And now for something completely different

I must start with a warning: this post is nothing to do with horses, real or model, or pedigrees, or anything related to them. My excuse for this? Well, firstly, on the blog profile it does say that I have been ‘recently extending my creative side to other media,’ and this seems as good a place as any for telling people about that. And secondly, I guess you have some right to know what I was spending all my time and energy on when it wasn’t horses or pedigrees!

In short, what I have been making is a steampunk-inspired necklace. I’m not sure how I initially heard of steampunk, but it was about a year ago, and I was quickly fascinated by the imagination, the cleverness and the wit which often seem to be displayed by the genre. My son was also interested and started to find out more about steampunk-inspired bands and performers, some of whom have become firm favourites of his.

Because of our enthusiasm, we made a point of visiting the steampunk exhibition put on by Bradford Industrial Museum earlier in the year. In the shop there I bought the book Steampunk Emporium by Emilly Ladybird (Jema Hewitt), and my imagination was really fired by the beautiful jewellery and trinkets featured in it. I had already started to experiment with making jewellery, and was inspired to try my own version of Emilly’s ‘Zeppelin Pirate Necklace.’

At this point I must hold my hand up and confess that I am really only a dabbler on the fringes of steampunk. I don’t read the literature which has largely inspired the movement, and I have only just started to attend events. In many ways I am probably guilty of the kind of band-wagon-jumping pilloried here, except that I’m doing it out of a genuine love for the look, rather than to make money. However, one of the things I have gathered, particularly from Emilly’s book, is that steampunk is all about the story: the alter-ego one invents, and how one’s attire and gadgets reflect that character and their story.

As someone who can waste many a happy hour browsing crypto-zoological sites on the internet, I quickly decided that my perfect persona would be an eccentric Victorian lady of independent means, who uses her fortune to travel the world looking for evidence of rare and legendary creatures. I christened this character Lady Antonia Gryphon (I’ve always wanted to be called Antonia; I don’t know why), and started planning an adaptation of the pirate necklace, this one to be instead a record of Lady Antonia’s trip to Tibet in search of the Abominable Snowman or Yeti. After a lot of shopping and three sessions of actual making, this necklace was the result.

 

Tibet lies between India and China, and so the necklace features both Chinese coins (on the two outermost drops) and an Indian bead (on the central drop), as well as Tibetan turquoise beads. The silver charm with red beads hanging from it is a miniature version of a Tibetan Buddhist prayer box called a ghau, and was given to Lady Antonia by the monks of the remote monastery where she lodged and learned the secrets of the yeti’s whereabouts. On the opposite drop can be seen a silver model of the trusty yak which carried Lady Antonia on her adventures! The centrepiece of the necklace is a locket which when opened reveals a lock of yeti hair – Lady Antonia’s prized proof of the creature’s existence.

In reality, the components of the necklace came from a number of sources. The vast majority of them were bought on eBay, mostly from shops specialising in jewellery findings, but some second-hand from people genuinely having a clear out (the Indian bead and the ghau, which was originally part of a bracelet, both fall in the latter category). The coins, which were also bought on eBay, are genuinely antique and Chinese; I was delighted to find out that one of them is pre-1800. The yak is, upon close inspection, more like an American bison, but it was being sold as a yak so I’m sticking with that! The larger gear is, I think, made and sold just for crafters, but the smaller ones and the silver half-moons are genuine watch parts, again sold as bundles by weight on eBay. The yeti hair is actually from a Highland cow – in fact, not just any old Highland cow, but a celebrity one who has a range of merchandise and his own Facebook page.

Here you can see the necklace as worn on my first steampunk night out. Sadly it does not totally work in wear, as most of the dangles are too long and end up getting entangled in the top of my corset. This, coupled with the extremely thin wire I had to use to go through the tiny holes in the half-moons, meant that the ghau and the yak both became detached during the evening; however, I was able to rescue them both, so they can be re-attached when I get round to it.

I now have plans for several more jewellery pieces, and other accessories for this outfit such as a chatelaine and a hat, so you may well be reading about those in the future.

Making a scene

In the last post I promised you a look at how some of the projects I was working on turned out. Well, only one is finished, and ironically that’s the one with the least Milliput involved, but here are some pictures to show you what I was working on.

It’s a strange fact that most of my favourite British horse and pony breeds are rare and to some extent endangered, and because of this, I have for years been aware of the work of the Rare Breeds Survival Trust. Several years ago I had the idea of creating a scene which illustrated an RBST Stand at a county show, but I’d never got round to it. However, the Scene class at A Show Of Two Halves (ASOTH) held last month provided a catalyst for me to get on and do it.

Here you can see the scene as it eventually ended up at the show. The base is a piece of hardboard covered with railway grass (the sort that comes as a sheet, not the scatter). The animals and people are all Britains or similar makes, and most of them date from my childhood forty years ago. The two equine representatives were already painted up as part of my collection, but the rest of the animals I repainted as specific rare breeds for this scene.

The metal hurdle-type fences are also vintage Britains, bought on eBay with this scene in mind, but the mesh stock fencing is modern, part of a range now produced to complement Britains farm pieces, and again available on eBay.

The Milliput in question was used on the human figures in the scene. The lady behind the information desk is Britains, but she was originally wearing overalls and carrying a tray of some sort. I used Milliput to fill in a hole in her belly and give her a smart dress instead of overalls. The other two figures, picked up separately at car boot sales and the like, I think started life as some sort of firefighter figures. The man nearest the camera needed no work but a repaint, but the figure approaching the desk has had a sex change! To begin with it was a male carrying something really obviously inappropriate like a fireman’s axe; I managed to remove most of this but left a lump which I decided could pass for a handbag, so it seemed sensible to make her a woman! Cue long hair and an addition to her chest area: in actual fact, in comparison with the other figures she is much smaller and should probably go as a child or young teenager, so I may have overdone her chest a bit! Shall we say she is well-developed for her age… why else do you think she is facing away from the camera?

My favourite part of the scene is the information desk itself, with tiny posters and booklets on it, and the posters on each pen identifying the breeds. I spent quite a while researching these on the internet and shrinking them to tiny sizes to print out.

The scene attracted plenty of attention at the show, as I had hoped it would, being something novel and a bit different. I was delighted when it won the Scene class and then went on to be chosen as Performance Champion! Look out for it at a few more shows next year.