Scottius Polke Has Smelly Socks

Scottius Polke is no ordinary otter. Indeed, some even believe he may actually be a human being called Scott Rolfe.

(click to enlarge pics)

Be that as it may, whether perusing his fascinating blog, his delightful creations called "assemblage's", his glorious illustrations or - the subject of this blog - his Second Life work, one knows one is looking at something really quite special and remarkable.

Tutsy & I visited two installations: 'Lunamaruna' and 'mushROOM'. Pictures of both included in this blog.



I think one of the main characteristics of a "Master Craftsman" is their ability to make their work look "easy to do". That is, the casual observer views the Master Craftsman at work, or indeed the completed product itself, and either thinks 1) "Even I could do that!" or 2) doesn't give the matter any thought at all (because everything flows so easily and smoothly without snags and snarls).

This applies similarly, I think, to the sportsman at the top of his game. A top class snooker player makes the game look child's play; after every Olympic Games millions worldwide flock to learn gymnastics having been inspired and motivated by what they have seen. A ballet dancer also comes to mind in this regard, as does a martial arts expert.

The reality of how much incredibly hard work went into "making it look easy" becomes apparent after only a few weeks of practising the discipline.



I had an artist friend, for example, who tragically died in a motorbike accident a few years ago. He had this awe-inspiring talent to "capture the essence" of recognisable subjects in a few squiggles of his pencil. Five squiggles - a tree; seven squiggles - a dog. And so on. He made it look so, so easy and could capture the attention of a whole pub using only a pencil and a few ripped beer mats.

What most of his audience didn't know, however, was that he had spent many many hours over many years developing his natural talent. Only by this intense long-term practice and dedication could he "make it look easy".

And so it is, it seems to me, with the work of Scottius Polke. Whilst on the casual face of things we may possibly see his work as "easy", we know that actually the only reason it seems so is because it was created by a Master Craftsman.

Scottius has both the ability of "attention to detail" (look, for example, at the electrical plug in the wall) and also the ability to simply "capture the essence" when detail would be superfluous. His understanding of colour, shape and proportion are simply superb.

In short, his work is a joy and a delight.

I could add more words but, honestly, I think one should actually go visit the work itself in Second Life. Both of the installations we visited were on the Lennox Hilll region.

While there I also brought this lump of pink mold for my garden and to support the Arts. You should too.