Curiosity brought Cica Ghost into Second Life. “Before i came to SL®, i didn’t even know it existed. I was spending lots of time on a Facebook application called Yoville. It was a funny virtual world where avatars have big heads and small cartoon bodies... I had a house there and even neighbours and friends... Once I met some person and while we were making jokes about how we looked, he asked me if i had ever heard of SL—he said it was a much better looking virtual world. So, i could say that curiosity has brought me here... i just wanted to see what is this like. I obviously liked it since I have stayed more than 2 years now,” she says. She spent quite some time in exploring SL and taking photos, and eventually slowly learned to use SL’s building tools. With the help of friends she learned to create. Her creations are eclectic; her Marketplace shop offers, as she says, “some clothes, trees, flowers, grass”…and other things, as well, all touched with the same sense of whimsy. Her favourite colour is obvious. Cica Ghost smiles: “Hmmm... yes, I like black clothes, even in RL.” Cica Ghost is not an artist, but as child she loved to create pictures…something that learning to build in SL inspired her to pick up again. “I was drawing for fun at first... just to decorate a home or to make pictures with it... Some of those decals i have on market, like flowers, crow, cat and tree... Then i was drawing ‘myself’ like ‘’Cica
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and flower’’, Cica and rain’’, ‘’Cica and crow’’... till i found out i could make animated textures and that opened many new ideas. And with every new animation, I had another new idea... something to add to the pictures I was making. It was like drawing a life,” she smiles. “So, my little platform became too small for the ideas I had.” Second Life brought her creativity back. Needing a larger canvas to realize her vision, she sent an application to the Linden Endowment for the Arts (LEA). Linden Lab provides artists with use of sims for free for a certain period of time. The grants are given by a committee. Cica Ghost was accepted for the current series, and within a short period of time she filled her sim with an enchanting world in black and white, reminiscent of scenes from a children’s book. We see children playing with a kite, the wind blowing simply with sweet animated textures. We can walk along the paths over a bridge to cute little houses, where we can try the interior. Her style has the whimsy and naive charm of skilled juvenile art; it’s hard to look at it and not smile.. Ghost had a lot of trepidation before opening, chiefly the worry of whether her ideas and vision would be good enough to please visitors. She is very grateful for the support of the LEA committee: “The LEA was very encouraging to me and they helped me get past those fears. All….. has been unnecessary. The installation constantly attracts visitors. It’s