“The Lost Town” – Purple Crayons (Flickr) – click any image for full size

Update, February 26th: I’ve received a note saying that Purple Crayons and Square Pegs in Round Holes will be closing on March 5th, 2015.

My recent visit to The Lost Town, Jordy B. Zipdash’s build on Rawh’s homestead region of Square Pegs in Round Holes, reminded me that I had yet to blog about another of Rwah’s builds, that of Purple Crayons, which I visited a little while ago, but had yet to write about; so I decided to correct that oversight.

Rwah charmingly describes Purple Crayons as a place where “colouring outside the lines is the norm,” and “nothing makes much sense, where there is little reason or rhyme as to why, it just happened.” The result is a build with mixes urban, rural and coastal builds into an interesting and photogenic whole, and which offers the curious much to explore.

“The Lost Town” – Purple Crayons (Flickr) – click any image for full size

Visitors arrive at the mouth of a tunnel, from which stretches a paved road lined on either side by somewhat run-down shops; clearly a place which has seen better days. Several of the premises lining the street are façades, but equally, several are not, and can be entered. It’s worthwhile taking a little time to discover which these are, as some contain small art gallery spaces, including a studio by Thorn Arisen, who offers evocative portraits of SL avatars and life through his Flickr stream.

One of the things that makes Purple Crayons so natural in appearance is the “stepped” nature of the urban build; above and behind the main street is a raised section of the town, reached via steps. It is something that helps give the place more of that feeling there there is no rhyme or reason to the design of this little urbanised corner of the world – it just happened.

Beyond the buildings sits a small area of woodland which separates the urban grunge from a pristine beach to the north, complete with a prim little pier which appears to be far better maintained than the buildings in town. The beach itself seems to grow a little shabbier the further it travels to the east and west and approaches the edges of the town. To the east, for example, sits another wooden jetty, this time with was appears to be a slightly beaten-up bar promising Girls! Girls! Girls! To the west, shade from the sun is provided by the hulk of an old bus.

“The Lost Town” – Purple Crayons (Flickr) – click any image for full size

Yet there seems to be more here than meets the eye; the questions is, is it intentional, or purely happenstance, as the region’s description might suggest? The aforementioned bar, for example, is anything but, and if you look around carefully enough, a story seems to suggest itself, perhaps involving lost love and regret. The walk through the woodland to the pristine beach to the north also nudges the subconscious into perhaps making connections and drawing conclusions: past times of happy picnics, carefree vacations, all separated from the present just as the beach is separated from the town by the trees.

Or perhaps it really is just a design of contrasts, without intent, existing simply to be enjoyed. Only you can decide.

With rezzing open, and auto-return set to 30 minutes (but, as always, do please clean-up behind you anyway), Rwah invites people to make use of Purple Crayons for the photography, if they wish, and provides a few simple rules she asks people to observe during their visit. Do abide by them and enjoy your explorations.

“The Lost Town” – Purple Crayons (Flickr) – click any image for full size

Related Links