Upstate Steampunk October meeting

Busy weekend - started it off with an Upstate Steampunk meetup in the posh wine room at the Pelham Rd. Marriott where we'll be holding the con.  The conversations were stimulating and plans were finalized and I had the chance to meet new folks and also was thrilled to see friends I haven't seen in a while. It was great to meet Lennis and her husband,  Howard, (who is from Liverpool) and discuss Morris dancing, Sherlock Holmes and the tradition of first world war First World War soldiers who sent home unusual scrapbooking creations they made with photos (thanks to all the revolutions since the invention of the camera obscura)  and  paper emperema from where they were stationed. The conversation started when I showed Howard and Lennis the mini album I made for Valentine Wolfe.  He has a examples his ancestors made and he said the book I made reminded me of the same way of putting things together. When photographs were able to be reproduced cheaply, scrapbooking using family photos became a passion.  I have seen some period examples some women have created but never knew the soldiers did things along these lines. Howard explained that in lapses in between battles, the young men would make them and ship them home. 
 The wine room, accented with a fireplace and comfortable upholstered furniture was perfect for mingling so I moved about the room to take part in lots of discussions: technology with Penelope, the Egyptologist, trains and clockwork with Professor Thaddeus, see Josh again after more than a year, listen in amazement to the news of  the latest inventions to emerge from his engineering workshop and hear from Gypsey,  Pilot of the Second Thought, about her plans to build and fly her amphibious dirigible over Lake Hartwell.
  But the rest of the weekend is to be spent finishing up on the Fissure Steampunk issue and doing art.  On Saturday, amidst fires in the fireplace, pomegranates and the crisp fall weather (finally arrived here in the south) I worked on more beeswax encaustic mixed media pieces, this time though they are for the Upstate Steampunk show since Gypsey announced there will be an art room.  I finished two I'd started months and years ago, one steampunk and one alchemy and  then completed three more using lots of paper epherema including vintage photographs, lots of the metal findings I've picked up at the sides of the roads for years, gold leaf, pigment inks and of course, the most fun of all...beeswax.  There are Tim Holtz, 7 Gypsies and Graphic 45 paper,  elements, clockwork parts, antique keys, international vintage stamps, flowers and more of the

Immersion - a Halloween poem

Immersion

To make sense -

 meet purpose with desire,

the crafting… or

forgiving of everwhere,

the mastering/inclusion of could have beens,

as plentiful as pomegranate seeds
the what ifs and never seens,

                              not to be shared.

Energy: elastic in circulatory dance.

Woodsmoke and  waterside breath
mists shoulders,

as subtle as a crow’s gaze,

head tilted in Socratic inquiry.

Meet on crossroads, the earthen path strewn.

Composting leaves of memory -

the baseline to our centers, transformed

beneath the pungent decay, the autumn aroma of meaning
                                                                                  exhumed.

Swipe the veils of gauzy hope away,  

 trembling hands;

ever aware.

Silk drags the debris

                     of before;

reveals

footsteps past,

still present in a cyclical universe.  

                       

Insignificant

colliding collage,

sliding symbols like an adept. A duo

of thumb pads, shift -

click the puzzle tiles,

a backseat game,

             trees and shore flashing by.

            Creative flux,

                              tangential…

   annihilates the abstract            

                                    until
                                     one tile
                                        strikes home. 

                                                                       - G.G.

                           

Steampunk Fissure magazine

We're coming down to the wire and completing the final edits and layouts on Fissure #8, the special Steampunk Fissure issue. This issue will be released at the Upstate Steampunk Con on November 19th and 20th to be held at the Pelham Rd. Marriott in Greenville,SC.
I'm also trying to keep up with the Shadow Archer Press website and emails but it's a complex process, especially now that I work a full time job as a Rehab Support Specialist for a head injury and spinal cord program and take care of my granddaughter on the weeknights and every other weekend - so please bear with me.  I have very limited free time and lots going on.
Jim Cross of Anderson, SC did the artwork for the gorgeous cover and we're thrilled to have him onboard.
I'm excited to announce the contributors chosen so far. This is a working list of contributors to this issue subject to change as we complete the final edits and layout.

Short stories by Tom Brennan, Kimberley Collier, Maxwell Cyn, Matthew Delman, Gillian Daniels,  K.G. McAbee,  Shane McElveen,  Brian K. Ladd, Gypsey Teague, William Wood

 Poetry by George Anderson, Jack Frey, Paul Handley, Kim Keith David S. Pointer,  Charles F. Thielman

 Nonfiction by Gypsey Teague

Art by Brandon Cassidy, Jim Cross, and Shane McElveen.  Some of you who have submitted may have not received emails yet.  Those will go out in a few days.   

Poetry by George Anderson, Jack Frey, Paul Handley, Kim Keith David S. Pointer,  Charles F. Thielman

Nonfiction by Gypsey Teague

Art by Brandon Cassidy, Jim Cross, Shane McElveen

Dias de la Muertos Beeswax Encaustic

I've finally had a bit of free time to do art. While, Kendall and Savannah spent  yesterday outside doing their arts and crafts on this perfect fall day, I took this opportunity to play for the first time with mixed media beeswax encaustic collage.  I ended up starting five and finishing four for the Dias de la Muertos show I'm participating in at Milagro Studios during the First Friday gallery crawl November 5th.  There may be three older oil paintings and perhaps my mixed media 3-D assemblages (still debating since they're rather fragile)  and I plan to do at least one shadow box for the show.  I love working with beeswax.  I've been hunting for this effect for years - that old Victorian look with it's dark Poe-like effects and the aged yellow appearance the beeswax provides.
Since Nick Bantock's, Griffin and Sabine books, I've been fascinated with mixed media and collage. In my early days of painting I produced a number of of collages.  But then stepped away from it except in my art journals to work with oil paints in the standard manner.
I didn't know how to get this effect until I saw videos by Jack and Cat Curios and Suze Weinberg. Now,  I've discovered this is my medium.
I wanted to work with a couple of nontraditional Day of the Dead themes: the first delves into my philosophy about delirium vivens - the passion to exist, a concept (in addition to many others) introduced by the character Conchis at his villa, Bourani (Greek for skull ) in the novel, The Magus, by John Fowles.
I chose a Burne Jones man clad in stylized black leather armor running through the ocean (emotion). The Ouija board represents the subconscious here while the crow, skulls and skeleton are quite obvious in their symbolism. 
The second harkens back to the second Crow movie, which featured a moody Day of the Dead festival

Absinthe Mini Album

When it came time to make a present for my friend Bethany for her birthday it wasn't hard to come up with ideas.  She will play an Abbey Sinthe, an Absinthe Distiller at the Upstate Steampunk Con where she and her partner, Rhonda, will be vendors with their stunning fused recycled glass jewelry and feathered hair adornments from Ow Wow! Glass Creations.

Bethany loves butterflies and has taken gorgeous photos of the creatures, I tried to included lots of butterflies, as well as the lots of absinthe memorabilia (including instructions on creating the louche). I had a great time making this album, working on it in the middle of the night sometimes when I got an idea.  It was so much fun.  I used a lot of Graphic 45 papers, vintage photos and absinthe posters, 7 Gypsies, Prima flowers, Tim Holtz, K and Co., bling and charms, as well as things from my stash of 20 years of altered books, art journals and scrapbooking.  

I also included some prints of my own drawings of nudes, as well as the envelopes, pockets, tags and fold out portfolios I have learned from you tube mini book tutorials.  

This is my third mini album and my second one for friends in the Upstate Steampunk group here in Greenville, SC who are all getting ready for the Upstate Steampunk Con in November.