2007-2008 Steampunk Highlights

These are some of the very first "steampunk" pieces that I made in 2007 and 2008. I'd been doing Victorian and Art Nouveau inspired pieces for several years, and had a "Victorian carnival" themed website, but it was in 2007 that a friend of mine told me what I was doing was called "steampunk." I found out that steampunk was growing in popularity on the West Coast and in Europe; coincidentally, both locations to which I happened to sell most of my jewelry. But at that time, I couldn't find anything on the Internet about steampunk jewelry, not even on Etsy; I only found a few items that Datamancer posted on his website.

I started listing my work on eBay and on my own site, calling them "steampunk." There was a lot of interest, and I ended up being asked to contribute to the book "Steampunk Style Jewelry" -- to my knowledge the first book devoted to steampunk jewelry specifically, and the first to publish a general overview of the growing steampunk trend.

Steampunk has taken on a life of its own since then, with books, music, conventions, costumes and more. I always associated "steampunk" with the Victorian Era and I viewed it as a term that encompassed my interests in poetry and literature, HG Wells, Oscar Wilde, Tennyson, etc, as well as my interests in the styles of the period, Pre-Raphaelite, the Arts & Crafts movement, Art Nouveau, etc., and my love of all things inspired by that era, such as Michael Moorcock's novels, the Main Street at Disneyland, or movies like The Time Machine (1960).

But "steampunk" seems so broad now, encompassing modern music, books, comics, video games and cosplay, and a wide range of time periods from medieval through WWII, and just about every genre you can think of -- mystery, supernatural, fantasy, romance, science fiction. Steampunk does not attempt to be historically accurate, only "inspired by the actual Victorian, Belle Epoque, Civil War or Wild West periods. People like steampunk precisely because of it's lack of confinement to a particular era or genre. And I'm fine with that. I enjoy seeing what people do with steampunk. But, I no longer feel at home in the term. Lately, I use "Neo-Victorian," "clockwork," "screampunk," "science fiction," "spacepunk," and other terms, to describe my work. 

Anyway, this was "steampunk" to me in 2007-2008. Sorry for the really bad pictures. I've learned a lot about jewelry as well as photography and digital editing over the years.