I have visited numerous art galleries virtually, it is a favorite pastime of mine.  The arts must always be embraced and promoted when given the chance, I do.  I noticed the Art Factory when it first opened.  It features art inspired by the pop art of Warhol, ManRay and Modrian and unique art not often seen elsewhere.  Ernest presents thought provoking art in this gallery. 
The art is of subjects we rarely think of - is what attracts me most.  When I visit a gallery, I want the art to inspire me, which this does.
 I asked Ernest Moncrieff what inspired him and a few questions about the gallery, “ Many thanks for the opportunity to be featured in the magazine! Firstly I must point out that the Art Factory is very much a joint venture, inspired by Ellen Tiratzo and supported by myself with the input of a number to others with the Factory community. 

​I met Ellen in world in early Autumn of 2019. Ellen was at the time putting together the Gaslight Art Gallery with Chopsy Bode, which combined submissions by inworld artists on the theme of light with real world works on the same theme. The concept was very inspiring and I submitted a couple of works to hang in the exhibition. We both found we had a passion for art and discussed subjects such as chiaroscuro ‘the art of light and shade’ and shared with each other the art and artists that we were passionate about. We realised we both not only loved art, but also had a strong desire to share this and to inspire and encourage others to join in a community and the sharing of artistic ideas.

​The exhibition was a great success and we were keen to work together to expand the concept further, but that required a more dedicated region and so we set-up the first 1x1 Art Factory region. We wanted to curate and present the real life art we loved in new and innovative ways whilst also providing a space and opportunity for other lovers of art to contribute to the project. The project was also to be a not for profit venture and we would not charge for gallery space or sell, though there would be the opportunity to obtain content for free.
 
The region comprised three main areas, the Gaslight gallery which was the genesis of the project which we were keen to retain, but like many great artists we were drawn to two art centers, Paris and New York City. Paris centered around Montmartre with recreations of famous real life artist hang-outs such as the Lapin Agile and Monet's Giverny and Van Gogh's Yellow House. New York centered around the Village and Andy Warhol's Silver Factory (from which the region got its name). These were great areas to showcase real world art in new ways
 
but we also wanted to inspire and provide spaces for in world artists and so opened up a number of galleries for anyone who wanted to develop, create and share their work. In addition we created galleries with wall space for those that had some work but weren’t able to commit to an entire gallery. We also wanted to provide social spaces and Ellen designed and created Cafes and Coffee shops and we built an art institute to hold talks and shows and the Art Hive where anyone can contribute any artistic effort. 

​Over the months artists have come and gone, but two notable contributors have continued to be active. Nice Minik is a wonderful photographer who specializes in portraiture and produces some amazing work without the use of any post processing. Antonia Ling is inspired by the pop art of Warhol, ManRay and Modrian and has a constantly evolving gallery of original work, in addition her interests in classic Science Fiction is showcased in her 2001 Space Odyssey and Metropolis shows. 
 
The Art Factory grew rapidly, within a couple of months we needed more space and so committed to setting up and managing our own VPS that would give us the ability to expand and the flexibility to maintain our own servers. This wasn’t without its difficulties and we are grateful for the support of those more technically able who helped us become self-sufficient.

​The Art Factory continues to develop with recreations of Picasso's Villa, Paul Cezanne's Polynesia and a special recreation of Yayoi Kusama 2020 show which in real life had to be cancelled due to the Pandemic. We branched out from the visual arts into hosting performing arts events which we hoped were a little bit different. The Birdcage theater hosted dance shows, live music and DJ events and even musical extravaganzas such as The Rocky Horror Show and Blue Brothers musicals. As the regions became more diverse we renamed from ‘The Art Factory’ to ‘The Factory’ and now support a number of regions, covering Film, Music and much more, but all still with the Arts and community at the forefront of our thinking.
 
How would we see it developing? We are really keen to encourage involvement and community, OpenSim is all about trying new things, sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t, sometimes you have to try something again! We would like to re-energize the performing arts and develop the community side, like all of us we love the dances that we regularly attend, we love shopping too, but we would love to try out new things, host talks & presentations on the arts, share people's knowledge, hold art classes, poetry slams and share each other's passions and favourite works.   

​Another side to the Factory is recreations of fun places, a timeless virtual tourism if you will and as a Southern girl, Ellen has been developing the Big Easy which I know you will be featuring soon.
 
It’s remarkable to think that the Factory has been going for 18 months and I’m very proud of what we’ve achieved together and that we continue to be inspired by each other and the wider community to develop new ideas. If anyone want to join us and get involved please do contact us or join our Facebook group 
To visit the Art Factory, please add this to your map:
hg.osgrid.org:80:The Art Factory Reloaded
 

 
             “The Art Factory gave me the opportunity to display my inworld-photography and motivated me to learn more, test a lot and create new series. The artistic discussions with the owners are a very important feedback for me. Thank you so much Ellen & Ernest for your creativity and kindness.” Nice Minik

Opening Savoir Faire which features a beautiful ballroom created by Luna Lunaria, brings us such pleasure.  I have always wanted a stunning ballroom with wedding venue the romantic that I am.

Reyn created the region working his rock magic along the cliffs with waterfalls and flowers.  This region is romantically created just in time for Springtime romance.
We invite you to come spend an evening dancing, or walking the gardens of this lovely region.

​It was around 2009 that I discovered nAvitar Pandoran Roleplay in Second Life.  I had never heard of Roleplay when I teleported to a region that sounded incredible, I also had not heard of or had seen Avatar the movie by James Cameron yet.
I teleported right to the region unaware they had a special landing for visitors where they could get ready before landing on region, with info there and hats to wear so that the role-players on region could identify the visitors.
So I land on region with no hat on, right into an ongoing Roleplay.  The Leader of the group acknowledged me and said “You are very lucky we don’t kill you and eat you alive.”  I laughed but then realized he was very serious.  He then explained that I needed to go to the visitor landing and obtain the Orange visitors hat then come back and tour the region. This was my first experience with Roleplay attraction and was very surprised there were such strict rules, especially in a virtual world where most  anything goes.

​Obtaining the information there I learned the storyline of their roleplay and decided to give it a try.  I became a clan member and in no time was in training at the Na’vi shooting range where they practiced shooting targets with bow and arrow and a bot there would shoot back. Which he did and shot me dead in training.   It felt very real to die using their meter, but not to fret in no time the Hawpanyu healed me with octoshrooms the only plant to revive life at their nAvitar roleplay.  My first roleplay experience, I loved it.
I roleplayed here for year or so when the attraction went up for sale, I was in a position at the time that I decided to purchase nAvitar.  We rocked if for a few years until opensim became a thing and I wanted to go out and explore more, selling nAvitar to another longtime role-player of that attraction.

I landed in Virtual Highway eventually and missing nAvitar and surfing I decided to put in those attractions there. Blue Moon it was called with many creators helping to finally realize a beautiful Pandoran attraction.  This was the advertisement when we opened.
The World within the World……. Within Virtual Highway, a whole new world has been created… The Blue Moon Pandoran Roleplay Regions This amazing place was established February 1, 2012 and is opening its doors to all of you, to enjoy as a Pandoran paradise.
Months of preparations have gone into the opening with many creators contributing to the project, and as we now see... it will take many more months to perfect Blue Moon to be at its full capacity. With this in mind we have decided to just go ahead and open Blue Moon now, just as a Pandoran Park. Later, when there is more interest generated and many roles filled, we will then go full swing with a Role-play attraction.
R.W. (Reemer Waco) began the project by building the Blue Moon Landing area that is a mothership of shopping pods. It’s a great central location where Role-players get into character prior to teleporting to the Roleplay Areas of Blue Moon. There are many merchants here selling high quality products, such as Syndel Daviau of Tribal Soul, Secrets Hair, and Underscore, Kayaker Magic of Ocean Engineering and Pandoran Museum of Natural Art, Webby Merlin of Mated for Life and LaNebia Stransky of L.N.S. , also Medhue Simoni with his Na'vi AO will be here soon too.
The Home tree (erected by R.W.) which is home to the Ti'pani Clan, towers 80 Meters into the Pandoran skies. At the very top are branches with hammocks, and just above rests the Ikrans nest, where the clan ikrans reside. This is a beautiful build and central to Na’vi role-players.
The Alpha Centauri RDA Base is where the Human Role-players can meet up and plan their events for the day. It is complete with cafeteria with animated foods, adding realism to the role-play experience The Avatar Medical Lab, also created by R.W., is where the role-players will role-play the avatar program. He incorporated a decompression chamber and an Avatar Link Unit, there are also working animated computers. The detailing RW adds in all his builds, even the medical props, also add realism to the project.
The many native Pandoran animals found here really bring life to the world and have been provided courtesy of Kayaker Magic. The animated Pandoran Ikrans, Pandoran Yerik, Wandering Storm Clouds, Pandoran Woodsprites, Canopy Trees, Phoenix Fir Trees, Pandoran Tube Plants, Na'vi Ceremonial Bow, Na'vi Practice Target are amazingly details and life-like. All can be seen at the Pandoran Museum of Natural Art, at the Blue Moon Landing.
Webby Merlin brought Lightshare skies, and the stunning floating mountains, that the Ni'awve Clan call home. The bio-luminescence effect Webby has achieved on the ground textures we provided her, is spectacular and lends itself to Eywa's connection to all things Pandora.
Lyric Alexander brought the Tree of Souls, and our Helicoridian plants. Tree of Souls is awesome for so many reasons. Mainly because Lyric took on the project just having arrived in Virtual Highway, with few tools on hand, and learning too how to tweak the scripts so that everything worked as it should. When you visit Tree of Souls, you will definitely feel the connection.
Our native translator is with thanks to Zeree Hathor.
Tiffany Magic built all the waterfalls around the regions and gave her support at every turn. Her help with the prim allowance benefits all of us at Blue Moon– huge thanks Tiffany!! Logger Sewell, supplies the Avatar Music you hear streaming at Blue Moon, his support has also been invaluable during these months of building.
Linda Kellie Henson donated her time, also sharing many of the incredible sculpts she creates. Like her leg prims, used to create Blue Moon's flower the Pandoran Pitcher Plant. Many of her items helped to create Blue Moon. Linda has also provided a great Na'vi Skirt and Feather Necklace free for all to share.
Sunbeam Magic, Jamie Wright, Leora Jacobus and Minethere Always, thank you visiting Blue Moon and offering what you could to the project.
Melina Horten gave support throughout the project, her friendship helped Blue Moon flourish.
Trixie Noel, helped with the final draft of this announcement, thanks so much Trixie.
These are the creators of Blue Moon, it is these people we owe a great deal of gratitude to. Thank you for helping us realize the Best Pandoran RP Regions ever. We welcome all to come ​ celebrate the opening of Blue Moon Pandoran RP Regions, Virtual Highway.
Please understand, until we have many interested role-players Blue Moon will be open for you to come and enjoy anytime and role-play with your friends. Scheduled role-plays and events will come later, when there is enough interest to have the leader  roles filled. We also would like to have more props in place.
​

​So then we opened…we had some interested in roleplay,  but because it was a closed grid there were not many visitors.  I decided to purchase my Blue Moon .oar file from Virtual Highway and recreate it at con.tin.u.um grid.  The last few months I have been fine tuning and brushing off my dusty notes, and realizing this Roleplay attraction is one that I hold dear to my heart, and must continue.  Reyn Softly has added his creative touch in the landscaping and made it lush and junglelike, thank you Reyn.
We just announced we are seeking Olo’eyktans the clan leaders of our three tribes, we will also feature Hawpanyu classes for those wishing to learn about Na’vi healing.
For those of you who have thought of roleplay but had no clue where to start, I think you will find this a rewarding experience.  We strive to stay true to the movie storyline.  Our storyline is before RDA invades Pandora.  A time of peace yes but with that peace comes the different battles for rank and foods.
We invite all to come experience the beauty of our newly named Iknimaya region.  We felt the new name is appropriate, Iknimaya is a treacherous but fundamental rite of passage in which a young Na'vi must select, capture, and successfully bond with one of the ikran who nest in the Hallelujah Mountains. Which we reenact here.
Not into roleplay but still want to visit? Please do, we invite all to come and explore the region and see the many creators’ creations that created this magnificent place.
 

I would love to thank Fred Beckhusen, for giving us the opportunity to bring this region to life. Beautiful plants too that we have been adding just make this place spectacular!
Thank you creator friends, this is one dream worth dreaming!
Special thank you to James Cameron and the movie Avatar, for the inspiration.

Blue Moon was created in Virtual Highway in 2010, we brought it back to life at con.tin.u.um grid.
Iknimaya - con.tin.u.um grid

​Having grown up in the Sierras, it is very much a part of me.  The recent Creek fire destroyed over 300k acres and destroyed over 800 homes. I felt a need to create the Sierras virtually and plant trees, most of my childhood area perished and will never look the same in my lifetime.
We created a new region "Sierra" where we are planting trees, if you would like to contribute a tree or shrub we would love that.
The region is shown upon request.

​Fred Beckhusen has made available DreamGrid 3.62 which is Firestorm EEP enabled.  We have installed this at Continuum grid and what a beautiful difference it has made.
We are able to adjust tones for the horizon and water, set a new moon or sun, add our own cloud texture and indicate how we want them to move across our skies.  What a phenomenal feature Firestorm EEP is.

​You can read about the Firestorm EEP (Environmental Enhancement Project) here EEP please read the excerpt below:
 
About EEP
As many of you know, Linden Lab’s Environmental Enhancement Project has been in the works for a long time and reached the grid in 2019. While the official SL viewer has had EEP for a few months, Firestorm has been working to eliminate bugs in our own implementation and streamline/improve the interface. While we don’t feel that EEP is ready for full release—in fact, it has not passed our QA yet—Linden Lab wants all SL users to have access to it, and many of you have been clamoring to use it.
 
EEP is a new environmental lighting system, a change from the previous Windlight system. Sky, Water, and Day Cycle settings are now saved as inventory items (assets), and can be created, copied, transferred, or sold the same as other inventory assets. 
EEP settings can be applied to the land by parcel or region owners, or to yourself as personal settings visible only to you.

With EEP, 
 
You can use your own sun, moon, and cloud textures.
You can customize the length of the day (yes—you can now have 24-hour day cycles!).
You can set different skies at various levels on your land.
Visitors to your parcel will be able to see all your customized settings.
You can import your old Windlights as EEP settings (many have already been imported).
Note: Windlight still works in viewers 6.3.9 and older, with a few bugs due to server changes.
 
It is a wonderful new feature, available with DreamGrid 3.2 available here:
Outworldz DreamGrid
 
Silent Refueling EEP is available free so that you can use it in your EEP enabled grid.  Thank you Fred, for making this available to us.
 

​In no time I was hitting the waves and soon began competing, then on to become a SLSA judge, running for SLSA Director, coming in fourth when they only needed 3.   I absolutely loved the sport of virtual surfing. 
A frequent reader of Tauri Tigerpaw’s SurfWatch, I soon became another editor on staff writing for a little column titled Marí’s Mailbag. These days in SL were absolutely the very best!  Tauri put me on the team as Event Director for the SurfWatch Second Anniversary celebration, it was three days of non-stop events - when I reflect back on all the note taking I did for the planning of that event, it took at least 1TB of space on my hard drive. 

Then, opensim came onto the scene, I had to venture out and explore it. The thought of teleporting to different grids was something I wanted to experience.  Only problem with it was that there wasn’t any surfing in opensim, none.  I found a grid called Virtual Highway, owned by Tiffany Magic and Logger Sewell, I shared with them my love of surfing.  One day Tiffany IM asking if I would like to put in a surf region that she had just the place.  Thank you, Tiffany, we immediately began landscaping and creating the most beautiful beach, yet we were lacking waves and surfboards.  I asked Tiffany to come with me to Second Life (SL) that I had found a creator that just might be able to achieve what we had in mind.
 
Kayaker Magic had this great little store that offered everything seaworthy, I knew if anyone could create the waves it would be him as he had an incredible love for the ocean and he is a brilliant coder.
 
​We met and Kayaker did not hesitate at all about venturing to an unknown world and trying to achieve something nobody else had.  Oh they did try, but it was a different beast than Second Life physics, and most gave up.  Kayaker’s coding ability enabled him to see the possibilities.   After a few months and multiple lines of code, then hours of testing numerous boards and waves, Kayaker finally achieved a wave and board that is surfable in Opensim. Thank you, Kayaker.

​We then had to have an opensim competition to call it official. I contacted SLSA Directors Sally and Bobbi LaSalle, Colleen Brennan, Rick Galli and Cierra Theriac if they would like to judge our competition.

​They all ventured to Virtual Highway and we presented the first opensim surf competition
​Waves of Courage

​



​It was wild times.  If you notice on this poster my last name is spelled Monentez, that is because during all the planning, creating and training my Monentes avatar ghosted, and we could not revive her.  The owners created a new Monentez avatar so that the event could go on!  It did, and we have such wonderful memories. 

​As seen in SurfWatch this is when the association was born.
​Fun times ,  the beginning.

​With that… Opensim surfing was born all thanks to these incredible people.  You can buy Kayaker Magic’s surfboard and waves at Kitely Market.
https://www.kitely.com/market/product/3025298/Fishboard-Surfboards?var=5210344

Thank you Tauri,  you were always there, my catalyst.