SHS senior Kyrstie Parker is a budding “steampunk artist. She poses here in Victorian-era fashions. Catherine Moore
Springfield — ”Steampunk” is a quirky, clunky term for Victorian-era science and science fiction. You know—flying machines, time machines, and elegant fashions offset by motorcar goggles and other accouterments, circa thr 1800s.
The modern term “steampunk” is teenage slang and it will never do justice to the fabulous worlds created by classic Victorian age authors Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Arthur Conan Doyle, H. Rider Haggard and the like, it never-the-less is a growing movement and entertainment lifestyle within—and without—sci-fi fandom.
On Sept. 16, a group of 40 enthusiastic Springfield High School students—chaperoned by three art teachers and an English teacher—attended the Great New England Steampunk Exhibition at the Courtyard Marriott in Fitchburg, Mass.
The trip was prompted as a method of inspiration for an upcoming student art show at VAULT which will open Dec. 14 and run through the beginning of January 2012.
When it comes to steampunk fans, you will see lots of brass, stovepipe hats, corsets, motorcar goggles, and gears. The students at SHS will be showing crafts, paintings, illustrations, fashion, sculptures and photography in the exhibit at VAULT in Springfield.
Photographs at the upcoming VAULT exhibit include a sculpture made by John Brickels of Essex, Vt., who may be joining the fandom group at SHS as a visiting artist to prepare for the show, a group shot of many of the students on the field trip, and SHS senior Kyrstie Parker with her “hands on” steampunk invention.
