“The Patriot” (left) is a slab vessel with multiple applied, carved collars and flute. The flute, recalling industrial split wire loom, provides the signature characteristic of this series, along with the use of contrasting buttery satin and brilliant, hard, metallic glazes. The finished work is medieval and military, hence “the Patriot”, and metallic waxes and enamels were used to achieve desired results. Recipients of the Luxem Art Prize Certificate Of Artistic Achievement 2019.
“JULES VERNE” is a slab vessel with applied flute. This is the flagship steampunk sculpture, serving as inspiration for everything following in the series. The carvings are made directly into the original slab. The clock, compass, gears and art nouveau inspired designs are a nod to the writings of French novesist Jules Verne (1828-1905), considered by many to be one of the fathers of Steampunk.
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“GOLDEN GOOSE” is a 2 piece slab vessel with applied, carved, modified feathers and exaggerated flute. The finished work, with its extreme long throat, spherical body and circumference of golden feathers, brooks no other name besides Golden Goose. please use CONTACT page to inquire
“QUEEN’S FOUNTAIN” echoes a number of the splendid drinking fountains installed in Royal and public gardens throughout England in the 1800’s and still there to be enjoyed today. Please use CONTACT page to inquire
“MISSELTHWAITE”. Misselthwiate Manor is the mysterious setting for the story of a broken family at the turn of the 20th century that struggles to become whole again in the classic 1911 novel The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. This sculpture illustrates various elements from the novel - military, architecture and the fragile nature but stubborn will of life. Please use CONTACT page to inquire
“ADEPTIS” is a slab vessel with multiple applied, carved collars and flute. The finished work, with its elegance, finery and air of achievement, perhaps brings to mind the wizard or the alchemist, the adeptus.
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“ZEPHYR” is a slab vessel with multiple applied, carved details and flute. Metallic waxes, enamels, epoxies and lacquers were also used to achieve desired results. What started out as brocade epaulets morphed into something more akin to wings, and “Zephyr” means a little breeze. Please use CONTACT page to inquire
“WORF” is a slab vessel with applied, carved draping and flute. The flute, recalling industrial split wire loom, provides the signature characteristic of the Clay Expectations Steampunk Sampler series, along with the use of contrasting buttery satin and brilliant, hard, metallic glazes. The body of the vessel is also carved. The heavily carved draping promoted a certain off-world military posture that resulted in the piece being called “Worf”. Please use CONTACT page to inquire
“MARSHALL” is reminiscent of a parade jacket and the grand master, or Marshal. The superficial craze in the gold glaze on the shoulder has been treated in the kintsugi style of highlighting such deviations rather than hiding them. According to the theory behind Japan’s kintsugi, even catastrophic breaks in ceramic works are to be celebrated as essential elements of the piece’s history. Please use CONTACT page to inquire
“JACQUARD MICKEY” The Mickey, known to nearly all Canadians and perhaps a small sample of northern border states as the shapely, small (375 ml) glass bottle that fits comfortably in a gentleman’s suitcoat pocket, is largely unknown by that name to the rest of the world. In Victorian times, this size and shape of bottle was sometimes produced in cobalt blue, dark green and amber glass to be used across Europe in the chemists’ trade for liquid medicines but more often for a vast array of deadly poisons. The verified origins of the name and bottle remain tantalizingly out of reach to this researcher, but I suspect it may also be mixed up somewhere in history with the similarly shaped metal flasks and canteens carried first by soldiers in times of war. An intricate mystery, indeed. Please use CONTACT page to inquire
“VAUDEVILLE” is a slab vessel with multiple applied, carved detail and flute. The top hat is a recurring theme in steampunk fashion, art and design. This particular treatment, with stripes of leather and medallions encircling the stovepipe, speaks to circus and vaudevillian barkers from the Victorian era. Swirl it! With caution. Please use CONTACT page to inquire
“WORLD’S FAIR” is a slab vessel with multiple applied carved drapings and flute. The flute, recalling industrial split wire loom, provides the signature characteristic of the Un Soupçon de Steampunk series, along with the use of contrasting buttery satin and brilliant, hard, metallic glazes. The drapings on World’s Fair have been fashioned into a domed top and finished with the suggestion of knotted strings, evoking images of the original hot air balloons featured annually at the World’s Fair in the last half of the eighteen hundreds. (Please use CONTACT page to enquire;
“CALAMITY JANE”. Despite the Victorian era giving rise to both the corset and the fainting couch, it also produced some notably tough women with colourful life stories. Martha Jane Cannary (1852-1903), born to and orphaned by a gambler father and prostitute mother, raised her 5 younger siblings doing everything from waiting tables to driving oxen. She grew into a dark-eyed beauty who dreamed of a life of adventure. Whether or not she achieved her dreams can’t be verified, but she told wild stories about slaying the enemy, saving lives, running dangerous secret solo missions for the military and even bearing the child of Wild Bill Hickok, right up until her death at 51 from complications due to alcoholism. At the end, she was working as a storyteller in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. Her notoriety led to her funeral being attended by throngs of gawkers who would not have associated with her in life. She was laid to rest next to Bill Hickok - a mean spirited joke arranged by Bill’s friends. Despite all, she was popular among her friends and remembered as a generous spirit. Please use CONTACT page to inquire
“SOMETHING” Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue... the charms a bride adds to her wedding outfit for luck... something old for continuity, something new for optimism, something borrowed for happiness from each other, something blue for fidelity, plus sixpence in her shoe for good fortune in the marriage. Please use CONTaCT page to inquire
“Jack” is a slab vessel with multiple applied, carved body details, shoulder and flute. The flute, recalling industrial split wire loom, provides the signature characteristic of the Clay Expectations Steampunk Sampler series, along with the use of contrasting buttery satin and brilliant, hard, metallic glazes. The body of the vessel is also extensively carved. In looking at the series as a whole, it could be argued that there is a natural queen (in Golden Goose), a natural king (in Ethelred), and that this sculpture, the largest of them all, fits the bill as a natural Jack. Please use CONTACT page to inquire
“ETHELRED” is a slab vessel with jacquard style carving and textural treatment to the body slab, plus multiple applied carved collars and flute. The finished work invokes regency and command... Ethelred the Unready, who ruled the English around the turn of the first millennium, was described as a tall, handsome man, elegant in manners, beautiful in countenance and interesting in deportment. Please use CONTACT page to inquire
“REDFERN” is a slab vessel with multiple applied carved drapings and flute. Victorians loved fabric, and used yards and yards of it in tiers and layers on cloaks, coats, skirts and dresses for both men and women regardless of social standing, the heavy style even making its way into some military garb. Redfern Is an exaggerated monument to one of the era’s design greats, John Redfern, dressmaker by Royal Appointment to Her Majesty the Queen, Victoria and HRH the Princess of Wales. [SOLD]
“MICHAEL” is a slab vessel with multiple applied carved drapings and flute. A recurring element in steampunk cosplay and design is mechanical wings, made of metal or leather, powered by gears and pulleys on everything from fantastical air transport machines and battle gear to tiny mechanical bats and bumblebees. This particularly grand set of wings seemed worthy of the Archangel Michael, depicted to be impressive in size, fierceness and might. [SOLD]
“EMMELINE” Emmeline Pankhurst (1858-1928) is widely considered to be THE critical force in the women’s suffrage movement. A woman of great strength of character and steely determination, Emmeline was also well known for being immaculately attired in layers of the finest silk, velvet and mink fashions of her day, including her iconic high collars and pearl buttons. Her daughter wrote of Emmeline that “beauty and appropriatenes in her dress and household appointments seemed to her at all times an indispensable setting to public work”... work that resulted in her being jailed frequently for property damage and unlawful protest in the name of suffrage. [SOLD]