The World Tree of Dimitri Mint

World Tree by Dimitri Mint

Art in SL never ceases to amaze me.  What artists create, how they bend the prim, stretch boundaries, follow their dreams and illustrate imagination is astounding and always inspiring.  It has been my great privilege to meet some fantastic artists and some of them have become very dear and cherished friends.  One of those people is Dimitri Mint, a real life architect and artist from Mexico City; builder, sculptor and artist in Second Life.

I first met Dimitri by shopping in his store.  I was out hunting for Mexican items for my SL home and couldn’t find anything I liked till I fell into this little shop with the most marvelously authentic and reasonably priced goods.  I just about bought out his store which prompted him to IM me to thank me.  We got to talking in English, Spanish and Spanglish with a Chilango flavor.  After that conversation, we became great friends being both very interested in promoting our mutual culture and history within the Grid.  We talked often and considered plans to build a sim of Ancient Tenochitlan, the City of the Gods from Aztec/Mexica times.  Dimitri showed me some of the work he was doing for other people, among them the landmark fountain of Mexico City, that of Diana the Huntress which sits in the midst of the Plaza.  I couldn’t believe how amazing Dimi’s replica was, it was just spot on.  I fell in love with the fountain and it certainly made a big impression on me as did this courtly, very Mexican gentleman.

In October, I found the Smithsonian Latino Virtual Museum’s Day of the Dead exhibit and got to know one of the curators there by complaining about how hard it was to find.  Their website didn’t have SLurl’s, they weren’t listed in Showcased Sims, I couldn’t find them in search, etc.  It took me about 30 minutes of trying before I finally landed there and when I did, I was spitting mad.  It shouldn’t be so hard to get to a museum I wanted to see so when I met a curator I ranted.  People that know me in RL and SL won’t be surprised given I’ve a certain talent for ranting.  After that initial rant, I became interested in what the LVM was doing and thought they should meet Dimitri and see his sculptures.  They were very impressed and later came to him with a vague idea of a world tree that they were thinking of incorporating into their sim design.

Months passed and the instructions we had were very vague.  No one seemed to really know what exactly it was that they wanted.  Finally, I came upon an old drawing of a world tree and showed it to Dimi saying, “try something like this and Latino it up” trusting that the vision and artistry that I trusted in him would find a way.  The result was a lovely tree which he then showed to the person we were speaking with at the LVM.  They loved it and indicated that they wanted something on a much larger scale, 65 meters that would branch out to their other five sims.  Dimi and I almost fell over, a 65 meter sculpted tree that would house a whole sim AND branch out to the others?  Holy Hell.  Not only that but they wanted full perm.  I didn’t think it could be done.  Dimi had doubts, but he was challenged and disappeared for a while.  We hardly spoke and when we did he’d say something like  “arbolote” meaning big tree in a grumbling tone.

A month later, Dimi IM’d me and said he’d finished the tree and I dashed over to see it in the sky.  OMG!  It was enormous.  I almost fell over when he told me the whole thing was just nine prims.  Camming in close, I could see the detail on the bark and marveled at the texturing of it.  It was amazingly realistic.  At the top of the tree was a sphere and within that sphere a 65 square meter area for building in.  The tree was 250 square meters tall and it branched out to other sims.  Unbelievable, simple, elegant and awesome.  Sadly, the LVM wasn’t impressed with it citing that it was too expensive, the use of megaprims rendered it unusable and a few other concerns, though they did request it as a donation which seemed odd given they weren’t in love with the tree.

Dimitri packed up the tree that had taken almost a month to make, four avatars working on different aspects of it and his incredible vision and there it sits in his inventory just wanting to be seen.  The world tree of Dimitri Mint stands as testimony that artists can bend the prim, make it their own, push boundaries, re-create art, create new forms of art and that an artist’s vision has no limits.

To see some of Dimitri Mint’s work in-world head on over to Mexico Lindo, a Mexican style park he built for a client.  There you will find the amazing Diana the Huntress Fountain amongst other wonders.  You can also visit his store here or take his classes.  Dimitri’s classes are given in Spanish, but a good translation program should help you understand and his classes are highly recommended as he is an excellent and patient teacher.  To see the tree, well give him an IM and maybe talk him into taking it out of hiding.

*Photo of Dimitri Mint’s world tree courtesy of Eliza Quinzet, of Pygmalion Gallery.  The chopping up of it and Photoshopping is all my fault.

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