Finding your inner steampunk

For more subtle steampunk style, check out the brown lace-front Sarai top, $70, by Australian-based tahnaya.etsy.com. With cap sleeves, high turtleneck collar. Also check out the shops' Gothic Victorian-inspired dress ($160) with a standing lace collar, short puffy sleeves, layers of ruffles and tulle and carved wooden buttons up the back. (Jeremy Sypniewski)

Steampunk is second nature to modern-day alchemist, Joshua Onysko.

Beyond the fact that he moved to India in 1999 so he could ride steam-engine trains, in his practice, and in his daily life, the Boulder man enjoys combining different elements to create something else. Whether it's as simple as adding a brass belt buckle to a regular outfit, or as complex as deconstructing plants chemically and them recombining them to create a mood-enhancing candy.

In fact, Onysko used ancient alchemy to create a cutting-edge skin-care line, Pangea Organics (pangeaorganics.com), an organic, fair-trade, natural skincare line that boasts a long list of awards and national accolades. Including the (very) lesser-celebrated Aimee Heckel Test; I use and love the Italian Red Mandarin with Rose face cream, ($36 for 2 ounces).

On Halloween, Onysko organized a steampunk-theme fundraiser at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art. The party raised money for the campaign Hey GMOs, Stop Trying To Get In My Plants, a media campaign to raise awareness about the risks of genetically modified organisms in our food.

"I've always been fascinated by combining two different cultures, and that's what steampunk is," Onysko says. "It's combining the steam era with futurism."

As Onysko sees it, adding steampunk to your daily wardrobe can be as simple as copper earrings, aviator goggles, puffy shirts, brass jewelry or boots. Imagine futuristic innovations as Victorians may have imagined them. Some call it neo-Victorian: a mix of clothes from 1950 to 1910 with technology using gears and mechanics, instead of computers.

But it's more than "brass and watch parts," according to the blog thesteampunkhome.blogspot.com.

Antique black leather Victorian lace-up boots, $175, from Boulder-based charlesvintage.etsy.com. Made by Peters Shoe Company in the 1900s, and in excellent condition, too. Granny meets old school teacher meets a Salem witch.

"It's finding a way to combine the past and the future in an aesthetic (sic) pleasing yet still punkish way. It's living a life that looks old-fashioned, yet speaks to the future. It's taking the detritus of our modern technological society and remaking it into useful things," the blog explains.

Want to infuse a little more steaminess into your punk this fall? Check out these items from local Etsy sellers:

Compass necklace, $55, chainedbeauty.etsy.com -- Wrapped in chain mail, made from a variety of metals, including brasses, stainless steal and aluminum. The Boulder-based designer, Peter Cacek, has been immersed in medieval art forms his whole life, "ever since my dad worked a blacksmith's forge when I was a child."

Antique black leather Victorian lace-up boots, $175, from Boulder-based charlesvintage.etsy.com -- Made by Peters Shoe Company in the 1900s, and in excellent condition, too. Granny meets old school teacher meets a Salem witch.

Here are some other Etsy ideas from around the globe:

For more subtle steampunk style, check out the brown lace-front Sarai top, $70, by Australian-based tahnaya.etsy.com. With cap sleeves, high turtleneck collar. Also check out the shops' Gothic Victorian-inspired dress ($160) with a standing lace collar, short puffy sleeves, layers of ruffles and tulle and carved wooden buttons up the back.

For blatant steampunk, go for a handmade Alfresco-style mechanical bracelet watch with a skeleton pattern, $109, by alfrescouniquegroup.etsy.com. Leather band wraps around your wrist twice from both sides. And to be extra authentic, this watch works without a battery.

Read more at www.dailycamera.com.

What happens when two artists create a human?

I don't know a thing about kids, but what my 18-month-old daughter does with a paper and pen seems weird to me.

First of all, she thinks Crayons and markers are stupid, and she demands a ballpoint pen (which is obviously an eyeball-poking hazard, but remember, I don't know anything about kids). Then she puts her face 1 inch from the paper and draws -- for like an hour or more, uninterrupted -- the tiniest, most intricate loops and swirls that I've ever seen. No scribbling. Just these hyperfocused hieroglyphics that are probably the key to the center of the Earth.

As a mom, I'd like to assume this means my kid is a savant whose incredible brain capacity future generations will study in awe -- and not a future serial killer, the line between which is terrifyingly fine.
But the truth is probably somewhere in between the two extremes, and she's probably just copying what she sees around the house.

As a geriatric Luddite at heart who doesn't "trust that gosh-darned modern technology," combined with my complete lack of any short-term memory whatsoever, I write everything down. The only way that I can remember to feed and water myself, much less do grown-up things like "keep my kid alive" and "wash my face," is to follow a stack of extensive to-do lists.
And my husband is an artist. He has covered nearly every inch of our house, his body, my body and the backs of all of my to-do lists with sketches and tattoos and doodles and masterpieces.

So as far as little Bettie Anne knows, the pen is an extension of the human hand. If I could read Baby, I bet I'd find she's making to-do lists about how she needs to draw more.

Either that, or she's doing long-hand calculus and physics equations. You know, just to spite her mathematically disabled parents. Rebelliousness also runs in the fam.

Here's a story problem for you: What kind of daughter do you get if you mix an artistic Cuban family with a carpenter dad who always brings his blueprints, sketches and wood tools home?

You get a jewelry genius, that's what.

Her name is Lorena Marañn, and she moved to Boulder from Miami last year. Marañn, 22, creates unique necklaces, bracelets, earrings and military-style shoulder pads (my favorite) out geometric-patterned hand-embroidered wearable art.

The bright colors are inspired by Cuban music, food and culture. The sharp patterns are inspired by her dad, who she says taught her about shapes and lines and how they can be manipulated.

Marañn Jewels (maranonjewels.com) are available online and in Fancy Tiger in Denver, and she's looking to offer her line in Boulder County soon.

Although each piece takes as long as several full days to even a month to hand-make, Marañn keeps the price point low, from $30 to $150.

"People have told me I'm underpricing my pieces because it takes so long, but I think that things like this should be available to everybody, because I don't come from a very wealthy family," she says.

Marañn taught herself how to do needlework after she lost her job and picked up a kit at a thrift store. She began selling her art on Etsy.com two years ago, but did well enough to start her own online store and pursue the passion full-time.

She admits her family -- "very humble, nonconformist, and a line of a lot of artists" -- played a big role in her growing into the artist she is today.

"They showed me that I could find happiness and a good life through art," she says

Link:
http://www.dailycamera.com/ci_18929691

Photo by Iman Woods Creative.

The sisterhood of the traveling shirt

Jean Marie Designz

Once there was a shirt. Not just an ordinary shirt. This shirt, the Traveling Shirt, went on to do great things and witness some crazy debauchery.

This is the story of that shirt, and four friends who stole this shirt from each other, clawing and scraping and willing to take each other out for the chance to wear the Traveling Shirt.

Until the Traveling Shirt had babies.

But wait. We're getting ahead of ourselves. First, meet Kirstin Landers. Kirstin, 26, was getting ready to go to a barbecue, and she wanted to wear something unique. She loved punk clothes. And rockabilly. And '50s pin-up. She called it punkabilly.

Although she had never studied fashion, the Denver woman had always dreamed of being a designer. So on this day, she designed. She measured and snipped and sewed. She created a low-scooping halter out of a fabric of black and white skulls and red roses. Then, below the empire waist, she affixed a sheer black and white polka-dot scarf, in a "v" shape. A tie around the neck and a tie around the waist made it nearly backless. She had her unique top.

The Traveling Shirt was born.

She wore the Shirt to the barbecue, and even the hot dogs on the burning coals seems to turn and stare as she walked by. Kirstin paired the Shirt with black short-shorts and fishnet stockings. She totally rocked, er rockabillied, the picnic.

Lisa was getting ready for the Mike Ness concert at the Gothic Theatre in Denver. Lisa, 22, of Boulder, arrived at her friend's house first wearing a shredded T-shirt and skinny jeans. It was Kirstin's birthday, and the concert was her gift.

Then, Lisa saw it: Draped over a chair in Kirstin's bedroom was an edgy skull-print Shirt, perfect for the show. She asked if she could borrow it.

Jean Marie Designz

All night at the concert, people asked Lisa about her edgy Shirt. There were so many inquiries, in fact, that Kirstin decided right there, amid the hootenanny, that she was going to become a fashion designer. Jean Marie Designz, she would call her line. Yes, with a "z."

As for Lisa, she wore the Shirt home, and coincidentally "didn't have the chance" to meet up with Kirstin again. Ever.

Or so it seemed.

I hadn't worn regular clothes for weeks, not since I decided to get a full-back tattoo. My shirts all stuck to the tattoo goo, which had stained my a corset and a vintage blouse. I had nearly sworn off shirts altogether when I decided to venture to the Westminster Mall, known for its plethora of stripper-esque clothes. Surely somewhere here would have a backless shirt.

I was right. Except all of the shirts I found were pretty much frontless, too. Why couldn't I find something backless -- and classy?

A few days later, I was wincing again under the needle at the tattoo shop when my friend Lisa dropped by. I nearly screamed; a combo of the needle hitting my kidney region and Lisa's outfit. Her Shirt was what I had been looking for. It was backless, but instead of being covered in Playboy symbols and sequins, it had polka-dots and roses. Totally adorable. I all but tore the Shirt off Lisa so I could wear it home.

I wore it the next day, too. And the next. I paired it with a red pencil skirt. And jeans. And a black skirt. And a few more times (read: 40 times) after the tattoo healed.

I couldn't help it. I had been possessed by the Traveling Shirt.

Tara arrived to our girls' night with a bottle of wine and red and white knee-length skirt. But before we could crack the cork, we were invited to go dancing and our low-key night turned on high.

Tara needed a new outfit. I held up a black skirt, a red dress, a purple shirt. But her eyes kept diverting to a certain Shirt that I had tried to hide in the corner of my closet.

"That," she said, with a definitive point. "It's sexy. It's perfect."

Tara wore the Shirt to Round Midnight on Pearl Street, and was flooded with so many free drinks and phone numbers that she felt overwhelmed. One guy offered to buy her pancakes. Another wrote a song for her and gave her a ring -- literally. He asked her if she was a witch, because there was no other explanation for the lovey-dovey pile of drool he had become.

But Tara and I exchanged nods, knowing it was the Shirt.

Likewise, I knew I would never see it again.

Me and Lisa, in standard facial attire.

Until Monday. I was having Shirt withdrawal, so I asked Lisa where it came from. She gave me Kirstin's number -- and Web sites: www.jeanmariedesignz.etsy.com and www.myspace.com/jeanmariedesignz.
There it was: a replica of the Traveling Shirt. Kirstin had missed it so much herself -- and had such a wild demand for more of its caliber -- that she was now selling it for $40.

I plan on placing two orders. The first, for Lisa, a sort of karmic rebalancing act for my original act of thievery. And the second for Tara. Hey, I want the original back.

"The Tie Top," it's called on Etsy.com.

But it should be called the Magical Traveling Top, unique, edgy, classy and sexy. Whatever you need it to be. And, most importantly, soon to be once again mine.

The only picture I can find of this wonderful shirt, on none other than Kristin.