Sand By The Ton - Review 1

Steam Society goes to Sand by the Ton, fashionable hedonism ensues:


Last weekend Sand By The Ton rocked the bay area, and seriously surpassed my expectations. It was off the charts in terms of elaborate madness and mega awesome music. It was particularly bizarre for me since I'd been awake for no less than three days and manically working the whole time. The event was like something out of a delightful nightmare, with a huge San Francisco-style indoor carnival, two story indoor burlesque house performance stage, the world second largest Tesla coil, 5 swimming pools which looked super gross, and of course, sand literally by the ton.

Tesla Coil with 30" lightning bolts. Hard to tell from the angle, but that coil is HUGE and the second largest in the world. I was probably 80" feet away from it in when I took this shot.


The warehouse was so much bigger and intense than I could have imagined, and I had a totally excellent time. It was a bit self-indulgent since I spotted several of my designs being worn by participants, and I was debuting a new custom outfit which was worn by one of the headlining DJs while he played the best set I heard all night. I haven't taken close up detail shots or well-composed editorial shots of the outfit, but keep an eye out for them in the next week or two, since this is an outfit I'm going to feature in my 2009 lookbook. The pictures I took there were not super high quality and I spent most of the time tring to get my camera to cooperate with the rave-tastic lights flashing everywhere.

In the crowd, from the back:


In the Opulent Temple DJ booth during performance:

The crowd. I was swimming through the crowd taking photos, and most people are taller than me, so its hard to tell just how HUGE and EXCITED this crowd was.


Being worn in the crowd I spotted my GNR Slash Steampunk Top Hat, that I made a while ago as a custom order , and managed to snap a blurry pic of it.

Can't live without one of your very own? I have one last Adult Small left in gray and black right here. And here's another photo that a someone else took. Hat is on the far left.

That's my quick synopsis. I have more pictures/videos/etc, and I'll be posting them next week. Lots of new stuff up for sale in my store, come over and check it out!

Sand by the Ton - July 11, 2009

This weekend Opulent Temple and Big Art Studio will bring you a massive beach-themed mega party called Sand by the Ton. They aren't kidding, there really will be 200 tons of sand trucked into the American Steel Warehouse in Oakland where the event will take place. Crazy awesome lineup, including some of the bay area's best DJ, as well as some of my favorites. Best of all, I'm designing some brand new custom items that will debut that evening. Speaking of which, I've got to get back to work on that. If you are in the bay area, plan to be at this party.

Happy Father's Day!

Okay, here's hoping this post is actually visable to the outside world this time. (I've been having some technical difficulties) I wanted to wish you all a Happy Father's Day, even though it has already past by now, but I have the strange ability to blog from the past. Ooooo.

I was sorting through some boxes of stuff, in an ongoing attempt to cram my entire life into an infinitesimally tiny space that must function as my living and working quarters but is actually not big enough for either, AND I came across some old photos of things I miss. Like shorter sentences. That aren't fragments. Ranking number one of things I miss most today is... Peter!


Steam Society owes its existence to Peter, since without his help I never would have been able to make the jump to San Francisco or bring my strange and awesome creations to Steam Society's adoring public. Or the viral chasm that is the internet. Either way, none of this would be possible with out Peter believing in my crazy ideas and helping me deal with the insanity that has been the last year.

This next photo looks like it could be any number of houses in San Francisco, but it is actually a mansion in Bellingham that I was obsessed with as a child. Its hard to tell from the photo just how incredible this house is, but next time I go up there I'll take a few pictures of it. I called this house "The Purple House" because it is indeed a dark taupe-ish purple, and I was a very accurate child. Its at the very top of a super steep hill at looks vastly more intense and charasmatic than any other house in the neighborhood. I used to pick little purple flowers from the yard when I was up there with Peter or anyone else I could drag up the hill. I do have a standing offer that I will move back to Bellingham if someone will buy me the this house.


Lastly, I found a photo of me swinging that I have no memory of seeing before. Its sort of funny because I never ever wore sunglasses before moving to San Francisco, and now I rarely leave the house without them. Clearly my younger self knew it was a style that worked for me.


I think, but I'm not sure, that that photo was taken at Blodel Donovan Park, when the pavilion was still being built and now-extinct swings still existed on playgrounds.

Anyways, I hope Peter is able to check this post out and enjoy the photos. If he or anyone else wants to see these photos larger, just click on them. Also, Peter should look at this link and also this link as an example of what gears are selling for on eBay. He might also find this interesting, but shhhh.. don't tell anyone about it!

Business Development + Casting Call

Good morning, I'm happy to report that sunshine has finally made its way to San Francisco and I am NOT COLD for the first time in months.

In my on-going quest to either burn down my house or suffocate myself with toxic fumes, I have taken up soldering in my "kitchen". Now I'm extremely tempted to try to set up an electroplating rig too. Hey, I mean, Richard Feynman set one up in his dorm room. I don't have access to a vacuum though, which may complicate things. (That's imploding vacuum, not vroom carpet cleaner vacuum, although I don't have one of those either.) I have had luck teaming up with a US based metal finishing company, and while this will increase my costs, it will insure that my jewelry and metal accessories are certifiably lead-free and safe. This is important to you, (supremely awesome Steam Society members), since I don't want anyone being exposed to the unsafe metals that are rampantly available on the internet with virtually no accountability, but also important to me (hands-on designer) since I am pretty much swimming in all my design supplies and I'm pretty sure my daily 2-3 cups of green tea doesn't contain enough antioxidants to offset heavy metal poisoning.

Moving ON. I am looking for a small company, possibly local to the bay area, to do some custom metal castings and/or stampings. I have 8-15 designs for metal pendants that I want to have produced in smallish runs and I'm interested in teaming up with a metal production company that can do fairly inexpensive custom work, either old school or CAD/CAM. Send me your leads!

I'm slowly working on getting my hand-screen-printed and chemically-altered textile stuff up and ready, and I've turned my bathroom into a toxic fume bay in the process. Here's a sneak peak at some of my scraps I was messing around with while waiting for the dyes to develop:


And just so this post isn't too boring and non self-promoting, here are two of my favorite new items up for sale. Lots more up for grabs in the Steam Society Online Store, plus a birthstone-collection-sale of freshwater pearl steampunk jewelry for June Birthdays.

Tricked-Out Retro High-Wheeler Bicycle Necklace


Uber Ultra Alpha and Omega Working Clock Skeleton Key Necklace

Devin+Naomi See PENDULUM LIVE

So, while Naomi was visiting me in San Francisco, we got to see our mutually favoritest musical group Pendulum live and from like, 5 feet away from the stage. Think over-the-top mega-produced drum and bass new-school jungle crazy Australian rock band. Oh, my god, just hearing Hold Your Color done in that insane acoustic version was enough to make me jump up and down for hours screaming like a crazy fan girl.

<3!!

Anyways, here we are getting ready and still not quite believing that it was really happening. Oh, and I don't think Claire ever reads these things I write, but if she does, Hi Claire, we wish you could have been there!