I wonder if this is over?

Yesterday was the day of reckoning though what it reckoned I have no idea. The simplest truth that seemed to emerge from being at the Steampunk convention was that it really needs a few more years to possibly become what I think it should be which is the result of a lifestyle from a core of belief but the chances are that it could just stay being an adjutant to a style of fiction and alike the books themselves a version of escapism that relies on that which is escaped from staying resolutely put.

It may be that the version of steampunk that hails from Oamaru in the Southern Isle would be more like I want it to be as people may be free'er further from the great metropolis to enact their lifestyle choices but here in Auckland with the price of living ever escalating to allow the rich and prosperous their free time embracing arrogance then it would seem that it'll be a steep hill set for hauling a belief that encompasses reviewing ones choices from the bottom up.

Looking back I've always seen that the times that were especially significant in reaching forward into something new seemed to lack photographic evidence when the time came to review what had been done. It was as if everyone was always so busy just doing things that taking photographs, which was somewhat laborious in those old days of chemically induced celluloidal tinkering, was always almost forgotten.

But now we have cameras on everything it almost seems that this incursion has us measuring significance at every turn simply by the thought that what is being done could be measurable in some way, passed on to review that significance by it's feedback, and so it's somehow a little harder to just get lost in doing something in and of itself which sets it's own boundaries as we go... oops, I might be doing something significant so I better stop and photograph it.

So it's almost as if the dearth of flashes at any event tells me whether the undercurrent has any significance to grow anywhere beyond where it is at the time of the flashes. That these flashes, by simply occuring, might be measuring and collating that which is and thereby rendering it harder to become that which it isn't yet... or could be.

And there is also the appearing fictional content of Steampunk, which alike the flashes of cameras, is defined behind the scenes by editors and suchlike seeing what already is and making decisions thereof and we can see this by the topical nature of these books becoming somewhat akin to alchemical crime novels. Following a set of principles that has already discontinued vast amounts of it's possibilities through what has sold.

But then again I don't think many of the people who turned up to sell sold much at all and sorry to say such but this is a hopeful sign because those who make and don't sell are less inclined to follow principles set out for them and can be persuaded, by their own freedoms within not needing to conform to a paying audience, can go off on tangents of their own creative unfolding.

This, I think, is where the significance of post modernist art is. That so many artists are finding niches for themselves where their art doesn't have to pay the bills because they've figured out some way to make the bills less. So success isn't required so much by the return of the art as a paying response to it's making so much as it could be becoming something that has to work within and of itself as artists make room for it to fill their own lives.

I've often said to my friend Doug, and did as well to Simon yesterday, that someone who had to afford our lifestyles of making art and not really having to sell it, would need to be very rich. So I suppose such a thing as Steampunk doesn't so much need to be able to pay the bills alongside other more established mediums of personal interest so much as lower it's bills and expand where it might want to go.

The big day's tomorrow...

And as usual the last minute rampage is on... except there's much less rampage and alot more  'Oh, well.'

That means I pretty much just do what I can and if I can't then whatever. Like the record player thing with the old amp got doused in water when it rained overnight and I'd taken from a spot where it wouldn't have gotten wet to puttin' it out ready for work in the morning. But it doesn't really matter as this exhibition is really about gettin' work in the future as well as being about making a few sales.

This one caused me and Kevin a little grief as Kevin made cushions for it but the nature of these springs and the tufted fabric used to upholster that way of doing thing ended up with the cushions being too big unless we tied down the spring rounds the edges... so we came up with these little pads and we're calling it 'The Kerrigan Brothers Patented Cup and Bottle Holder Couch 1894'
And the aesthetic of see throughness is actually qite appealing I think.

But we can also throw on the cushion that was for the back and it's also quite nice.

And we'll also have the odd bronze sculpture from the good old days when Kevin had a great go at such things.

I'm going to put my old desk from the Sauerbier exhib at PP's too.

This table, which has glass over the big saw blade, will be my work for most of today and tonight I think. I'll etch the glass and engrave the saw blade with the dremel and might even find time to burn some designs into the wood. I've got a little twenty watt burner I borrowed off my brother which is fine for leather but when it comes to wood something with a bit more 'oomph' will be what I buy when this stuff all get's sold tomorrow for 'good' prices. There you go, I'll be letting stuff go for a fraction of the prices I learned from Pierre and his gallery, not that I blame him at all, but it's just different circumstances now and I'm not worried about a place in the Art world.

So come on down to the ellerslie Race course and the Great Northern Room for AetherCon 2013. Doors open at 10 and it finishes at 6... then they have their ball!

Fitting ourselves to the world or having the world fit us.

Mayana, Keiran's wife, put this video on facebook and while I totally agree with what Amanda's suggesting as a way to live life I'm somewhat questioning of how artists, or anyone who puts themselves out there through creative work, who don't share the same popularity as Amanda might find themselves at the mercy of the givers if they worked in this way.

This then says to me, that in her case, her popularity obviously sets the level of the giving as the givers are enamoured of their proximity to said popularity and so have a default to give generously.

I do kind of work this way anyways, putting my trust in others to appreciate what I've acheived, but it would take quite a leap of faith to do it all the time as it becomes entirely dependant  then not on my ability to ask but on the givers notion of what I'm worth... which I kinda worked with whilst of the ill-fated Chinaman's Hill Bazaar and found that people readily defined their own worth against my own.

So yes, with a popular following and a product that can be reproduced cheaply then this way of doing things is, and will be, a godsend to establishing new ways to be within our modern post capitalistic societies but for the person who labours long hours on what are essentially items that can only be used by one or two persons at a time I'm afraid that in no time at all these makers would be unable to exist.

But there still is something very important within what Amanda is suggesting and for me it's the connectivity that being artists allows us. Selling art is one thing, and it's important because it allows us to keep doing what we're allowing ourselves to do, but creating the art and then being out in the public and connecting with the public with the ideas that have been brought forth is the icing on the cake.

What occurred to me at the Chinaman's Hill Bazaar  while standing around my own artworks that didn't seem to have a hope in hell of selling in that context was that I could have put out a hat for donations for the service I was providing which was spreading inspiration... being there when peoples eyes glazed over and they saw possibility for themselves to go home and start doing something.

And dare I say it that this is what I'm looking for within the Steampunk genre. That it is both worth and capable of taking the next step, which it has already in a lot of instances, and expanding itself from simply a time to play dress up and do role playing and become a way of life that features all sorts of everyday objects and needs with a perspective of being that rates longevity and a studious attitude as uppermost requirements in being in life.

So if I go to this show and put forth all I and my colleagues have made and sell nothing and just have to take all the stuff back home am I guilty of being unable to find an audience or do I count the glazed over eyes that would wish this stuff within the life looking at it, and if things go as they always have, eventually finding a way to do so, am I then giving a service worthy of remittance... even if it were just a few gold coins in a hat.

Then if someone stands before musicians and throws a few coins in the hat for the few minutes they have enjoyed the music is not standing in front of inspirational objects we might like to own and talking about such with the maker exactly the same thing?

I suppose what it comes down to is whether the artists might see their work in this way and whether or not to get behind such humble exhibitions would or would not belittle their own attempts to be in the established gallery system which relies on setting benchmarks of worth through exclusivity.

Kevin's warmin' up!

My brother Kevin has his business called Leathersmith's and usually has more than enough business refurbishing other peoples shoes, handbags and sofa's but he's actually quite keen to do stuff in his own way from scratch, as well as incorporate the ideas I have, so this Aethercom thing is a great way for us to start workin' together on something we're both interested in.
He bought an old heavily built lounge suite, two singles and a three, a while back on Trademe and this particular design is very appropriate for the Steampunk genre so for the past week or two he's been filling his spare time doin' his thing on one of the singles.

You can just see the hand painted octopus on the back and this is something we're really goin' to concentrate on as time passes, the fact that this paint system that he uses to recoat leather with spray gun's can be brushed on by hand and be as resilient to wear as we all know leather is. It's actually the elasticisers added to the pigment, carrier and resins that allow this to happen... if you didn't know yet that leather is covered with paint!

Here you can see some of the details with various nails and a strip of brass.

And here's Scott, one of his workers, branching out into metal work with a sheet of copper to cover over the hole in the side.

And this is Boy, Scott's dog, one of three dogs on site while I was there. Kev's old pit bull cross Bruno, Boy, the huntaway, and the old owner's, who happened to be visiting, little scotty... so it's quite the dog friendly place.

But on my drive down there, to get the above photos, I started thinkin' about how we're, the makers, are goin' to front up to sell our wares and how we're goin' to do the costume thing which is a curse I don't need so it occurs to me that we just find a nice woman willing to do the dressup anyways who can front for us. So I put it to Sharla, who does reception and is an old friend's daughter, and she's gone away to think about it but the offers still there, and made right now, if theres anyone out there who'd loved to do the Victorian dress up thing, or is goin' to do it anyways who might wanna spend the day fronting for us... for commission on sales I suppose and some pocket money.

The beginning of the end.

I was visiting Doug yesterday and talking about finally getting round to just staying home and working on the house. Part of this was my current thinking that this Steampunk thing coming up will be my last foray into the gesture I started way back in 1992. It could be my time in the art world but it's not quite that so much as being... oh, I don't really know what it is but I'm just basically over making stuff and not having it go out into the world as it should. This could be entirely my fault simply because I ask too much or not enough and in doing so fail to meet the buyer in a place were the price of the thing is underneath the obviousness of having it in their life.

The story of the Mexican chap of the movie, who was recently in our lands, Chavez maybe (better google that just to make sure... sugarman, oops... Rodriguez) and how the man was this huge hit somewhere else and supported a generation but within his own life he had no idea and years later, well past the age when he should have been, he was found doing manual labour. Now this doesn't quite gel with me because for one I'm not entirely interested in being a big hit generational prophet of meaningfulness and I actually really enjoy manual labour but I'm really quite interested in how what we do finds it's time and how that time finds us.

So this may be the underlying question in putting a bunch of stuff together and stuffing it in front of a bunch of costume advocates willing another lost time into existence... and making it their existence. These questions of time and what's right for anytime are of utmost importance to me. Not so much being on time as the mixture of defining a time and then being ready to catch the bus that arrives with the set destination written across it's signpost.

Well, it's not that important but pondering such things has kept me within art, and it's adjunct of making, for 20 years.

It's kind of about realising, to a certain extent, that' I've been quite Steampunky for years, especially when it comes to furniture that uses old furniture again, and this current of revamping what's older is throughout all of my art, and going for an end to it all, not within the artworld, but within a context that possibly shares the intended outcomes more favourably, but without seeking favour as we might know it.

See, this is the trouble with both me and my writing, which isn't a trouble but it could be easy to see it as one, in that I just make it all up as I go along and eventually kind of realise where I might be going. Even this writing... I don't sit down and ask myself, what do I want to say?, I just start writing, usually 'cause I want to fill some time, and then while I'm just bouncing about letting the words fall out I kinda get an idea of what the underlying question is that is prompting me to sit here at a keyboard tapping frenetically without any real idea of why or how.

Because the question of timing is so bloody interesting. In one sense Steampunk is already dead because we're calling it Steampunk. Before it was Steampunk it was abunch of people just making something up as they went along, which may or may not have defied description, but when it wasn't anything it also could be anything. Now it is something it has an altogether different purpose... en masse. But does that mean that the people who made it have lost their baby?

Maybe this is why I've wondered what to do to fill in the Oval on this piece?

I think I'm saving it for last for some reason I've yet to fathom.

One more thing...

Finally got into the garage today to start the tidy up and, of course, it's been put off for so long 'cause I gotta rebuild the whole thing. Not the garage but sort out the benches and work areas so I can actually work in there 'cause winters comin' and I'll need a dry space to hang out in the evenin's. But while I'm pulling down a no longer used storage space I discovered some old timey 'lectrik boxes and realised, once the picture dropped into my head, what the final thing is I'm going to make for the Steampunk show is goin' to be.

I been thinkin' bout a coffee table of sorts for a centrepiece down low (gotta form the whole... what's Kevin say?, the vignette? but anyways the whole setupo has to be a composition that works to highlight everything.) but none of the stuff I've got has perked up with, use me, use me (well some have but I've said no nicely) until yesterday I picked up a huge lump of wood, round and about 1mtr across and about 60mm thick, from out front of a charming wee domicile in Remmer's then as soon as I see these 'lectric boxes the vision comes in.

Got lotsa cool old table legs which can be cut down to get the low stance wreck wired then I'll inset a bunch of these boxes and maybe even wire in some lights under glass portholes... rememberin' the show a few years back when me and Felix did some interesting light's for the blacked out show at Pierre's.

See, this is how Art works... not fancy shit to let everyone know you're flash, but down and dirty crap that been serving as furniture during ratty celebrations of fine dinin'... combined with flash Git's old buggersome castoff's.

Love your Dirt and it'll love you back!

What to wear?

The thing that really strikes me about the reality of steampunk as a people thing is that it's principally a look at me thing, and I don't mean to say that's wrong, but that at the moment it's mostly about dressing up oneself which then, of course, means you go to a place where people look at you.

But me and my little crew, or the crew I'm within to put it more modestly, aren't necessarily into being seen... we are into what we make being seen, but what we make doesn't hang off us so much as be built to hang around those who might want to widen the seen they are to the seen they are also within.

Matter of factly, though, we're going to be about those things we are tryin' to sell, and being about them means we might have to create some guise that's suits the proceedings, to fit in on one hand but be backgrounded enough that that which we make shines brighter than that which we wear.

I went to the last Aethercon and I wanted to be subtle in the wears I wore so I had this little backstory whereby I was Victorian but I'd gone to India and ended up hanging with the natives so while my clothes were indeed handmade I'd got with the whole Nirvana trip and had given up on worldly pursuits... I never got the chance to explain that amongst all the flamboyance, so this year I'm wondering how we still might embrace a story of a similar narrative whilst also being of the workaday quality of our wares. Maybe something like the Muslim men wear with a leather apron. Whatever I come up with it's gotta be simple and cheap but at the same time kinda speak about us as workers... at least that's kinda what I'm following as a line of thought.

Basically I'd actually to kinda not be there while still bein' there, hidden or invisible, so the artworks speak for themselves... maybe we can employ someone, already steampunk'd, with the guise in place to represent us?

Charles Rohlfs

The thing with the Art's and Craft's movement is that it's an almost anti-victorianism, in that within the age of Victoria the makers, of A&C were rebelling against the machine and hearkening even further back to what may be called medievalism.

But with our perspective within the post-modern A&C is just as much Victorian as steam engines and the dark mills of the North of England. So will Steampunk, with time and the perspective offered by years, meld into the ideas we will have of the early 21st century... be unavoidably connected as it speaks of a way within an age irrespective of it's outward appearance?

In a book I have of A&C is says that Charles Rohlf wasn't accepted by the purists of that movement and yet, with time, he obviously is. Does this speak of a universality that already is but we are unable to see unless time gives us the range. Is universality always there and of everything?

Anyways I might have a go at copying this below which really does it for me. I have the Oak in abundance, old bedheads filled with the dreams of bedwetting children, and I know that no matter how hard I try it won't end up an exact copy... I can't help but follow my own line.

Isn't it just beautiful? A profound mixture of austerity and playfulness that would suit a witch within an Amish community. This is a bigger version to peruse.

It's all so flat, the wood, but he makes it roundy... this is what appeals to me, alike finding happiness in a mundane life.

These though, seem to be the most obvious as they turn up most frequently in a Google image search, but they seem to lack depth and be overly showy of skillfulness, like ballgowns unable to walk barefoot across the dewy midnight grass as the lights from chandeliers throw the shadows of hopeful escapes.

Dam fihn bit'a cahving thow!
So you got the name and a few examples... enjoy!

Having started at last...

Things are being done. Is it my affinity for laziness that means once I start work I actually acheive quite alot... is it all that time pondering this and that that actually allows the back half of my head to work out process? I have no idea but it seems the less I do, overall, the more I actually acheive... which is often argued against by those who think I could acheive heaps and heaps by working all the time but believe it or not I reckon that's counter intuitive... it's like without the rumination I'd most probably just create heaps of dross, but whatever eh? 

So indeed, the Vicky Victorola, or Austin Hillman (because there isn't a car called a Vicky Victorola so I can't get the badge without making one... later maybe), or maybe that'll be the pseudonym of me and Simon, is coming into being.

I like where it's going, but then again why might I make something I won't enjoy the outcome of... good question, and I hope whomever buys it takes the time to get it going though the fact that it isn't is actually part of the art content of the piece. How much of our lives are indeed just pure artifice? Knowing such may be the difference between self awareness and unconsciousness but that's another story.

Fretwork reminiscent of art and craft which might be highlighted with red on the face cut and maybe Simon will add some little flourishes in the corners or somesuch.

Always my favourite view, the backend, the nuts and bolts of supporting the needs and desires of the great consuming machine of identification and importance. Where what's actually going on is understood and defined through the alchemy of deeper desires.

But at the front we impress, we doodle and dance across the possibilities of flimflam, the potentialities of design and drafting to echo the ease with which nature tells it's story as we hide the great mysteries of the machine behind what might be elegance... as defined, so understood and accepted.

Um, basically an old shelf cut out with the jigsaw to go over the speaker and ending, edging out to an octagon so loved by the bright and the beautiful of that aimed for past age... don't ya love nostalgia. Just like kissing ice cubes!

And this too will go to Simon for paint applied decoratively... once I finish detailing it out with the detritus of my own convenience... style!

And last but not least is the two seater with exposed springs which my brother Kevin will upholster in fine leather with, what are they called, stencilled designs of a floral nature, red over dulled blacks with rivets and strengthening corners and wear areas then I'll get the wood burner out and carve a few blackened lines here and there and maybe even a small carving or two... The Chesterfield Springer?

An end to scavenging...

I so love the inorganic and especially within such suburbs as Glen Innes where on one hand there seems to be a ignorance of antiques, which has them appearing occasionally within the dross, combined with a humility in their enactment.

That means poor mans old stuff and ignorance is too strong a word, above, whilst humility isn't strong enough but with the two used together in the same sentence it may well be that intuitively you understand what I'm trying to say within my paucity with the English language.

I went out again, in my cherishable little  vehicle scarcely laden with the tools of noble disinterment, to firstly review past scrubland not properly weeded (I realised that on the first pass I was blind with excitement and left behind details that upon reflection might, indeed, be required) and to then widen my perspectives of anthropological significance as I went into areas yet to be understood.

Am I guilty of franchising my own dreams with validity as I wander from pile to pile or is it true that ennobling the ignoble is  a pastime worthy, as a metaphor, of self discovery?

Nobility though may be a concept worth perusing as it seems that the idea of steampunk is one where the nobility, not so much the use of the word as stratifying contextualisation - but the question of what is noble and worthy, possibly inherent in a past age offers us a way to discover our own nobility. within this age that seems hell bent on scraping away with brighter and brighter indulgences something which we feel then as a residual lack as we take bigger leaps into the technology that so engulfs us.

Not that Steampunk has grown from a fear so much as an intuition of scarcity.

But what has this to do with wandering around with wide eyes perusing piles of rubbish? High thoughts with ones feet in the mire?

For me it has significance for the immune systems of our intellectual lives. That it is both healthy and strengthening if we subject the solidity of our conceptualism of the world to the slippery and the slidery... that we push down the hill of the possibly turgid these constructs of advantage and significance and review them for cracks and weaknesses when they hit bottom and the inertia of travel subsides to entropy within an altogether different environment.

This is the sound system I'll use as the basis for a cabinet which I'll then get to Simon for him to decorate. The power socket has been cutoff so I have no idea whether it'll work but given my understanding of such things... it could, but I'm going to use it as is anyways with a hint of the blithe as in 'Who's ever going to use it for the intended purpose anyways so what difference will it make if it works" which may actually be an ironic statement to the whole theoretical basis of steampunk.

And this is the work of Simon so you can imagine easily why my little oversite of having something actually work, when combined with my cabinet making and his talent at decoration will make the inadequacy of the object, as something with a purpose, will be undoubtedly mote.

Beginnings....

This little blog will contain the artworks, and the creative process of bringing them into being, of Sean and Kevin Kerrigan and Simon Vine which will be shown at the Aethercon steampunk big day out. It's in early april at the events centre so it's just under six weeks to get enoiugh gear together.

The three of us are all in the business of making things and are keen to use the aethercon opportunity to open a commissioning base and will endevour then to put forward all our talents in the hope that the Steampunk community will embrace us to bring their dreams to fruition.

Kevin Kerrigan runs a business called Leathersmiths which deals with all aspects of refurbishment of leather from the recolouring of skins to the refurbishment of furniture and all other leather goods.

Sean Kerrigan and Simon Vine are predominatly artists with Sean veering towards sculpture and Simon being a painter. Together these three will fill a 3m x 3m space with a variety of furniture and art which they believe will both allow them to show off their talents whilst also being conducive to widening the scope of the genuine Steampunk in filling their worlds with the accoutrement necessary.

Way back in about 1975 one of the first authors that I read my way through after I found the magic contained in books was Jules Verne and his visions of early futurism suited well my expanding ideas of what could be. I already had a do it yourself ethic going on and his descriptions of machines, I would surmise, were somehow a serendipitous event in the beginnings of using art and craft in the world.

But within two years I had found the Head and Tails bookshop in Inner City Auckland and therein found the magazine Heavy Metal and within that the art of Moebius who, to this day, is one of my favourite inspirations. Jean Giraud's (Moebius) metaphysical leanings though had a more profound effect upon me which has forever leaned me towards functional items with a heart and a soul, or if they do not infact have this, then at the very least that it is important for us as humans to be around hand made items.

Steampunk, then, with it's connections to a time when industrialisation was crawling from the it's pre-industrial age of craftmanship  is a very inspiring time for any artist simply because the machine offered the ability to remove most of the hardship from making and left much more time for craftmanship and the role of the artisan whilst also bringing quality and dependability within reach of everyman.

And this for me is the paramount question that Steampunk raises. How much is left to the machine and how much is finished by the hands and as a metaphor it is the question of where we, as humans, sit within what is left of the natural world. How do we place ourselves within this world being both beyond, in terms of lifting ourselves beyond mere survival, but retain enough of that primal energy to exist in resonance with that earthiness. It's as if Steampunk held at it's essence is a cultural archetype that allows us to swim within that partings of the way and discover within ourselves both our attachment to the earth and it's mysteries and our need to dream the big dream of human potential.