From Now On
The Educational Technology Journal

 

Vol 5 . . . No 5 . . . January/February, 1996

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Examples of Virtual Galleries

To develop a clear sense of what a virtual gallery might offer a school, it pays to visit a dozen sites, some of which are adult galleries intended to display and market the work of professional artists and some of which are school Web sites proudly sharing the art and writing of students.

Adult Galleries

Note . . . This gallery is no longer available online.

Gray Wolf Virtual Gallery...Entrance
We begin our tour with a "walk-in" gallery which employs a three dimensional effect to give the visitor the ability to move into a second room and "approach" a wolf photograph by clicking on its miniature hanging on the wall. Created by Gray Wolf Publishing, the effect is somewhat akin to VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language) as employed in Virtual SOMA (http://www.planet9.com/) but it is a bit slow for any who employ a 14.4 modem. There is no text to accompany the large JPEG files.

 

Coastal Maine's Virtual Art Gallery
Our next site offers vivid images of work by painters, sculptors and photographers all displayed on a single page with large graphics and a paragraph of descriptive text accompanying each work. The text also provides contact information for those who wish to reach the artist. The art work is very impressive and enjoyable, but one wishes for a menu system and thumb nail miniatures rather than the slowly loading large works. One can safely leave the room to make popcorn if waiting for the 14.4 modem to reveal these beauties.

Note:
By now you have probably begun to notice that Web Galleries are often created by small Web-businesses with the intent of helping artists market their work. They may have more in common with small art galleries than they do with the impressive stone mansions we sometimes associate with museums.

Erik Johnson's Virtual Gallery and
This site is AMAZING. Erik provides several very good menu options to explore his work. One choice is his Virtual Tour. He describes this as "an evolving and experimental walkthrough a truly virtual gallery." How I ached for a fast connection to step through these sequences. It was good enough for me to suffer through the 14.4's sluggish pace.

You may also select from sketchbooks, traditional media and electronic media. This is an exciting spot which seriously exploits the power of the technology.

Sarah McKenzie's Gallery
This is a gallery which displays 38 paintings as thumbprints in a table format which allows the browsing visitor to select an image for full size viewing. Sarah McKenzie is an artist currently residing in Boulder, Colorado, whose work captures scenes from Nantucket, Wickford (R.I), Washington, D.C., Vermont and other areas of the United States. Her paintings have appeared in galleries in Washington, D.C., Michigan and Colorado.

School of Architecture's virtual gallery
This is the School of Architecture's virtual gallery at the University of Miami offering examples of student work produced in the school's computing in design courses. Your choices:


Modeling and Rendering
Graphics
Student Folios
Animations

When I visited Student Folios, I was presented with a list of student names, each of whom would offer pages showing their work. It turned out that my first choice, Tina Soo Hoo, displayed "knock your socks off" graphic design and architectural work, but I wanted more information built into the menu to inform my choices.

The quality of images here is superior. They are dramatic, fresh and well worth the visit.

TSVG: Featured Artists
The Thames Street Gallery provides a very efficient menu system which begins with text and offers both thumb nail and full size versions of original works of art which are for sale. Although I am generally a proponent of minimalist design for menu pages, in this case, utility is paramount. You have a good selection of art to view but little of the "gallery" feel.