CNN iReport

Famous Artist Trill Zapatero is gave away a beautiful wardrobe of Afghani formal & party dresses at her art show at Born Museum of Fine Arts in Second Life. To join Second Life (SL) for Free visit: http://www.secondlife.com

Born Museum of Fine Arts, visit in SL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Born/96/11/39

STORY UPDATE: Trill has moved the dresses to Four Bridges Project, and decided to sell them for charity donations... ThreeCupsOfTea Zifanwe is Trill's alter ego in 2nd life, an Afghan school girl avatar. Three now has an office on the Amnesty Int'l / PeaceTrain sims. In the near future Three will be selling Trill's art there, and benefiting all proceeds to CAI. Also they plan to offer an entire Afghan ladies wardrobe of formal party dresses there for a donation to CAI of 1 month of an Afghan girl's education, which is about L$220 or 1 Euro in real life. Visit Three's office atop PeaceTrain's Headquaters at: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Four%20Bridges%20Project/211/42/33

Trill Zapatero just returned from Real Life (RL) India with a trove of new RL paintings. Trill's art is at 3 galleries in SL this month. Her show at Born Museum of FineArts is dedicated to Central Asian Institute (CAI), the RL charity of Greg Mortenson, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee who has built and operates 49 girls and boys schools in Afghanistan today. About 70% of those are girls school, because its been proven that girls reinvest what they learn and earn back into their own communities at about a 90% rate, while boys only average been 30% and 40% reinvestment of their wealth in their village of origin. That means that girls are about a 300% more effective way to invest international development funds, i.e. USAID, World Bank, IMF, nonprofits, and non-governmental organizations. Learn more about CAI at http://www.IKAT.org

Picture 1 is Trill Zapatero and yours truly in our long skirt Afghani party dresses. Aren't we cute?

Picture 2 is at Trill's opening art show, and from left to right is Trill, me, Gemma Cleanslate (a reporter for SL Newspaper), and Novia Halostar, who owns another SL art gallery.

Picture 3 shows Trill and ThreeCupsOfTea Zifanwe, a spunky Afghani girl in SL who advocates for the Central Asian Institute schools in Afghanistan.

Picture 4 shows Trill and I and her artwork at Born Museum. Trill's two other shows are at  the Bistro Olive Cafe (an extensive collection of Trill's art on 2 floors) at Bistro Olive: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Marco%20Island/75/184/23

And she has 2 paintings at another group art show at Vista Hermosa Art Center http://slurl.com/secondlife/Little%20Andalucia/245/157/61

Picture 5 is shows the beautiful Afghani wardrobe that you can obtain for free. To obtain your beautiful Afghani formal and parties dresses for FREE please go directly to http://slurl.com/secondlife/Born/96/11/39
and click on the HIMALAYALA sign.

These next few pictures where taken on the lower level of the Born Museum. Walk down the front steps and down another flight on the right, facing the museum. The Born Museum owner is Juliee Landar.

Picture 6 is another artist who opened the same nite at Born Museum, Antenna Rae. To view more of her art, visit Antenna Rae's Fine Arts Studio in SL http://slurl.com/secondlife/Ahura/210/157/23

Picture 7 shows yet another artist who opened same night at Born Museum, in this frame she is in front of Antenna's paintings.

Picture 8 is artist Littleone Aries in front of her own paintings. Picture 9 is Littleone's show poster. To view more of Littleone's RL art, visit this website:  http://www.monicalinville.com

ARTISTS STATEMENTS

Here are some of the notes distributed at the Born Museum show, written by the artists.

From Trill Zapatero (terrific SL artist):

Hello, I'd like to introduce my alt, ThreeCupsofTea Zifanwe.  She is a fearless, determined  11 year old Pashtun girl from Afghanistan. She is named after the  #1 New York Times Bestseller Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace, One School At A Time, by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin, recounts the journey that led Greg Mortenson, Central Asia Institute co-founder, from a failed attempt to climb Pakistan’s K2 to successfully establish dozens of schools, and promote girls’ education in rural Afghanistan and Pakistan.She is a spokesperson for The Central Asian Institute in SL.   TreeCups is interested in making friends with SL people.

THE CENTRAL ASIAN INSTITUTE  is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization with the mission to promote and support community-based education, especially for girls, in remote regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan.    We believe that by educating children, especially girls, we can promote peace in the region,
The powerful social and economic change brought about when girls have the opportunity to participate in their society. Why girls? Adolescent girls are uniquely capable of raising the standard of living in the developing world. Girls are the most likely agents of change, but they are often invisible in their societies and to our media. The Girl Effect is rooted in the work of the Nike Foundation, which has been joined by the NoVo Foundation in a shared mission to create opportunities for girls, and for the world.    https://www.ikat.org/

I'm showing my work at the Born Museum of Fine Arts, all the proceeds go to the Central Asian Institute. I'm showing my paintings that I did in India.  Please stop by anytime to have a look and check the front wall for more information about the CAI. ART OPENING 5PM SLT on TUESDAY 3NOV2009

At the moment, Three is out to make as many friends as possible to help her raise money for the CAI.  Please accept her offer of friendship. She's a pretty cool little kid.

Yours Truly,
Trill Zapatero

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Written by Trill Zapatero  ( to avoid confusion, I , ThreeCupsofTea am the alt of Trill)

ABOUT HIMALAYALA:
I'd like to introduce a new line of Afghan inspired clothes. Traditional Afghani clothes are colorful and covered with rich embroidery, mirrors and assorted ornaments.  I made the textures for these clothes from the digital collages Imade of embroidery and fabric made by the gypsied of India who originate from the Hindu Kush mountains that form part of the Himalaya range where present day Afghanistan is located. The style is very similar thougth not identical.

These outfits are free. I'm giving them away in order to raise consciousness of the issues faced by Afghani women and to promote my charity of choice, The Central Asian  Institute.

WOMEN'S ISSUES IN AFGHANISTAN:(compiled by any1 Gynoid , Amnesty International activist and reporter for CNN in SL)

CENTRAL ASIAN INSTITUTE:        Please first watch this video, It is probably the best, most amazingly hopeful video I've seen to date-------     http://www.girleffect.org/#at

The Central Asian Institute is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization with the mission to promote and support community-based education, especially for girls, in remote regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan.    We believe that by educating children, especially girls, we can promote peace in the region,
The powerful social and economic change brought about when girls have the opportunity to participate in their society. Why girls? Adolescent girls are uniquely capable of raising the standard of living in the developing world. Girls are the most likely agents of change, but they are often invisible in their societies and to our media.        https://www.ikat.org/

To learn more about the CAI, read the book Three Cups of Tea, #1 New York Times Best Seller.One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace, One School At A Time, by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin, recounts the journey that led Greg Mortenson, Central Asia Institute co-founder, from a failed attempt to climb Pakistan’s K2 to successfully establish dozens of schools, and promote girls’ education in rural Afghanistan and Pakistan.

MY INVOLVEMENT WITH THE CAI:
How it all began is that I was invited to exhibit my Mystic India series of paintings at Born Museum of Fine Art by Juliee Landar. She is raising money for the CAI.  Well, I thought I could easily donate the proceeds from my paintings.  We needed a seperate account for the money we receive in donation so ThreeCupsofTea Zifanwe was born.  Well one thing led to another and Three ended up with a story and a whole new cause for being in SL.  She is a fearless, determined 11 year old Pashtun girl from the HIndu Kush range in the HImalaya chain.  I have given her the job of hanging all my paintings at future exhibits and she promises to give all the proceeds to the CAI.  Additionally, she is placing out information folders and donation cups at a variety of places inclucing galleries, coffeeshops, clubs and anything else she can think of.  At the moment, I am building her a 50 meter high ladder to a platform that she will dive from into an oversized teacup. All for charity, (Anything for attention, right?)  Other future plans include wrestling the strongest man in SL, and other Pippy Longstocking inspired events. This is all waaaaay too much fun!

Some of my future exhibits for the month of November include:

Bistro Olive:
Born Museum of Fine Arts
Vista Hermosa Art Center

Please open your heart to this cause. 100 L is only around 40 cents and 1000 L is only about 4 dollars. It may seem like alot if you compare the amount used to buy clohtes in SL or pay rent, but it turns into RL money that came from your RL hearts and will go to make the Real World a better place.

Yours Truly
Trill Zapatero and ThreeCupsofTea Zifanwe

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LITTLEONE ARIES

Artist’s Statement

I find it very difficult to write an artist’s statement, as it is difficult for me to gather my passion in to a select number of words. It is a passion fueled with emotion, and I find emotion hard to describe. Untethered, it allows me to react to and not merely record that which inspires me. Of course this plays out in my paintings, either through the technique I choose or the medium. To me, medium and technique are mere tools meant to serve the moment. It makes no sense to me to tailor my emotions to the medium. For this reason, many people who walk in to a gallery of my work think they are looking at the art of more than one person. But it is NOT more than one person; it is more than one emotion.

Sometimes I paint to share the memory of place or a moment in time. Sometimes I paint to share the depths of my soul. And sometimes I paint for the sheer joy of seeing color react to my touch. The common chord through each approach is my use of color and pattern or texture. I offer my world up to you as a refuge. I believe that is the purpose of my art.... it is a sanctuary for my soul while creating it and I would like it to be a sanctuary for yours while viewing it. But I need to entice you to enter, and this is why my strength of color and contrast is important. When you walk in the room I want these elements to invite you over for a visit. Once there, I want you involved so that you forget the craziness around you. So we dance together to the rhythm of pattern or texture. Be delighted, please. Delight soothes the soul.

To view the RL paintings of Littleone Aries, please visit http://www.monicalinville.com.

Thank you.

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ANTENNA RAE

Antenna Rae- Artist Info

The work I am showing in Second Life is mostly abstract.  I am interested in color as expression and the balance or imbalance of light and dark.  I often work very intuitively, sometimes not even knowing what a piece is about until I am well into it.

I like to hear what people see in my artwork.  As much as I like to hear that they see what I see, I am delighted when I encounter different perspectives on and interpretations of my work.

I've worked as an artist in different ways over the years.  I started out as a scenic artist and properties artisan for theater and opera companies in the US.  I studied art education and now teach private lessons and small classes in my studio.  I've been painting in watercolor specifically for about 10 years and after having painted realistically and trompe l'oeil for theater, I'm enjoying working in the abstract.  In addition to painting and teaching from my studio in real life, I work as an artist-in-residence in a hospital.

Many of the pieces available in Second Life are also available in real life.  Email me at antennarae@gmail.com if you are interested in knowing more about a piece.

I also work on commission. happy to make custom art for you.

Thanks for you interest in my work!