Steampunk

A number of months ago it was brought to my attention by a young amazing artist, Jethaniel Peterka (www.jethanielpeterka.com ), that some of my work had "steampunk qualities" about it. I, of course, had no idea what that meant and so I had to go google it. "Retrofuturist fabrication" is one description I found, along with: "the goal of (Steampunk) redesigns is to employ appropriate materials, such as polished brass, iron, wood, and leather, with design elements and craftsmanship consistent with the Victorian era."

"Unearthing His New Set of Dreams"
Brass, copper, nickel, steel, glass, enamel, vacuum tube, fuses
33x17x4"

So, yes, there are times when my work can fit into that description, at least partially. This recent piece, shown above, seems to move into that territory. About a year ago I found an old post office box door with a glass window in it at a second hand store. I finally got to use it in this piece.

The door opens to reveal a set of brass-ended old glass fuses that I put writings inside (on acetate), these represent the unlocked dreams within the figure. The blue backdrop is a picture of the Universe (I love that idea that we all have a Universe inside us). The poem etched on the door is about starting over by one of my favorite poets.

There's also a lens that I pulled from an old telescope in this piece. 

I surrounded it with an etched nickel plate to make it look official. The lens is suspended above an inset area that has a diagram of a heart in the background and another fuse. The lens magnifies the whole thing. This inset area sits within a brass plate 'upper body' segment that has an etched steam engine diagram on it. So there you go, that's about as steampunk as I get.

All Things Connected

This is the first piece, "All Things Connected",  that I've made using etched nickel silver. It is a metal composed of 60% copper, 20% zinc and 20% nickel, so it seemed like it would work just fine. To etch I use a process that has a salt water bath and an electrical current set up from a battery charger. So there are no nasty chemicals involved (been there, done that). I use a block out on the metal sheet called "PNP Blue" paper that works very well, even for small detail work.  I found that the nickel silver etches ALOT faster than copper or brass with this electrical process. Whereas the copper and brass take around an hour to etch a deep image, the nickel silver was done in about 10-15 minutes. By the way, the nickel silver section is the largest silver looking section in the lower half of the piece.

Here's a detail of it.

This piece is simply about how all of us here on earth are connected to each other. It was made during the time that the Gulf Oil Spill was looking so unstoppable.

I wanted the small female figure at the bottom of the piece to be connected not only by holding onto a plant stem, but also for her skirt of intestines (and therefore her digestive system) to be connected too. I like that every element of the piece comes together as a sort of pyramid - everything precariously balanced on everything else.