| | On October 26th, 2013 the RL Artist behind Toy reached a major milestone He hung up 40 of his artworks to begin Toy's 1st Real World Art Exhibit for a 6 week period |
A Background
In April 2010 within SecondLife®, Toysoldier Thor formally kicked off his passion and interests in becoming a Digital Artist. Prior to this, Toy used many of his digital creative talents for creating commercial content and/or using tools like Photoshop for utilitarian purposes like creating textures for content and advertising & promo content for products.
Toy became an artist in SecondLife and as a result of all his artistic friends involved in the SL art community. Once he got the bug to be artistically creative in 2010, his passions and interests in digital art exploded and expanded past the bounds of SL photo art. The number of his creations in the past 3.5 years exceeded over 200 works. He and his art creations were accepted and promoted by the SL art community that honoured him with with invites to many of SL's finest art galleries and exhibits they held for their patrons. Toy even created his own large art gallery within SL where he sells much of his 2D wall art as well as 3D sculptures.
In 2012, Toy decided to take on the challenge of taking his art to the real world community of potential art lovers. He knew this was an enormous challenge as having ANY success in having ones art recognized or sold in the real world is equal to winning a lottery. But, he decided to take it on.
He created his own RL art website, experimented where to get the best quality / priced printing of art to canvas, and began printing and promoting his art to his real world community. He negotiated to get his art hung at a local hair stylist on consignment.
The Big Break
Then in late 2012 he got his big break when he reached out to the art committee of a large international corporation asking if he artworks could be considered for an exhibit at their large art gallery of their corporate head quarters. They said they would love to have him exhibit his art for one of the six week exhibit windows they offer.
They told Toy that the exhibit displays up to 40 artworks. This was a HUGE challenge and investment for Toy to take on since he did have more than 40 works but he would have to pay for the printing of all these artworks with NO assurance that any of these artworks would be sold. But Toy used his profits from his SL Landscape content business to fund this investment.
Prepping for the Corporate Exhibit
In April 2010 within SecondLife®, Toysoldier Thor formally kicked off his passion and interests in becoming a Digital Artist. Prior to this, Toy used many of his digital creative talents for creating commercial content and/or using tools like Photoshop for utilitarian purposes like creating textures for content and advertising & promo content for products.
Toy became an artist in SecondLife and as a result of all his artistic friends involved in the SL art community. Once he got the bug to be artistically creative in 2010, his passions and interests in digital art exploded and expanded past the bounds of SL photo art. The number of his creations in the past 3.5 years exceeded over 200 works. He and his art creations were accepted and promoted by the SL art community that honoured him with with invites to many of SL's finest art galleries and exhibits they held for their patrons. Toy even created his own large art gallery within SL where he sells much of his 2D wall art as well as 3D sculptures.
In 2012, Toy decided to take on the challenge of taking his art to the real world community of potential art lovers. He knew this was an enormous challenge as having ANY success in having ones art recognized or sold in the real world is equal to winning a lottery. But, he decided to take it on.
He created his own RL art website, experimented where to get the best quality / priced printing of art to canvas, and began printing and promoting his art to his real world community. He negotiated to get his art hung at a local hair stylist on consignment.
The Big Break
Then in late 2012 he got his big break when he reached out to the art committee of a large international corporation asking if he artworks could be considered for an exhibit at their large art gallery of their corporate head quarters. They said they would love to have him exhibit his art for one of the six week exhibit windows they offer.
They told Toy that the exhibit displays up to 40 artworks. This was a HUGE challenge and investment for Toy to take on since he did have more than 40 works but he would have to pay for the printing of all these artworks with NO assurance that any of these artworks would be sold. But Toy used his profits from his SL Landscape content business to fund this investment.
Prepping for the Corporate Exhibit
| Toy knew that digital photo art was not well respected by the traditional real world art community - mainly because the art created did not have a master "ONE OF" original artwork. As such, Toy came up with ideas to generate a form of uniqueness to his printed canvas art. He registered each of his canvas prints with a stamp on the back of each canvas that identified the Series and Print number for each print he created. He also leveraged an idea he created in his SL gallery of provide a unique Artists Comment for each artwork. For this exhibit he created a label for each of the 40 artworks on display. The label provided the art patron with every bit of information that they would want. Information on the Art, its styling, when created. Information on the specific print that they were looking at, its dimensions, date printed, its Series & Print #, and the price of this specific print. Then information in the form of the Artist's Comment regarding the artwork. What was his thoughts behind the art. What were some interesting notes and history of the art. It was felt that the Artist's Comments will develop an added affinity to the art and make it more than just another of the billions of pretty pictures or commercial obscure canvas prints you can buy at Wallmart. From there - Toy's fingers are cross that all these ideas worked. |   |
The EXHIBIT
On Ocober 26th, Toy and two helpers arrived at the corporate campus and spent 3 hours hanging all his artworks. The gallery is actually an extremely long centre hallway that is fully exposed to a massive underground cafeteria. This long hallway inter-connects two major corporate buildings and provides access to this cafeteria / sitting area. The hallways is the centre of the campus and has daily traffic in the 1000's.
The exhibit started as soon as the art was hung on the 26th and it will stay up for six weeks when it comes down for the next exhibit.
This is an extremely exciting accomplishment for a artist of only 3.5 years into his career. Toy is so grateful to have been given this opportunity. to show his work. And Toy can't thank those of his fellow Artist friends in the SL Art community for all they have done to inspire him to become the artist he is to date and to provide him all the support he has received from this amazing community.
On Ocober 26th, Toy and two helpers arrived at the corporate campus and spent 3 hours hanging all his artworks. The gallery is actually an extremely long centre hallway that is fully exposed to a massive underground cafeteria. This long hallway inter-connects two major corporate buildings and provides access to this cafeteria / sitting area. The hallways is the centre of the campus and has daily traffic in the 1000's.
The exhibit started as soon as the art was hung on the 26th and it will stay up for six weeks when it comes down for the next exhibit.
This is an extremely exciting accomplishment for a artist of only 3.5 years into his career. Toy is so grateful to have been given this opportunity. to show his work. And Toy can't thank those of his fellow Artist friends in the SL Art community for all they have done to inspire him to become the artist he is to date and to provide him all the support he has received from this amazing community.
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