The Steampunk Workshop

Kevin Rolly's photography

Meredith Scheff — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 20:24:47 +0000

(image: Kevin Rolly, AKA Kevissimo, seen here as SteamMonk)

Friend and co-BurningMan-conspirator Kevin Rolly is a fantastic photographer- He often paints and collages photos, creating an otherworldy beauty.

Link is to his Flickr site, which has some NSFW images.

February events at Jigsaw Renaissance

rehana — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 05:58:32 +0000

We have a lot planned for February! The calendar is here, and I promise we'll quit moving it one of these days. Brief descriptions and links below:

Saturday, 2 pm: Joshua will be giving a talk about the Scratch programming language, a visual language designed to teach kids about programming. We'll also be around before and maybe after, starting at 11, to work on improving the space.

Wednesday the 10th, 7 pm: Show and Tell. Bring your projects, show them off, ask for help if you're stuck.

. . .

Etsy Fashion Finds #1

Libby Bulloff — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 20:47:42 +0000

Etsy.com is indubitably Mecca for handmade steampunk clothing. Here are a few awesome pieces I dug up this morning. If you have any favorite Etsy sellers or items, feel free to leave them in the comments.

Read on for details!

Thank you.

Why I believe in Maker Culture

willowbl00 — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 21:11:38 +0000

Cult of Done #9:
People without dirty hands are wrong.
Doing something makes you right.

Hi, I'm willow bl00 (aka Willow Brugh), and you'll see me poke my head in here from time to time. I live in Seattle (I think it's the promised land), alongside the likes of Libby Bulloff, Noah Beasley, and Nathaniel Johnstone. I organize and moderate a Transhumanist discussion group, just applied to law school (interest in the overlap of information technologies and the human body), work at ZoomPop, train Parkour, and play in hacker spaces. I've spoken at Ignite and Dorkbot and on NPR and to Free Inquiry Groups. I'm also the director of Jigsaw Renaissance, which is what I'm here to talk to you about.

. . .

Quaintrelles, Dandies, and Flâneurs #3

Libby Bulloff — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 17:52:28 +0000

~~~~~

Back with another round of street fashion and casual, wearable steampunk! This week's featured soul is writer and critic Jessica Lawson. I stayed at her current residence in San Francisco last week as I toured with The Ghosts Project, and I was pleasantly surprised when she emerged in the following get-up. Jessica is employed as a teacher at the University of Iowa, and her clothing choices prove that one can be professional and fashion forward simultaneously.

We took these images outside Macky Hall on the California College of the Arts campus, Oakland, CA. Thank you to Jessica for posing for me and for letting me borrow her camera. I thought I'd be clever and leave my SLR at home for a change, but it seems I can't escape playing photog, ever. :) Read on for outfit details!

The Fob

Jake von Slatt — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 15:46:43 +0000

http://www.flickr.com/photos/steeljam/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Lynette Fibonacci was frustrated, after rebooting three times she still couldn't get on the net. Maybe she would relent and let her boyfriend install his precious Linux - but then she was on and the thought faded from mind. Normally she loved her laptop, it had been a gift from Mom & Dad at the beginning of her Senior year at Boston University and although, at 4 years old it was at the trailing edge of technology, she treasured the connection that it gave her to friends and family. But today she just wanted to smash it, only the fact that she could not afford to replace it right now staid her hand.

This morning Lynn had awoke to a typically rainy sky. It was April and still pretty cold but there was a sense that warmer days were coming and she was uncharacteristicly cheerful. Maybe life didn't suck so hard after all.

. . .

Welcome to Jigsaw Renaissance!

rehana — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 20:23:22 +0000

Hi Everyone! I'd like to introduce you to Seattle's latest Hacker/Maker/Community Space and good friends of The Steampunk Workshop: Jigsaw Renaissance! Rehana and other folks from Jigsaw will be posting events and projects here on occasion and I expect to be presenting and hanging there whenever I'm in town. See you there soon! - Jake

Jigsaw Renaissance is a cooperative interdisciplinary makerspace. We're about sharing tools, sharing ideas, and sharing expertise to realize those ideas. We hope to connect the do-it-yourself communities here in Seattle, whether they're interested in steampunk, electronics, crafts, programming, music, science or anything else. We also strive to reignite a passion for learning, and a belief in the malleability of systems: the ability to use things as you see fit, not only as they were intended.

I'll be keeping you abreast of our adventures and our progress - how we're building our space, what we're building together, and how we're working with our community here in Seattle.

So if you're in Seattle, drop by and check us out! The place is a
little tricky to find due to construction, so here are directions. We'll be giving a tour of the space at 4 pm Saturday, January
30. We're also planning a demo of an EEG (brain wave detecting)
headset and a lesson on the Scratch programming language. You can keep an eye on our calendar for future events.

Skinner UnaFlow Steam Engine Needs a New Home

Jake von Slatt — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 22:34:38 +0000

This is a 26" bore Skinner UnaFlow steam engine with a 275 KVA alternator attached and it needs to find a new home. It's currently in a building in Gardner Massachusetts and the fellow responsible for tearing that building down would really like to see it go to a good home.

Read on for details, more pictures of the engine, and many more photos from the inside of an abandon turn of the century manufacturing plant.

Yr Doin' It Right #2 - Flickr Favorites

Libby Bulloff — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 01:53:13 +0000

One of my favorite late-night time-wasting activities is trolling Flickr for shiny bits. There are so many glorious puddles of inspiration nestled in photo sets and galleries, and I adore frolicking through them. I'd like to share with you some of my tasty findings in regards to vintage punk fashion. Delish.

Thank you to all of the models, photographers, artists, and designers whose work I reference below. Click through the photos for additional details. <3

[Image to the right is of Magdalene Veen, taken by The Dag Lab. Stained fishnet stockings make sexy arm accessories.]

Connections: Fashion, Social Networking, and Fabbing

Jake von Slatt — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 16:15:46 +0000

Source: AYYA Wear

This morning I awoke to find that one of my bots alerted me that someone at the Wall Street Journal used the word "Steampunk" in an article in the Fashion section. It was only a brief mention:

A chief executive in the tech business may don Gap chinos and a blazer for work, while investment banking chiefs remain loyal to their Zegna suits. Others dress according to the mores of their own personal tribes: If you don't dress steampunk, you may not even know it's a style (think 19th-century mad scientist in leather waistcoat with goggles and a pocket watch).

However, what really caught my eye was the previous paragraph:

Rather than fuss about skirt lengths or the season's silhouette, people now dress the way they see themselves, choosing looks that flatter their bodies and fit their lifestyles. Most of us dress with our social groups or professions, rather than fashion trends, using clothes to flash messages about who we are. [Read More . . . ]