A Steampunk designer story

Today Steampunk is a famous upmarket trend, a term for a kind of expression of art, but this name Steampunk was not known to me in the eighties and early nineties.

It started out as a science-fiction sub-genre in the 1970s based on 19th century Victorian writers, such as Jules Verne ( a French novelist, poet, and playwright) and H.G. Wells. The artistic expressions by artists during the 19th century's British Victorian era about a post-apocalyptic future to do with time, must have inspired artists when steam power was used as the main source of power. To portray clocks, cogwheels and other workings inside watches became the elements to describe the fictional machines like The Time Machine by H.G. Wells.

Today we google everything so I learned a lot when I typed in the word Steampunk. Other examples where the word Steampunk as a ‘look’ comes from has to do with alternative historic-style presentations of technology; like lighter-than-air airships, analogue computers, or such digital mechanical computers that were then pure science fiction.

This is what I further learned from surfing the internet by typing the word Steampunk into Google.

• It was allegedly coined by author Kevin Jeter as a way of distinguishing himself and several other authors from other sci-fi writers. Jeter's tongue-in-cheek twist on the word 'cyberpunk' soon caught on. Cyberpunk plots often center on a conflict among artificial intelligence, and mega-corporations.
• The term Steampunk's first known appearance was in 1987, but it now retroactively refers to many works of fiction created even as far back as the 1950s or 1960s all about the Victorian-era.
• At the same time as the art nouveau designs were popular, the Steampunk ‘look’ soon took on a flavor of its own in several films from the mid-20th century.
• The first steampunk (SP) convention took place in 2006: and the word has even been added to The Oxford English Dictionary.
• The TV series like the BBC's Sherlock Holmes adaptation and US thriller Warehouse 13 owe a debt to the Steampunk style in their mixing of the 19th and 21st Centuries artifacts.
• Later in the Harry Potter films there are SP video games, like the highly acclaimed Bioshock, featuring an undersea world of diving bells and the crinolined structured petticoat the orphan girls wore.
• Films like dystopian sci-fi films that show post-apocalyptic societies having to make do with broken or retro-fitted technology: from Blade Runner and The Matrix to Tank Girl and Mad Max all makes one think of the Steampunk look!
• There is even a present day environmentalist element to it all: a harking back to a time before smog and global warming, when the worst emission was the steam from steam trains.

Yes there is even a world tour. The Steampunk World of MA Scott is all about Adventure, fantasy and romance in Romania. Steeped in misty mountains, their eerie folklore is marked by the almost innumerable boots of invaders from the dawn of history. Romania is rich in the romance and lore that makes for great Steampunk adventure. One of the major highlights in Romania is the Joben Bistro in the city of Cluj-Napoca. It is reputed to be based on a Jules Verne Nautilus submarine theme.

Romanian Steampunk is also infiltrating other arts beyond interior design. Be sure to read the interview with Steampunk author Diana Parparita.

During the years from 1986 (after our home burned down) which I dreamed about four months before! After this fire ordeal I started to draw and paint as a hobby. My leather-work also took a different direction. I had lost most of the leather hides that had been stored in the house, but my tools were packed away in ‘The Prickly Pear’, ( my succulent and cactus shop where I gave leather carving workshops)

Instead of working only with hides and carving into leather, I started to combine soft clothing leather and suede, copper & brass and motor bike sprockets into my 3D wall hanging art. I was fascinated how watches and clocks worked, and about the design elements they had. I therefore gathered a lot of parts that watchmakers would otherwise have thrown away.

I created small sculptures with the many parts by using epoxy glue. I called them my time piece jewellery. Because I was a keen science fiction and fantasy reader, I was inspired to tell stories with my little sculptures and every piece was unique. I even wrote a little poem that came with the packaging of my costume jewellery.

The art of scrapbooking became popular, and I collected more elements for my Time Creations (Steampunk) jewellery; little ornaments like music instruments, fairies, dolphins and several other trinkets, even crystals and other semi-precious stones were incorporated.

I sold my plant shop soon after our house had burned down and within eight months we moved into our newly built home from where I started my clothing design studio. I still loved working with leather, but now I was inspired to use soft leather that was used in the garment industry.

During 1989 my clothing label ‘Just kidding’ and Rapoo Art came into being.

For the last twenty years the term Steampunk is grown into a whole visual style, and even a philosophy. My articles on Time and the illusion about time come to mind.

The following videos gives you the reader a better idea about what this subculture look is all about.

This video is a really interesting Insight on this Steampunk movement that includes music, authors, fashion and its members.

After watching this next steampunk gothic looking video you will see that the LOOK of Steampunk has taken on a multicultural subculture flavor. Most costumes are self-made with tons of details. Some of them put so much work in it and it's great to see that they have their own convention.

Most of these Steampunk fashion creations are costume like designs.

This article was my Story about the past creations and what I do today with them, creating designs for print on demand products that are all seen on the blogs:

When I signed up for Pinterest in about 2006 I create a board Time creations & Steampunk. When I started to find lots of other creative Steampunk looking arts and craft jewellery and other products, it took me back to many years ago, but the ‘Look’ of Steampunk is still very popular right now.

Today it’s all about mixing old and new: fusing the usability of modern technology with the design aesthetic and philosophy of the Victorian age.

As Steampunk has grown, so too has the service industry around it. So you can now have Steam punk weddings. Soon I want to use my Time creation designs, including the poem I wrote many years ago and incorporate these into Steampunk inspired Wedding Invitations and whatever else comes with planning a wedding.

Thanks for reading my Steampunk designer story

Nadine