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.