"Gearing Up" for the Watch City Steampunk Festival!

It's "full steam ahead" as I "gear up" for the upcoming Watch City Steampunk Festival held on the Waltham, Massachusetts Town Common Saturday, May 7, 10AM-5PM (Raindate:  Sunday, May 8).  Yes, the puns were intended.  This should be a really fun event with "everything Steampunk," including performers, musicians, costumed attendees and food and art/craft vendors (including me)!  Waltham is commonly referred to as the Watch City because of its association with the watch industry. ​ The Waltham Watch Company opened its factory in 1854 and was the first company to make watches on an assembly line.  It won the gold medal in 1876 at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition and produced over 35 million watches, clocks and instruments before it closed in 1957.  This will be a day long celebration of Steampunk, which, according to Wikipedia, "is a subgenre of science fiction and sometimes fantasy that incorporates technology and aesthetic designs inspired by 19th-century industrial steam-powered machinery.  Although its literary origins are sometimes associated with the cyberpunk genre, steampunk works are often set in an alternative history of the 19th century's British Victorian era or American "Wild West," in a post-apocalyptic future during which steam power has maintained mainstream usage, or in a fantasy world that similarly employs steam power. Steampunk may, therefore, be described as neo-Victorian."  I always like to think of H. G. Well's Time Machine or War of the Worlds, as well as recent movies of Sherlock Holmes and Mad Max.

​Here are examples of my "steampunk" style pieces that I have made, many of which will be for sale at this wonderful festival.  Hope to see you there!  www.watchcityfestival.com