Hat As Sculpture

Cyanide Seelowe has a little more than her fair share of creativity. Her whole idea of going wild with hats was such fun and uniquely SL. Wear one of these babies and I guarantee you'll turn virtual heads!

When I go about brainstorming what to exhibit at the Virtual Artist Alliance Gallery (http://slurl.com/secondlife/Chiaksan/23/151/86/), it's usually a quick, dirty, and extremely accidental process. It's a dusty light bulb that turns on in my head with much the same impact that an atomic bomb would have, and the process that goes into gathering works for the shows is often last-minute and chaotic. In fact, the Awesome Hat Show started a few months back when I was constructing a freebie box with some of my members, and it ended up being nothing but silly and creative hats.

This got me to thinking about the Hat's role in society as a garment, as a status symbol and as a practical item to use in everyday tasks. It is often an extremely overlooked garment in Second Life because hats are no more useful than chairs or beds. This is a striking fact to me because fashion is a necessity in Second Life- the uses of chairs and beds do not translate to the virtual world because no one needs to sit or sleep, but nakedness does need to be covered because it is still considered taboo in public. Because of this, I decided to introduce the hat to Second Life not as a garment to proclaim status or to protect our eyes from the virtual sun, but as a piece of sculpture that uses the avatar as a vehicle for exposure- in other words, the hats in this exhibit wear the avatars, not the other way around.

I gave the artists one month to do their research and build their hats, and the results were phenomenal! I was pleased to find out that most of the hats could only be created and worn in Second Life, and others bent the rules on what the definition of what the “hat” was- in real life, it's a garment for the head that includes a brim, but in Second Life, it seems to be simply something that is worn on or floats above the head. Other artists stuck with the conventional definition of “hat” while stretching their imaginations as far out as they could, reaching for the strangest, most fantastic aesthetics that would make anyone the center of attention if they wore them in public.

Not all of the hats have been set for sale for the exhibit, but I would recommend contacting the artists to see if they'll sell their pieces to you or make you a custom piece- many of them would be more than pleased to accept commissions.

For more info about what's going on at the Virtual Artist Alliance Gallery, please join our group in-world and keep an eye on our newsblog at virtualartistsalliance.blogspot.com. We always welcome new members with new ideas, so don't hesitate to join us!