expanse

Patience Really is a Virtue - a look at a staggering build

cathedral by vry offcourse

Tucked away on the Paramita sim is a jaw-droppingly impressive build. The initial intent for my visit was to see the shops established on the sim, but I quickly became fascinated with the large cathedral that dominates the surrounding area. After receiving a tour of this impressive building, I asked for an introduction to the builder, Vry Offcourse. There were just some things I had to know!

The first and most important question for Vry was "why?", why would anyone build something of this magnitude? Turns out that “magnitude” was exactly why she did it. Vry loves large builds, large structures and is a fan of gothic style architecture. This cathedral is a near exact replica of the Cathedral Saint-Pierre de Beauvais in northern France. Vry chose to recreate that structure specifically because of the building's tragic story. It was built to have the highest vaulted ceilings of any cathedral in Europe; however, when actualized, the building couldn't support itself and it collapsed. Since gravity obviously doesn't have any pull in Second Life, Vry saw the opportunity to recreate the original structure without its real world shortcomings.

The prim detail in the cathedral that has taken about fourteen months to build is staggering. The initial plan was to begin building, then buy a sim, and use all 15,000 available prims in the build. However, using an entire sim for one build was an expensive endeavor in practice, so Vry opened a skin business and built a small shopping market to help offset some of the costs. Building the cathedral has been a learning process, and often sections were rebuilt for prim-management's sake. It's holding steady at about 10,000 prims after some clever reconstruction and Vry estimates that she has about 2300 prims left and plans to use them decorating more of the interior.

Still intriguing to me was how anyone could find the patience for a project this immense. Vry’s endurance in detail work has been her greatest virtue for as long as she can remember. She says that it's the skill of patience combined with artistic talent that results in some of the greatest revered art work. And that skill is something she admires, namely in Soto Zen monks and especially Shunryu Suzuki Roshi.

Wondering where you might find this talented builder? She was born and still resides in San Francisco, CA but unless you have some of that aforementioned patience, it would be easier to track her down in Second Life at Starfuker Skins at Harajukubox or wandering around the amazing cathedral build at Starfuker on the Paramita sim. The cathedral is available for events, weddings, fashion shows and beyond - contact Vry Offcourse via IM or the preferred notecard for details. And be sure to take the time to visit the cathedral in person. It's breathtaking presence is nearly impossible to convey in pictures or words and there are corners and ledges abound for you to explore. And be sure to scope out the original architectural plans posted on the wall to see just how precise Vry was in this project!

Starfuker Skins @ Harajukubox, Harajukubox (200, 95, 21)
Starfuker, Paramita (125, 201, 54)

capture

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