Award: Second Place (L$1,000) :
TURNING THE TIDE by Nish Mip

Curator's Choice Award (L$5,000):
GANESHA by Pumpkin Tripsa

Summerland Special Award (L$2,500)
TRAVEL IN THE SHADOW OF TECHNOLOGY by Anley Piers

Two works of colour and motion: guest blogger Sayumi Tsunenaga feels the impact of some entries

I have really enjoyed this month spending time playing with two large scale entries in the competition which involve the constant movement of brightly-coloured components in endless patterns, sometimes random and at other times following precise mathematical patterns.

Betty Tureaud’s Falling Cubes has given me endless amusement not so much watching it but getting right in amongst it and allowing it to batter and buffet me in ways which make me very glad that the bio-engineers of this world have given us the option to switch off our nervous system so that we do not feel pain when we choose not to. Being smashed around by Betty’s cubes makes you very much aware of how solid they are despite their initially jelly-like appearance (‘jello’ if you come from the Western Hemisphere, or parts of it anyway!) As soon as I saw it I was desperate to get right in there and see what would happen to me, and it took me a few moments (I’m not very bright with spatial awareness stuff, hee hee!) to work out that one needs to fly up to the top of the transparent tube in which this version of the work has been enclosed and then drop down inside. For a few seconds you will totter around unsteadily on a tangled pile of cubes, broken apart by the impact of the sudden stop at the bottom of their fall. But then the really exciting part begins, when you are smashed from above by 27 more (simple geometry and arithmetic I can do!) cubes as they break apart on your head! From there it’s a short journey to the bottom as you descend with the cubes melting beneath you, and then you stagger around in the crevices between the cubes while more pound down upon you from above. To really appreciate the fun of this work, bring a friend or two and try to hold hands among the cubes.

Three view of Betty Tureaud's Falling Cubes (UWA competition version)

Betty had another version of Falling Cubes on display at ArtNation, which was not enclosed, so the cubes bounced and spilled across the floor as they fell. This version also was ideal for positioning yourself just below the point where the cubes materialized, and watching as they broke apart on your head, cascading randomly to scatter more widely on the floor below. This is interactive art at its best, art as sheer torment for the body and highly coloured adrenalin-pumping excitement for the brain. You can get beaten up by more of Betty’s work in some parts of her new installation in the former Virtlantis sim. [I had originally said that I would post the SLURL for the ArtNation version, but it had been cleared away even before my post went to press; so unless Betty shows it somewhere else, readers will have to rely on my photo below to get the idea]

Betty Tureaud Falling Cubes (alternate version)

Located not far from Falling Cubes I came across the other formation of endlessly moving coloured shapes. Takni Miklos’s Snakes, comprising a multitude of whirling rectangular prisms of varying thickness, offers the viewer the opportunity to choose from two patterns of motion ('fuzzy' and 'focused'), and also collapsed and unimposing stillness. I tried to interfere with the work as I had with Falling Cubes, but the artist in this case has, perhaps wisely, denied the viewer that right, apart from through the coloured control cube on the ground. I had wondered if I might cause the prisms to scatter and watch them reform. No matter! The intrigue with Snakes is in determining the pattern and indeed the overall shape of what one is seeing. Whether viewed from the ground or from flight above the sculpture, the eye is never sure just what it is seeing – what are the patterns of colour and motion. In the end, this non-mathematically inclined viewer decided to simply relax and enjoy the show, and although at one point the work provided an interesting backdrop to a conversation on a completely different subject, its motion and, in the end to an extent at least, predictability, gave me some assurance that there are some features of another metaverse which can be depended upon even if they are constantly changing, which has provided a metaphor for my recent Second Life.

Takni Miklos - Snakes (fuzzy mode)

Viewing her works this month did provide Betty Tureaud with an opportunity to try to explain to me some of the building principles and especially the physics and mathematics of works such as hers. She was a patient teacher and I did follow her to an extent; but eventually she realized that although my eyes were still open I was in danger of falling into an irretrievable coma from brain strain, so she changed the subject and sweetly taught me how to make a bouncing rubber ball instead. So I’m a step ahead of a plywood box after two years in this wonderful, kaleidoscopic, colourful Second Life!

Winners Announcements & Party - December Round: UWA 3D Open Art Challenge

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Winners announcements and party for the December round of the UWA 3D Open Art Challenge will be from 6am slt Sunday 9th Jan at the landmark linked below (under 5 hours from time of this post)

More than L$70,000 will be awarded, including The University of Texas San Antonio (UTSA), SL Art, CARP, Pirats Art Network, Odyssey, Show & Tell @ Avaria, BOSL, Nordan Art & UWA Prizes

CLICK HERE FOR ANNOUNCEMENT & PARTY LOCATION

We're officially accepting artworks for the January round which will start going up in 24 hours!
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Betty Tureaud: Full SIM Artwork - The Art Planet, January 2011

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UWA will be hosting a series of Full Sim art shows across the next few months, on the UWA Virtlantis SIM.

Betty Tureaud - January
Blue Tsuki - February
Anley Piers & Cherry Manga - March
soror Nishi - April
Wizard Gynoid - May

We are happy to announce the opening of the first of these full sim installations which will be open across the month of January.

Betty Tureaud's ART PLANET

In her words, "My art instalation is made like a oil painting that evolves during the work. I use trasparent color surfaces as flip themselves whichever direction you look. It allows you even to create your own paintings just turn and you see a new one. It is you who decides what colors and patterns, your picture will serve"

Click HERE to teleport to the starting point of the installation, where you can retrieve the full set of links.

I believe this is the first full sim artwork she has put on. Congratulations Betty!

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Rowan's Reflections: December Brings Supernatural Encounters

Rubbing up to Misprint Thursday's 'Paranormal Frottage'

I've been sorely amiss: I completely missed the opening round of the new UWA challenge, and for that I am ashamed. And I can see now, that it was truly my loss - everyone has really upped their game for this second year, and I'll have to make sure to keep up.

Cherry Manga's 'Fallen Angel'

And if the art wasn't enough to seduce me, Jayjay has invited me along to share some of my rambling thoughts with you here on the blog, which I am pleased to do (and thanks to Sayumi for the warm welcome!). These little snapshots will be much briefer than my Ekphrasis tomes over on the Prim Perfect blog, I promise!

Wandering the UWA is like visiting the V&A, or the Met, or one of my other favourite large museums: I have to take it in segments. Not just for the lagtastic factor, but because there is so much to see, and I like to soak it all up. But the past couple nights, I couldn't help but noticing that not only is everything looking very sharp, but there were more than a few pieces which had a decidedly spiritual, even supernatural aspect to them. Last night, for example, I found myself in deep contemplation of Cherry Manga's Fallen Angel for it's sheer beauty and stunning display of skill. I've enjoyed her work over at Mysterious Wave (alongside that of last month's winner Anley Piers, who currently has a fantastic exhibit up at Pirats SAS La Rochelle).

I was also quite mesmerized by Pumpkin Tripsa's Ganesha. I have to admit, I'm not a huge fan of prim 'sculptie' sculptures of physical bodies (whether animal or humanoid). I find they often look amateurish, rather like generic icons on crosswalk lights. Tripsa, however, has mastered prim-working, and his Ganesha looks like it was modeled and cast as a bronze might. He's even got proper shadows on the surface of the Hindu god (a personal favourite in any case).

Pumpkin Tripsa's 'Ganesha'

And as the patron of arts and sciences he is well-placed in the open plan gallery (which has been brilliantly curated by FreeWee Ling, I hasten to add). Ganesha rests his gaze upon the sparking and jumping arachnid Sayumi also enjoyed (see previous post), masterminded by the mad genius Tensai Hilra.

Tensai Hilra's 'Bennie'

I say 'mad genius' because her art lies not in just the creation, but destruction of her work. I've had the pleasure of watching Tensai's glee as she detonated her creations, from her amazing RFL build 'Alice' to the volcanic Mount St. Helen's which sits at the centre of Steelhead, the 19th century Pacific Northwest region full of Steampunk goodness that she co-owns and governs with her partner TotalLunar Eclipse.

How Tensai cleaned up her Award-winning RFL build 'Alice'

As I watch the beautiful but threatening steam-powered spider in action, I also cannot help but imagine it being rendered to bits - and secretly hope Tensai might plan to explode her lovely creature, and that I might be invited to watch!

But tonight it is a different sort of destruction which has me enthralled. Misprint Thursday offers us a trial by fire in her compelling multi-media installation Paranormal Frottage (and the title alone is enough to draw me in). It's the kind of installation I adore, and would love to see in a gallery, at the same time I recognize the unique properties of the virtual which make it possible. In case you miss the sign, set to midnight and turn your media stream on before you go in - but DO grab the notecard, and wear the object it provides. As the title suggests, this room is a metaphysical immersion, where the shifting light - flickering flames - emanating from Misprint's hazy drawings and film ethereally rub against as you pass through space.

Haunting images infuse Misprint Thursday's 'Paranormal Frottage'

This 'frottage' is also provided through the haunting music, the lyrics written and sung by the artist herself. The song is enthralling - a melancholic melody with motifs of fire and winter, truly a December song (the Sagittarius in me loves it). I was lucky (silly) enough to still be wearing my ice skates, and have been floating-dancing around the room for far too long already.

Don't miss the December round of the UWA, it will feed your mind, and in many cases, soul.

Engineering as Art: Sayumi contemplates selected pieces from the December round

Dutch artist and ‘kinetic sculptor’ Theo Jansen has infamously been quoted (and see also here) as saying that “the walls between art and engineering exist only in our minds”, and this quote came to mind when I viewed several of the works presented for the December round of the competition. Although at first glance these pieces may seem to depict engineering wonders from the past or an imagined future or alternative universe, it brings me to consider the sometimes arbitrary way in which we may classify the products of human ingenuity and imagination. I am sure that some purists would rightly leap to query my qualifications (I have none!! There, I said it first, hee hee!) to become even slightly philosophical about the art world. But let me be a fool who rushes in where angels fear to tread…

In this category I firstly came across Crampton locomotive by the delightfully-named followmeimthe Piedpiper. This work reproduces at full size a class of British steam locomotive from the mid-19th century. As a non-specialist and someone who has no first-hand knowledge of steam engines despite living near what I am told is a wonderful tourist steam railway, I always tend to think of steam engines as grimy black industrial things from another era; but the Piedpiper’s work reveals the Crampton engineers as people who cared to add colour and style to their work. The combination of green paintwork, polished brass and shiny steel presents us with an aesthetically pleasing result visually while no doubt retaining essential functionality. I was at first disappointed not to be able to board the locomotive because the pose was set for the owner only; but this only impelled me to investigate more closely and discover that I could fly away to an SL railway yard and obtain my very own simple steam locomotive completely free courtesy of the Virtual Railway Consortium. I don’t usually play trains and I never had a brother who did, but I am sure I will return to play with mine again some day soon.

followmeimthe Piedpiper - Crampton locomotive

Sayumi plays trains at the Virtual Railway Company (and you can too!)

The second piece is one for which I have a special affection simply because it was created by my fellow Western Australian, Dusty Canning (there, I had to declare my personal bias, even though I have actually met Dusty only once!). With her Jindivik – the Hunted One (the subtitle providing a translation of the Aboriginal name) we have moved forward from the 19th century into the mid-20th, and to the parched plains of the Woomera rocket range in South Australia, where one of Dusty’s first world relatives was involved in developing and testing this pilotless aircraft. I have to admit that the Royal Australian Air Force logo with its Qantas-like kangaroo brought a patriotic lump to my throat to see it in SL, but the sleek lines and (girl’s view here!) pretty orange colour of the paintwork reveal again that aesthetics and practical application do combine. The orange paint may look good, but in useful terms it also made the aircraft an easy target, since it was designed to be attacked by practice missiles! Dusty has given us two Jindiviks, one on the ground for our close inspection and the other circling overhead. Artistically, one also finds a piece of Australian Aboriginal artwork in a classic white clay and ochre medium, on the verso of the placard.

Dusty Canning - Jindivik - the Hunted One

Finally, on one of my occasional ‘pink’ days (I have far more pink in my wardrobe than can possibly be good for me!) I approached a threatening column of black smoke rising continuously from the benignly-named Bennie by Tensai Hilra. I was unable to access artists’ notes for this piece, so I was left to let my own imagination wander freely. And wander it did! Insect-like, imposing and dominating, Bennie towered above me, his hollow, expressionless gaze and huge mandibular jaws creating a terror which may have been felt by some undiscovered race of moth-people on a far-flung planet of the Andromeda galaxy as he advanced upon their simple cocoon village. Hilra has used the natural form of the arachnidae to inspire this engineering marvel whose sole purpose must surely be to trample, tear and destroy. One wonders at the power source which would provide the energy for Bennie’s marauding, the thick black smoke making the viewer wonder if any progress at all has been made since Crampton’s steam locomotive, and whether, in Bennie’s alternative metaverse perhaps some undeclared catastrophe has forced the engineers back to the simple energy sources of a former era. Only the luminous green glow from his feet suggests that I may be wrong. Emotionally this work returned me to the fear of Spirit Radikal’s Owned, though without the sense that I would be ravaged before being dismembered; I am not fond of spiders at the best of times, and Hilra has done his work well in ensuring that the arachnophobe will not die calmly at the jaws of his creation.

Tensai Hilra - Bennie

And so each of these works has drawn from me an emotional response, not only of admiration for the creative skill involved, but in approaching the finished work and sensing something of the artist’s world and purpose in presenting the piece. Engineering does indeed overlap with the world of art, and although the pieces I have discussed here are a far cry from Theo Jansen’s strange beach creatures I somehow believe that he would endorse the way I have understood them.

A Gingered Alsop Machinima of December Artworks

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A revue of some of Gingered Alsop's favourite works from the December Round. Features works by Soror Nishi, Cherry Manga, Takni Miklos, Betty Tureaud, Jadyn Firehawk, Suzanne Graves, Trill Zapatero, Ginger Alsop, Tani Thor, Anley Piers, Miso Susanowa and Pumpkin Tripsa

This is considered to be the first entry to MachinimUWA IV: 2nd Art of the Artists, for which only a soft soft launch was done (as MachinimUWA III is yet to be launched - but soon). MachinimUWA IV will coincide with the Grand Finale of the UWA 3D Open Art Challenge towards the latter part of 2011.

The only rules are that the machinima must feature artworks entered to the UWA 3D Open Art Challenge, with the thme as usual being 'take our breath away'.

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December Round Entries

I have uploaded the images from the December round of the UWA 3D Open Art Challenge. You may see them at my Picasa site or Flickr (somewhat abbreviated).



-FreeWee Ling

A Yesikita Coppola machinima of Paranormal Frottage

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A Yesikita Coppola Machinima of Misprint Thursday's 'Paranormal Frottage', which is entered to the December round of the UWA 3D Open Art Challenge.

This is a personal dedication by Yesikita created for personal reasons. She was worried if I put it up on the blog too early, it might have swayed later decisions, but as with all the articles by guests etc., I feel that these types of spontaneous dedications should be shared as they are created !

Jayjay

The people and the passion: Sayumi reflects on the community of individuals brought together by the UWA 3D Art Challenge

I note two things with interest and excitement on our blog today. Firstly, the wonderful excerpt from the interview with Laurina Hawks (previous post to this one) concerning her recent win in one of the UWA art competitions. Laurina's humility as she saw others winning lesser (but of course still highly commendable!) prizes , not anticipating that she could possibly win 'the big one', illustrates what I have found in speaking to so many of the art community I have been privileged to meet - here we have individuals with talent abounding, who could be expected to be proud and aggressive in their pursuit of victory, but who instead are real, vibrant human beings with fully rounded personalities and amazingly gentle manners in dealing with others. The artists are often as beautiful as their art. I mean that in more than one way - their character and humanity is inspiring; and their creation of themselves as virtual world beings in the physical sense is as breathtaking as their works themselves.

Secondly, I note that we have a new contributor to the UWA in SL blog, Ms Rowan Derryth. I hope that I am not pre-empting an official announcement by Jayjay Zifanwe, but a quick glance at Ms Derryth's own blog will indicate that we are in for a treat on the occasions she is able to contribute here. Not only the artists, but those who manage the art world in SL and who enable UWA's competitions to flourish and grow with a wide range of contributions, all make for as rich and enriching an art experience as one will find anywhere. As a tiny and wholly unqualified contributor to this blog, may I add my personal welcome to Ms Rowan Derryth - a welcome entirely personal and without any official standing, I hasten to add!

So I continue to be excited about my university's role in the SL arts world, not only for the art's sake but also in seeing the best in people as everyone works hard at their role. I look forward immensely to the judging and announcements of results again early in January. I hope to contribute here at least once more before that time, but may I also offer my own best wishes to all our readers for the coming New Year season!