Chat with Cleo: Sledge Roffo ~ Profile of an SL Virtual Artist

Sledge Roffo: Yeah

Cleo Tebaldi: Well, you’ve succeeded

The Beauty of Primagery

Sledge Roffo and his lovely partner Jewel MacMoragh were kind enough to entertain me at their lovely seaside garden spot. Under the pergola, Sledge and I discussed his work, his approach to art, his process, and the beauty of Primagery.

Cleo Tebaldi: I want to start by saying how much I admire your work.

Sledge Roffo: Thanks, Cleo..I aprpeciate it. Makes it all worthwhile when other people enjoy it too.

Cleo Tebaldi: I’m also impressed by your dedication. I can sense that you have a lot of passion about what you do.

Sledge Roffo: Yeah, its serious art…and so I get inspired here too. I actually study and prepare to make my series. Not all successes of course.

Cleo Tebaldi: One of my favorite things about your work is that you elevate the humble plywood-textured prim to such sculptural beauty. They suggest movement, light, dimension…to me this is what virtual art—and creating art in SL—is all about. When did you begin exploring virtual art?

Sledge Roffo: I discovered virtual art in Second Life. About June 2008 I guess. I wanted to make something close to painting, but then the 3D aspect was so exciting.

Cleo Tebaldi: Fascinating. And have you experienced an evolution of style as you’ve explored it?

Sledge Roffo: Yes, definitely. I discovered how to make the prims light up.  I’m refining now…working with alphas—thats new for me— and using scripts too…subtle things.

Cleo Tebaldi: And, for the uninitiated, an alpha is…

Sledge Roffo: is a transparent texture.

Cleo Tebaldi: And how are you working scripts into your sculptures?

Sledge Roffo: I use a slow animation script – so that the alphas flow across a solid and the composition changes. That’s what I did with the Dots series.

Cleo Tebaldi: Which is such a great series. Playful and complex at the same time.

Sledge Roffo: My new series is quite different from Dots.

Cleo Tebaldi: When you plan a series, how detailed is the planning?

Sledge Roffo: Its not…its exploratory.

Cleo Tebaldi: So you go from an inspirational idea and then work from there?

Sledge Roffo: Yes. I create the sculpture with something in mind..but it may change…just like a canvas.

Cleo Tebaldi: Let’s talk about Primagery.

Sledge Roffo: I started out making prim groupings and then took snapshots of them…like paintings. Then I discovered that the prim groupings weren’t bad sculptures, so it’s a nice combination. And now I am conscious of both aspects of the process, so that each piece is a complete work in itself. You see this picture?

Cleo Tebaldi: Yes, I see.

Sledge Roffo: This is of the Bloom Glow sculpture. No Photoshop. It’s a raw SL photo of my sculpture—an example of Primagery.

Cleo Tebaldi: What was the process that led to Primagery?

Sledge Roffo: A desire to create paintings here. I did the normal thing…put prims on a flat surface, colored them, and arranged them…then took the rectangle away and started to manipulate the prims…using the light features. And then zoomed in with the camera.

Cleo Tebaldi: I like how, when displayed together, the photo image and the sculptural image both echo each other and yet have a different effect on the viewer, in the way that a painting and a sculpture are different media.

Cleo Tebaldi: So you shoot different angles of the same sculpture and create different photos?

Sledge Roffo: Yes even use different lighting effects. For example, these are really flowery and different from Dots.

Cleo Tebaldi: Yes, a lot more floral.

Sledge Roffo: I’ve also done alot of geometric lately. My spatial series.

Cleo Tebaldi: Do you draw upon RL influences often, or do you find that one series informs the next, and they inspire each other?

Sledge Roffo: Hmm…is just my nature to move from one idea to another…completely opposite sometimes…but in this case it was in response to interests of others. I felt my work was getting too predictable and I want my new work to be exciting…not revolutionary…but something very interesting.

Cleo Tebaldi: “Make it new” as Ezra Pound said.

Sledge Roffo: Yeah

Cleo Tebaldi: Well, you’ve succeeded

Sledge Roffo: In this one…I was looking for brushstrokes

Cleo Tebaldi: I was going to ask you if you duplicate RL painting techniques in your work?

Sledge Roffo: I have at times, but not always on purpose.

Cleo Tebaldi: Ah, interesting. They sometimes just appear?

Sledge Roffo: I think I am naturally drawn. I did one series in particular that I’ll show you. Here is a series I made using a texture I crudely drew in RL with a crayon and simple blocks. I wanted to make it look like an RL painting.

Cleo Tebaldi: And it really does.

Sledge Roffo: The sculpture has a quality all its own though. The colors change reflecting off your avie. So what I start off doing often takes another turn of discovery.

Cleo Tebaldi: Yes, I can see that.

Sledge Roffo: No scripts at all and simple boxes. The source of the flatwork is equally interesting and always prefer to show the sculpture and flatwork together. But they stand on their own.

Cleo Tebaldi: I want to make mention of your blog as well (http://makingartinsecondlife.blogspot.com). I like it very much and found a lot of fascinating posts on it. What inspired you to have a blog?

Sledge Roffo: Oh, thank you. It’s a journal of the evolution of my work and my inspirations. I first did it as a promotional tool then I enjoyed researching RL work and creating a platform for new ideas that would maybe become a new series.

Cleo Tebaldi: Yes, a way to feel them out before starting them.

Sledge Roffo: Yeah. My Picasso guitar cubist series never worked, though. I’ll come back to it…I hate quitting on ideas.

Sledge Roffo: this is the one I did after I made that guitar piece. Same colors, kinda Cubist.

Cleo Tebaldi: I know a sculptor who works in SL partly because material fees are so high and space is so difficult to find for sculptors. Do you feel the digital world is more financially egalitarian or somehow more accessible for sculptors?

Sledge Roffo: Yes, it is! Exactly!  Freedom…it’s amazing. It’s a great platform for experimenting with big ideas with a low budget.

Cleo Tebaldi: And that allows new and different voices into the art world.

Sledge Roffo: yeah…for sure!

Cleo Tebaldi: I know that in my own experience in web publishing, it was hard to get print colleagues to take our online quarterly seriously. Have you had the same kind of barriers in virtual art?

Sledge Roffo: I think there are RL painters who don’t take my work seriously because it is made here…or maybe they are just jealous…heh heh… because they didn’t think of it.

Cleo Tebaldi: Heheh.

Sledge Roffo: I feel lucky to have discovered this unique method of creating art in SL.

Cleo Tebaldi: You mentioned on your blog you were thinking of working music into your Picasso Guitars series. I was at a show in which poems were embedded in the sculptures. Do you have other ideas about how to use other disciplines with the Primagery?

Sledge Roffo: I like to keep things simple and I’m not a scripter so I HAVE to keep it simple

Cleo Tebaldi: Otherwise, it might get too gimmicky.

Sledge Roffo: Yep.

Cleo Tebaldi: So what’s next for you?  Or is it a mystery?

Sledge Roffo: Heh…I’m still exploring other alpha texture and using sound activated by sensor. My Burning Life build was pretty cool too.  I’d like to do another 300-plus build sometime.

Cleo Tebaldi: Are you active in the SL arts community?

Sledge Roffo: Yes, I’d say so… I have 2 shows per month in various galleries and go to other artists’ events.

Cleo Tebaldi: Are there any upcoming shows you’d like to mention?

Sledge Roffo: I will be exhibiting my Bloom Glow series at Kunstgallerie in June.

Sledge Roffo: I have two selections from that series at the Art in Bloom show at Born Museum. I am booked through August.

Cleo Tebaldi: Thank you so much for taking this time with me this evening. Your work is amazing.

Sledge Roffo: Thanks a lot Cleo…have a great night.

Sledge Roffo’s “Dots” series can be seen until June 1st at Artis Gallery.