When I moved Hoot Suite, my art gallery in Second Life, into Bellisseria earlier this year, I thought I had a pretty good idea of what I was doing.
I built walls. Added an indoor pond. Hung my photography. Invited a couple of guest artists.
It looked good.
It worked.
And it wasn’t quite right.
A few months later, I stood in the middle of Hoot Suite and realized that while it was a perfectly nice little gallery, it didn’t really feel like mine.
So I did the sensible thing.
I tore most of it apart.
Then I spent several days staring at a mostly empty room, wondering what exactly I had done.
That turned out to be the beginning of the Hoot Suite I actually wanted.
Making Hoot Suite More Owl
The Ridgewood Enclave covenant requires the space to operate as a shop, so I kept something for sale while I tried to figure out what Hoot Suite wanted to become next.
I knew what I didn’t want.
Conventional.
I’m really, really not very good at conventional.
Eventually I stopped thinking about Hoot Suite as a gallery I needed to fill and started thinking about what I actually wanted the space to be.
My photography belongs there.
So does my digital art.
But apparently so do rocks, dragons, trees, stained glass, strange little creations and an Owl Goddess.
Now we were getting somewhere.
The entrance became more garden-like, and a path began to form through the gallery. I brought in stone and greenery, sculpture and little details that make you want to see what’s around the next corner.
Somewhere along the way, it stopped looking like a conventional little storefront.
Good.
From Guest Gallery to Owl’s Gallery
The earlier version of Hoot Suite included guest artists, something that goes all the way back to the original Hoot Suite I opened in Bellisseria in 2020.
I loved doing that.
Over the years Hoot Suite introduced me to artists, musicians and people who became part of my Second Life.
But these days I already have plenty of opportunities to support and exhibit other artists through Cloud Galleries, Port Emyniad, Maison de la Chouette, and the other projects I’m involved with.
Hoot Suite didn’t need to do that job too.
It could simply be mine.
And once I gave myself permission to do that, the redesign became much easier.
Part Gallery, Part Shop, Very Much Owl
Today, my little art gallery in Second Life is a mixture of the things I make and the things I love making.
You’ll find my Second Life photography and digital art alongside pieces I’ve created in-world. Some things are decorative. Some are for sale. Some probably exist simply because I wondered whether I could make them.
There are Stone Animal Spirits, dragons, sculpture and other experiments scattered among the artwork.
Eventually, more of those things will make their way to Owl Dragonash Studio on the Second Life Marketplace.
Eventually.
Apparently I find making things considerably more interesting than listing them for sale.
For now, Hoot Suite is where many of them actually live.
A Small Art Gallery in Second Life Can Still Be an Adventure
Hoot Suite isn’t large.
That’s part of what I like about it.
The long storefront could easily have become one straight hallway with pictures on the walls. Instead, I’ve tried to give it little shifts and discoveries—something above you, something tucked among the plants, a sculpture where you weren’t expecting one.
You don’t need an enormous region to make a place worth exploring in Second Life.
Sometimes you just need to stop treating the walls as boundaries.
And perhaps have an unreasonable number of rocks.
Visiting My Art Gallery in Second Life
Hoot Suite is in West Martinet, part of Bellisseria’s Ridgewood Enclave Commercial District.
The commercial districts are an interesting little corner of Bellisseria. Unlike the residential neighborhoods most people associate with it, these regions were created for shops and other retail-style businesses.
That gave me a small storefront.
What I did with it is probably not quite what anyone had in mind.
But that’s the beauty of an art gallery in Second Life, isn’t it?
If you saw Hoot Suite when it first opened in West Martinet, come back and see what happened to it.
If you’ve never visited, that’s even easier.
Come wander.
You might find photography. You might find a dragon. You might find something I’ve made since writing this post because apparently leaving Hoot Suite alone still isn’t one of my strengths.
Hoot Suite art gallery in Second Life is open to wanderers.
Enjoy ~ Owl
Explore Hoot Suite
Visit Hoot Suite in Second Life — West Martinet, Bellisseria
Explore Hoot Suite Art Gallery — current gallery information, history and links
See where this version started — The Making of Hoot Suite in Bellisseria
Explore the Hoot Suite Exhibition History — artists, exhibitions, music and gatherings going back to 2020.
Visit Owl Dragonash Studio on the Second Life Marketplace.
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