Virtual world, real art

Second Life is quickly becoming populated by professional people bringing their skills ‘in world’. We already have famous real life writers, musicians, artists etc visiting the virtual world on a regular basis. Second Life, therefore, has become a tool for global coverage for anything that people wish to display, giving them a chance to reach a vast amount of people with their particular medium.

Schmonson Dalglish is one such person, he has managed to put on an art exhibition using Second Life, that has never been achieved in the real world. The type of art, called Lapidary Art, is a rare form of American artwork using gemstones to create pictures. This form of artwork is derived from the Italian tradition of Florentine mosaics. Whilst the Italian mosaics are recognised as art and highly valued, the art world has turned its back on American Lapidary, refusing to recognize it as an art form.

In the 1930’s a group of dedicated American artists developed their own techniques to create these pictures, using whatever tools and machinery were available. Basically each rock has to be sliced, trimmed and ground down to fit closely in the picture. The pieces are usually cemented together with epoxy resin, which should last approximately 12,000 years or more.

One piece of art may take years to create and unlike other art forms, on occasions, entire clubs have worked together to create one picture. Many of the artists involved came from ordinary backgrounds, like mechanical engineers, house painters and other such employment. Each picture has a story to tell and one biography Schmonson received from a Lapidary artist, told how he lived as a hunter trapper in the frozen north and survived eating moose. Needless to say, most of the artists have passed on by now, and the paintings in the collection belong to the artists’ remaining families.

Schmonson is himself a Lapidary artist, carrying on the tradition, he has two excellent examples of his own paintings in the exhibition. He told me that he has been creating pictures since 1994. He had built up a database of Lapidary art in 1990-2001, and it continues to slowly grow. The first edition was put on a CD and distributed to just about every art museum library on the continent from the Metropolitan in New York to the Getty, however the art world does not see this as ‘art’. The exhibition is being shown at the Gallery of Camazotz, owned by Davina Glitter, who has supported Schmonson in displaying these wonderful pictures. Anyone looking at these great American works of art can only conclude that they are masterpieces and priceless, and even more so, in respect of their rarity.

Shamefully, the art world can display an unmade bed (by Tracy Emin, winner of the Turner Prize in London), or a sheep dipped in formaldehyde (Turner Prize winner Damien Hirst) and declare that Lapidary is not art. No disrespect to Tracy and Damien, but by example, anything can be labelled ‘art’ if it meets the criteria of the personal views of the deciding body. There is so much more to discover about Lapidary art and you can find out more by visiting their website at www.americanmastersofstone.com.
Submitted by Janey Bracken