Saturday, March 1, 2008

Brittomart



I've spent the last month or two coming up to speed in Second Life. Now that I've had time to look around and am beigining to learn how to make things, I am beginning to fold into Second Life not only my interest in Virginia Woolf, but also my long-time activity as a printmaker, specializing in color-reduction woodcuts. )*


My Second Life avatar (Brittomart Recreant)** has recently bought a domain and begun to build a web site: http://www.brittomart.net/. Displayed on that web site is a gallery of my prints, many of which incorporate ideas and images assoicated with either Virginia Woolf or Georgia O'Keeffe, or both. I have begun to upload some of these images into Second Life both as items for interior decoration (framed images to hang on walls) and as textures for making unusual clothing. Eventually, such items will be for sale at the Omega Workshop, but for now, leave me a message in Second Life if you'd lke to see/get copies of these. Some prints are on display in 2L on the first floor left of Tillman Hall, Clemson University, Teaching

*A color-reduction woodcut is made from a single piece of wood. You begin by cutting away anything you want to leave white (or the color of your paper). Then you print your lightest color, carve away anything you want to remain that color, and print your new darkest color. And so on. In addition to carving, you can make marks on the wood in a variety of ways: by raising the grain with a stiff wire brush, by pounding or dragging objects such as nails or chains or other metal shapes into the wood, or by using power tools such as dremels. Most of my color wood cuts have 4-8 layers. When you finish, all that is left on the wood is the surface for the very last color you printed.

**Brittomart is a character in Spenser's Fairie Queene: the hero of Book III, she represents the virtue of Chastity, which I see more as a form of autonomy than an injunction to be celibate. (One of the first things she does is fall in love with a vision of Artegal--the Knight of Justice and hero of Book V). For Spenser, the name suggested a warrior maid of Britain, ie. Queen Elizabeth I. I inadvertently misspelled her name when I created my avatar, adding an extra t--which turned out to be a good thing as it made her fairly unique -- on google as well as in Second Life.