Intriquingly Imaginative

Steampunk is known primarily for fantasical contraptions, attire, artworks, and jewelry that generally consist of a blend of  historical, scientific fictional, and or fantasy along with a host of other variants.  I'd actually never really known it as "Steampunk" until I joined Etsy and have begun to read more and more about it as I'm intriqued with the endless possibilities associated.   It has no limitations, so one's own ingenuity and those who possess the talent and skill can create awesome steampunk works of art.  One such person who possesses such in her beautifully creative works I've featured here today.

I'd love for you to get to know a little about my featured seller and that I may share with you her special blend of steampunk, pirate, and wolf inspired jewelry. 

May I introduce you to....

Kat

Who owns and operates Etsy shop....

KLOCKWERK KREATIONS

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Who is the person behind the works at Klockwerk Kreations?

I was born in Detroit, Michigan a very, very long time ago – June of 1953 to be exact.  I cannot remember a time when I was without the company of a vivid imagination.  If you can envision the entire Little Rascals gang in my head from around the age of three – my castle was under the brick front porch, my house was under any table with a blanket thrown over it, my Cadillac convertible was my tricycle, I could construct a ticket booth out of a refrigerator box and put on my own variety shows in our spooky basement (with the assistance of a small band of friends who were somewhat easily convinced to do stupid kid stuff when I really put my mind to it).  Mother (a housewife) insisted I take piano, ballet and tap dancing lessons at that same age, so I was a busy child with a full plate, but we didn’t have day timers then so I tended to be scatterbrained at times.  I managed to get to school every day, marry

Paul McCartney when I was 11 (that imagination again), travel to Europe where I fell in love with London and Paris, especially Whitechapel and Montmartre, attended Oakland Community College and the University of Michigan.  I held a plethora of jobs to include (but not limited to) employment as a maid at a Holiday Inn, a receptionist at a hospital ER on the graveyard shift, and staff photographer for several famous ‘rock’ bands in the 70’s.  Went total glam for a while, but I was always a Goth kid at heart.  When I was that little kid again, I had this unshakable belief that my father (a surgeon and team doctor for the Red Wings) was Bela Lugosi and I still find it plausible because he did look just like him and his side of our family was of Romanian, Slovakian, and Hungarian descent.  My favorite color has always been black and it comprises most of my wardrobe.  But I digress.  I was a DJ at WCPZ radio in Sandusky, Ohio (Leisure Rock 103), moved to Colorado in 1984 where I worked for another radio station, KBRQ, and later at Cable Value Network.  In 1989, I became a secretary for a county sheriff’s office and have been there now for 22 years.  I have a husband who’s an engineer and loves muscle cars (Mopars exclusively).

 No human children (never felt grown up enough for that responsibility), but I’ve always had feline dependants.  Currently, we have three black cats: Spike, Drusilla and Angel (That vampire thing again).  The five of us live modestly, yet comfortably, in a fabulous little house in Denver, Colorado.  I am a writer (three books), avid reader, pianist who needs more practice, jewelry maker and part-time pirate.

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When did you first become interested in jewelrymaking?

 I have always made jewelry. Started off with ‘pop beads’ in the sixties. Just loved those things.  Graduated to stringing crystals and beads for my wolf and pirate jewelry and merged into the steam punk genre some years ago.

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What does “steampunk” truly mean to you?

Boy, this one may be difficult to explain because there are many levels of SP that I identify with.  First, while I enjoy life and love living it, I’ve always carried that tiny fear in the back of my mind regarding ‘doomsday’ or the ‘end of the world’ (probably due to subconsciously hearing about building bomb shelters, the atrocities of World War II, a Cuban missile crisis, gas masks, etc. when I was too young to understand what it all meant and later, the fact that the first two Terminator movies are included in my top 10 favorite films list).  Secondly, one of my very favorite time periods is the Victorian Era.

That affection began when I first heard Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, which was read to me when I was that little kid referred to above. The visions of Victorian London streets, the grand opulence of the rich and the harsh poverty of the poor in that ancient city are still as clear to me today as they were fifty years ago. I have a particular interest in the Jack the Ripper case of 1888. I have studied it carefully and voraciously, and even chose my steam punk name in homage to my favorite Ripper victim, Catherine Eddowes. Thirdly, I love and am incessantly intrigued with anything mechanical. I am fascinated by the inner workings of antique clocks and anything gear driven. (I have to say antique because almost all watches and clocks are now battery operated and made of plastic, which is very sad to me. Modern technology has certainly made our lives easier, but it is also destroying old world craftsmanship and durability in its wake. Someday there will be no more watch makers, or shoe cobblers, or book makers, etc. With their ultimate disappearance future generations will lose those fascinating arts and crafts that took years of skill and training to create.)

To me, the ticking of a grandfather clock is one of the most soothing sounds on earth. And, lastly, who doesn’t love those nasty zombies who must be eradicated at all cost, lest we become one ourselves? So, to that very lengthy end, I love the fact that those of us in the steam punk world had the stamina and fortitude to somehow survive the war to end all wars, had the intelligence and ability to revert to the old ways and hone lost skills to create the necessities we need to live, we’ve got the coolest clothes ever, we can take out a nest of zombies in a heartbeat thanks to our unscrupulous fighting tactics and combat training, we must travel by train or dirigible, which has put an end to traffic jams and road rage, and all this can be carried out in the gracious manner of a bygone era when proper decorum, etiquette, respect and gallantry were highly regarded as admirable human traits.

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Who or what has been your biggest influence?

My biggest influence was the first time I saw Big

Ben in London.

Now it is every time I first open

 the back of a time piece and see the way each

 gear, spring, screw, cog, etc. were put together

 to make that incredibly efficient device. There

 have been times I have rebuilt a piece exactly

 the way it looked in the clock just because of the

 sheer beauty of the original design.

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What

 inspires

 you?

My inspiration comes from the intricacies and beauty of gears and parts that must work together as a unit to create a piece of art. I like to sit with my plethora of different kinds and sizes of gears before me and with the sound of the ticking of my old world clock behind me, I start with one or two interesting gears and continue to add others until they eventually merge together and ultimately make a new pendant.

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What is it about your works that sets you apart from others?

I am very fortunate in that I know a wonderful gentleman who owns a clock repair shop not far from my house. He keeps a box of those pieces that can no longer be used and supplies them to me for a nominal fee.  In the last year or so steam punk has come out of the closet so to speak and buying original clock pieces can now be a costly venture – especially online and in antique shops that have caught on to what an older watch can mean to one of our kind.  Each piece of my steam punk jewelry contains real gears from actual timepieces, i.e., watches and/or clocks that were once part of a working instrument.  I believe it is the utilization of these real gears that set my pieces apart from the others and because of that each creation is one of a kind and cannot be replicated.  By the way, I cannot kill a clock.  If I come upon a mechanism that is still ticking, it joins my other operating clocks until it no longer functions.

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Do you have a favorite piece?

I have two favorite pieces. I made a wrist cuff and a Clockwork Orange inspired belt buckle.  I also love my SP weapon of choice, my derringer. My husband makes guns and my purses, which actually light up. We hope to offer some of those items for sale in the future when we can find a cost efficient way to produce them.

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Where can one go to find and learn more about Klockwerk Kreations?

A blog, FaceBook, or Twitter?

I’m rather computer illiterate, so my very good friend, who is a phenomenal graphic designer, has graciously built my Etsy store and website for me. She is in the process of creating the Face Book, Twitter aspect of all this.  This media is all new to me, so it’ll probably take some time to get me up to speed on that technology – after all, I haven’t found a useable gear in any computer to date, so I have a very hard time figuring out how they even work in the first place.  Heck, I don’t even know how this ‘Blog’ thing you’ve created works.

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Just for fun....

Name one word that describes you best?

Curious ( Both definitions apply)

Ha!  I found 3!!

1. Eager to learn more.

2. Unduly inquisitive; prying.

3. Arousing interest because of novelty or strangeness.

They all still apply? Hehe!

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What was your fondest Halloween memory as a child or adult?

My favorite holiday, by the way. The first Halloween I discovered candles, pumpkins, and 1995 in New Orleans, where my best friend and I attended the Memnoch Ball hosted by Anne Rice.  Pictures of each event included.

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Do you remember your first kiss? How old were you?

A dear friend and confidante. We were perhaps seven or eight, had no idea why we did it, and did not do it again. It also happened to occur on a Halloween night. 

(Maybe he liked my fabulous Woolworth’s Five and Dime witch costume?)

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What is under your bed at this moment?

My Louisville Slugger baseball bat… and dust.

I suppose the bat's not under there for spring try-outs?

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And lastly....

If you were to set a world record for Guinness, what would it be?

For writing the world’s longest novel (that is never to be published until I’m six feet under and roaming the streets of the French Quarter as a ghost).

I started it in June of 2007. To date it contains 3,183 pages, 1,266,572 words, and has an average length of 269 pages per each of 12 chapters. The story will continue until I can no longer type or I end up in the Quarter in that previously mentioned misty condition.

I wish you much luck as you'll beat the current record by 2 volumes and you need only 833,429 words to set the new worlds record novel!!

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We hope you've enjoyed the interview with Kat and that you'll stop by for a visit and browse of her awesome shop....

Klockwerk Kreations