Steampunk Jewelry Explosion... the Aftermath!

holy crow. I've managed to complete more new pieces of jewelry this past 2 weeks than I have in months. Most of it is a steampunked style of jewelry - pocket watch pieces, gears etc. And of course a few pieces of "cyberpunk jewelry".

With the weather halfway decent I could finally take some photos. Thats the problem with a Natural Light obsession. Cloudy dark days don't do it for me. Bright sun also has its own problems. Today looks like another good day - bright and flat skys.

What does this all mean? Basically I've been working like a fiend to get new designs up to Etsy. I do not know if the Shopping Holiday craze has decended or the sporadic marketing attempts I've been doing.

In the past week I've almost had 30 items up on etsy. For me that is a HUGE number. I custom make all my designs... so its just me sitting there in my little crowded room, trying not to drop tiny gears on the floor where they'll get lost in the cracks. This should be easy but it isn't. :D I work a few hours every day for my brother - doing that driveway thing - but when its done - in theory I've got a few hours to make some steampunk earrings, some necklaces and work on some weirdo sculptures.

In reality:
5 hrs for my brother: 9-2pm. or so
1 hr for: lunch, minor cleaning: 30 min. shower, dressing, more minor cleaning: 30.

Suddenly it will be 3pm.. emails. Posting stuff. Shopping. Making dinner.
Wait! the light is great.. take those photos!
Wait, another email from someone re: steampunk jewelry!
Wait.. wait.. wait..

Next thing I know it will be 5:30 and I've CREATED NOTHING... but dinner.

So to get 28 pieces of jewelry up on etsy is an accomplishment. I don't know how other people manage to list 50 or 100 or 200 things. omg. They prob work full time at it. Or have a co-op or something. Listing 28 pieces is for me an EXPLOSION of jewelry.

But now .. I've had sales. The last 2 weeks have been almost as busy for my store as the time that I had the article about my work and etsy in WIRED Magazine. I'm tripping over myself to make sure the work gets sent out promptly and well packaged. and now i've gotta plan for 3 craft shows in Dec!

rains it pours. make hay while the sunshines. It will likely be very quiet in January!

Steampunk Jewelry: Insect mania... :D

So a few days ago I said I'd post some photos up. So far I've been slacking. Actually I've been painfully busy. There was the most fantastic party this weekend - great people and music - and OMG models. Models wearing my jewelry. it was an EVENT! :D

anyway, it seems of late I've got a lot of insects around my etsy shop. I love bugs, beetles, bees and spiders. Suddenly I realize I've got a LOT of steampunk insect themes. Maybe there is an entomologist hidden in my soul yearing to create? I would love to study insects but I think I'll have to beg off for a few years while I'm fixated on the steampunk jewelry. So, here's a few of my steampunk insect themed jewelry. Maybe I have the same facination with insects that the Victorian's had? To be honest they make me jump but I do like them.

So Above in this post: Beetle Wing Necklace: Made from real insect wings :) Scary but true - they are this incredible chrome green colour.

Image 2: this fantastic Steampunk Bee necklace. Not the best photo I know... there are more photos on my
http://www.clockworkzero.etsy.com/ - this is a really elegant creation. I searched for months to find matching small gears for this piece - they flank the wings and there are matching watch gears too. The only little element that is not an exact match is the fact that one side has a brass coloured gear while the other is silver. Oh well. :D I could have removed them but then it would lose such a nice element of this piece. More photos of it and a longer description are over on my little site.

Then we have another bee. this is much more "fun" then the queen bee here - an interesting combination of a new "vintage" designed pressing and a light bulb! :D

This piece was a nightmare to photograph. The bulb was so difficult to get right and the light has been terrible of late.

It came out fairly well but looks much better in person. Thebrass gear in the centre is really quite fantastic. I wrote a bit about it... Its called (i feel appropriately): The Mystery of Bees

Now lets see what else I've got up on etsy that will go into this post.
Basically this was the piece that started the "Clockwork Insect" post.... I finally finished it last week and got some time to take photos. I'm so pleased with it. It is just FANTASTIC really... I Love it. Sure someone else will love it too... but I just hope whomever buys it will like it as much as me. lol. Does anyone else have that problem?

I photographed it with natural light but had to remove a lot of colour from the wood in this shot via photoshop. The wings reflected all the colour... you can still see a bit of warmth to it.

There is a great description of this unique piece of steampunk jewelry... while its still for sale. I am suspecting someone will buy it. Wouldn't it be great against black? Stunning!

And you know..
just to through a Monkey into the mix...
I'll be putting up my Monkey soon to my etsy site. Sort of a monkey wrench into the works of this post ;)

CyberPunk Teminator sculpture: Spiny Rat skull - something completely different!

Sometimes it isn't just about jewelry - it is about creating something radical and different... I guess this qualifies. Natural history..or perhaps Un-natural History? Well, you won't find this on etsy - it sold before it was even completed. lol

The concept here encompasses the mythos of the "Terminator" movie series. Why restrict the creation of cyber-monsters to humans? Here this skull shows a bit of steampunk and cyberpunk influences - two genres of Science Fiction that have influenced countless movies. This piece was has a strong literary influence as well - this was inspired by a short story by Kat Eason, where rats and re-engineered werewolves fight among the remains of a future city.

This skull is from a South American spiny rat (family Echimyidae). I carefully wired the jaws to open and close and the wires come through the where the optic nerves were - and thread through the base of the skull. All together it took about 15 hours to complete. Tiny watch parts were set into the bone, including two watch rubies.

I really love how the teeth look in the profile piece. You can see how deep they are set into the skull. Science fiction and a love of intricate and tiny things has influenced my life - not just in what I read but what I create. Steampunk jewelry but also the cyberpunk sculpture as well.

Commission the win! Clockwork Beetle in Flight

Well, turns out that the guy had gone on vacation for a few weeks. I am so relieved!


He bought the 2nd Clockwork Insect I made - and I'm posting it off now.

=======================

In the meantime I was feeling quite geeky. Must be missing the old tech support job or something. So I was playing with EPROMS. I'm making a series: Dancing Cybermen - of brooches. Not just brooches but Super Geek Robot brooches - and turning those old EPROMs into jacket pins. They are just........................so uberly geeky.

They kind of dance too = jiggly legs and arms. So you know - an EPROM is a Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory, is a type of computer memory chip that retains its data when its power supply gets turned off.

And this one is an intel made in 1982!

Steampunk Jewelry on WIRED Magazine - Etsy, Technology & ClockworkZero's steampunk jewelry

So there's this Geek Magazine i've read for the last decade: WIRED has a very positive article on ETSY. For all you etsy people out there - do take a look. Share it around - its nice to have some super positive ETSY articles - and WIRED is so well read. Consider yourselves as part of the revolution!

Clive Thompson who wrote the article bought one of my steampunk/cyberpunk vacuum tubes last year. Although I'd read his stuff for years I didn't know he was The Clive Thompson. Months and months later he contacted me and said he'd like to mention my work in an article. I was thrilled - but thought it would be a lot less - something minor - and he said in April maybe.
Except it is NOW - LOL omgbbqwtfomg I've had a few sales.. and so much positive little emails from strangers. It's been great. Now i've grabbed somehow a little bit of web fame.

If anyone here DIGGs stuff or Stumbles - can you do me a fav and stumble/digg the article? please? pretty please? shugar?

So chances are good .. i'm quitting my day job.
what do you think of that?! craaaaaaaaazy

Steampunk in Toronto!

wow, a long time since i have been here.. i'll be better at posting in 2009. most of my posts go up to my livejournal. Anyway...t hings are going like crazy in the Steampunk Jewelry department. I'm really excited to see how Toronto is growing into loving Steampunk. Yay Toronto :D

I spent the holidays working on some new designs and finishing some special projects.One of the nice things that happened was that my jewelry got used in a photo shoot. I had no idea what to expect though, so it was rather difficult to get all excited about it. Anyway, I got a few of the photos yesterday. I'm totally amazed. They were a lot better than I expected or hoped for.

there's a bigger version on my Flickr. anyway, its thrilling to see my jewlry being worn :D

CREDITS:
ClockworkZero (steampunk jewelry): www.clockworkzero.etsy.com
Tasha (stylist) pretty.deadly.stylz@gmail.com and http://www.modelmayhem.com/708099

Bella (blonde model) http://www.modelmayhem.com/208464

Elyse (purple-haired model) http://www.modelmayhem.com/698146

Jenni (make-up artist) http://www.modelmayhem.com/193703

Starkers (wardrobe) http://www.modelmayhem.com/402135

And Danielle King (photographer): http://www.modelmayhem.com/593390 and www.danielleking.ca

creating steampunk - a personal history

yes, 2 posts in one day!
I'm stuck at work.. can you tell? :D
Anyway someone asked me about how I got into making steampunk jewelry and its rather funny. i have been making jewelry now for ... a long time. Since highschool actually. Then in the 90s when I was living in Montreal, I opened a tiny bead shop. At that time I had a strong interest in Victorian jewelry - in particular jewelry made with hair, and keepsakes. I made some really awful stuff then - but some nicer things that got sold in a gallery as well. One of the first pieces was a pendant with my BF's photo - set into a watch case - and covered in gears. I found it just recently... lol.

By the mid-90s though i had to give up jewelry. I made an attempt to become a silver smith - took courses etc - but my hands/wrists were getting wrecked. Carpel tunnel! Finally by '99 I quit it entirely and got into tech support.

I'm sure there is some direct relationship between goth, steampunk, SF and Geeks. Heck, I know what it is - cause that's me. Aging goth who has written SF forever becomes Tech support Geek, finds other geeks, phases out of Gothdom and transitions into ... steampunk.

I started hearing about steampunk as a more modern goth alternative a few years back. Then, a friend used to send me a bunch of links and we would chat about it, and I continued my non-jewelry making life. Then one day he sent me a photo of some steampunk jewelry that was really, really terrible. Just - poorly made, cheap and well.. ugly. Even in the photo I could see the glistening glue glob, the fact that the jump-rings weren't closed and that the weight (which appeared considerable) would cause the necklace to hang crooked AND break.

so i started making my own stuff.

I feel lucky actually - because most of my customers are amazing people. Sweet, interesting and so far, pretty happy. I always try and correct any issues (and trust me, even I can make some mistakes when making jewelry even after all this time) and they seem happy.

What more can i ask?
Maybe one day to do it full time. Call it a steampunk jeweler's dream. Though, i must admit, I love the cyberpunk stuff too.

i guess, really, it isn't that interesting a story after all.

New Steampunk Jewelry update

I'm finally getting the chance to write and update my etsy site with some new steampunk jewelry. Its not been easy. I'm getting over bronchitis. yuck.

Still, I've got some wonderful new materials, and have started using some of my treasures. Treasures you say? yes, steampunk jewelry treasures! I have some great materials - but finding the time and inspiration has been a challenge.

This piece feels really inspired though to be honest. It is made with a wonderful fused quartz glass tube that was originally used in stop-motion photography. Although it is glass - it is very sturdy because originally a current was used to trigger this bright flash. The shape of it makes for a stunning pendant. I've already sold 2 of a similar design....... and omg! one of my customers was so thrilled she sent me a present!!! how cool is that? Amazing! heh. AND the other lady wrote today to say she loves it very much and has sent me a commission.

::does a happy dance::

I designed a very silvery based chain made with bits of industrial hardware, similar to the designs of my Vacuum Tube pendants.

Scary Steampunk Halloween jewelry by clockworkzero

something scary for Hallowe'en... tiny jaws from some unknown animal that were quite old.
The watch parts already reminded me of jaws or claws. Since I did the "Art that scares you" fundraiser I thought of these.

Anyway, there is something very cyborg like in these pieces. what is nice about these crazy, scary pendants is that they are 2 sided. so you can wear them either way. something like a bone sculpture.

Ah well... can you tell I'm a fan of the Terminator movies.. the first 2 anyway. And yeup, the series as well.

I've got a friend who is looking up what kind of bone. I'll let you know.

New steampunk jewelry!

wow! been an age since I've had the time to post here.
I've been really really working hard on a lot of new steampunk jewelry. Yes, clockworkzero's been a very very busy grrl. In addition to my steampunk earrings, brooches and necklaces I've been designing a line of cyberpunk jewelry.

You just don't see enough cyberpunk styled jewelry in my corner of the world :D
I love playing with all the beautiful machined parts - not just cogs, wheels and gears but actual part of computer and various equipment - thats what I adore about using electronic parts in my work.

This particular vacuum tube is really lovely. I made/ designed a special chain for it that really works. There is something very cyberpunk imho about it.

In addition to the Cyberpunk jewelry I've been making more "traditional" steampunk jewelry too. For some reason though, I'm not able to put up any more photos right now. :D so looks like I'll be posting again soon!