Featured Artist  Toysoldier Thor
at  Paris Metro Gallery
"Art Begats Art"
Where Fine Art, Fashion, Dance & Music 
Inspire Each Other

Gala Opening May 4th @ 1pm SLT
featuring
Elysium Amphitheatre Dance Troupe
Artistic Dances on stage inspired by Toy's Art

SECONDLIFE® SLURL Location:
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Paris%20Couture/178/22/23

Toysoldier Thor is extremely honoured to have been invited back to the amazing prestigious SecondLife® Fashion & Art Gallery of  Paris Metro Couture / Gallery to be the featured Artist for May 2014.  Toy has taken this opportunity to coordinate what will likely be one of Paris Metro Gallery's most amazing collaborative theme and Opening Gala ever witnessed by the visiting patrons / guests.

The Theme is  ART BEGATS ART  where Fine Art, Fashion, Dance & Music Inspire Each Other

This theme was directly inspired by Babypea Von Phoenix, one of the most creative and energetic artistic dance and stage creators within the fantastic community of artistic dance in SecondLife®.  In February 2014 Babypea approached Toy with the idea to challenge her Elysium Amphitheatre dance members to create a dance / stage creation based on any one of the artworks on display at Toy's Inworld Art Gallery.  Toy was honoured to be the inspirational source to this artistic challenge of dance - a community that Toy personally has a deep passion to be part of.

Shortly after the performance, Toy approached Babypea and invited her and the Elysium team to take on the challenge of integrating the entire performance as part of the hugely popular Paris Metro Art Opening Gala of which not surprisingly Babypea jumped at the chance.  Toy also approached Rose, owner of Paris Metro about the challenging theme of which Rose also agreed to the theme.

Toy believes that by blending Toy's 2D & 3D fine art with the Elysium Dancers artistic dance, music, and stage build, with Paris Metro's dress fashion using Toy's artwork, he has accomplished the goal of the theme of ART BEGATS ART !

Toy, Paris Metro, and the Elysium Dancers all hope you will come May 4th at 1pm SLT to share in what will be one of Paris Metro's most amazing art gala openings ever hosted.

My previous blog posting provides all the details about this exhibit, but in case you don't want to read the last blog.  I was given the amazing opportunity by a very large international corporation with head quarters in the city I live to exhibit up to 40 of my artworks on their huge art wall.  The exhibit would exclusively display my works for a period of 6 weeks.  The exhibit started on October 26th and ended yesterday - six weeks later - December 6th at 3pm.

Aso mentioned in the previous post, the corporate art committee mentioned that I would be their first "Digital Artist" to ever exhibit.  They have shown photography and several styles of traditional / mixed media artists but never a Digital Artist (photo manipulation, virtual world photography, 3D model sculptured wall art etc).  So there was no hint of how the corporate audience would respond.

Well I can tell you now with the conclusion of the exhibit, the response was simply amazing.  More importantly, for this being my first ever real world art exhibit, the value I received from the experience was beyond my expectations in many ways and I want to share this with you all.

First, to address what most would look for as the first factor of a successful art exhibit.  Let me answer the quantifiable question all ask:  HOW MANY DID YOU SELL?  Going into this event, the committee told me that some artists make no sales at all, most will make a few (like the last artist was happy she sold 2), and a few have sold a lot.  Therefore, going into this exhibit I set my expectations with the norm and would be happy if I sold a few (maybe up to 5ish).  Well, when all was added up, I sold 16 as a direct result of the art exhibit !!

• 2 artworks were sold just before I put the exhibit up
• 7 artworks were sold directly off the wall (and I didn't have to take them home)
• 5 artworks were order as Re-Prints of what was on the wall or from my online art gallery
• 2 artworks were sold as R.L. prints by friends in my SecondLife community from my Deviant Art site
• 2 instances of a special commissioned artwork (which I won't even count as a sale but you never know)

Here is a "glimpse" gallery of all the artworks that were bought during my exhibit:

For me, selling 16 artworks directly as a result of this art exhibit is far beyond what I could have hoped for.  Since I expanded my journey as an Artist beyond the borders / realm of SecondLife® in 2012, I only sold about 12.  Six of them were actually indirectly related to the exhibit when I inform the hair stylist showing my art on their walls that I needed my art back and they said - "NOO We don't want to see them go" so they bought their own versions of the art.  Even the corporate art committee mentioned that this would be considered a very successful exhibit in their eyes as well.  

I will say that even though the sales were great - with the margins being quite small and my huge investment to print 40 artworks to canvas, I am still over $1,000 in the hole but I consider this printed art now as an investment to use for other exhibits and hopefully to sell off.  So I don't consider that fact as a failure.  Its not even a factor.

In addition to the sales was the education and insight of what the general public liked about my art versus didn't like.  By that I mean, what styles of my art portfolio would rise up as unique enough to become marketable (i.e. people would actually put money out to have it) versus the art that would not sell.  The exhibit demonstrated this clearly.  

With the exception of one real life floral photo that was bought for personal reasons (they were her flowers), none of my many pretty real life florals sold.  I am sure I know why.  Even though they are very pretty photos, they are not unique in the art print market.  ANYONE CAN BUY FLOWER ART - even from Walmart - for a fraction of the price I charge for my art..  In  other words, the art that I had almost no artistic manipulation applied - did not sell.

Yet I sold many of my heavily manipulated Real & Virtual world art as well as my 3D sculptured wall art.  This means, that most of my portfolio of art has a potentially unique offering / styling that the general Real Life public has not experienced.  For all of us in SecondLife® its commonplace and we have seen amazing virtual world art.  But its fascinatingly new for those that do not know of these virtual worlds.

Another valuable outcome for me was the validation I received about how much of what I learned, developed, and evolved as an Artist in SecondLife® was a huge value-add as a foundation when I transitioned / expanded my Artist role into the Real World.  All the important tips and tricks I learned from all the SL art galleries I have exhibited at.  The development of my "Artist's Comment" notecards for each artwork.  Learning how to present / display my art at a gallery.  Promoting and advertising art events.  All of these were huge value inputs to prepare me for my first real world exhibit.

Finally, the one experience I gained the most from this exhibit was the feedback from all those that bought and even those that did not.  During the exhibit I received many verbal compliments and emails from so many about how unique, refreshing, new, vibrant, intriguing, interesting, and even inspiring / comforting my art was to them.  A few that will stay with me are as follows:

• One lady, a VP of the company who bought an artwork said that as soon as she saw the artwork she ended up buying she knew she had to have it.  She also said that over the years she has rarely ever stopped to even take any interest of the art exhibits, but her co-workers joked to her that with my art she stopped and looked and read about the art.  She even went to my art site.
• Another lady bought one of my artworks.  She mentioned her child recently passed and my artwork gave her  a feeling of comfort that he was safe and playing happily in the hands of God.
• On a couple occasions I was told my art was being sold to low.  But, because of my price, a couple people bought my art because it was the first time they loved an artwork that they could afford.
• So many people commented how vibrant the colors were and wondered if I painted the scenes - most of those were the virtual world artworks they just don't register to those that have not seen that environment.

In conclusion, I cannot be more happy how my first ever real world art exhibit went.  The experience for me was invaluable and will be one of those highlights in my life.  I am so grateful for this corporate art committee giving me this opportunity.  I can now say that I have been an Artist that has publicly exhibited my art.   NEXT !  :)

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

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.