Gearing Up

I recently wrote to steampunk artisan and good friend Alexandra Sforza of Heterodyne Designs and the White Peacock Trading Company, asking if she would indulge me in a brief interview for my site. She was happy to oblige.

What got you interested in steampunk as a whole?

I grew up around Sci-Fi and Fantasy, and loved movies like Journey to the Center of the Earth, Indiana Jones and Allan Quartermain. I was reading Jules Verne in third grade, and taking apart stuff around the house a year later, so it’s really been a life-long thing. I’ve been collecting skeleton keys since I can remember, and it’s one of those things that just, BAM, hit me one day- I think likely my first issue of Girl Genius is what pushed me over the edge, and here I am, years later, enjoying the madness!

What got you interested specifically in steampunk jewelry?

I’d been looking at steampunk items for a long while, but I never really found anything I was completely in love with, so I decided to make things for myself. Now a days there are hundreds of steampunk artists all making lovely things, so it’s easier to locate nifty items, but when I got into it crafters were far and few between.

I have two very distinct styles, steampunk/Victorian being only half of what I do. My other style draws from High Fantasy and is the stuff found in Oz, at a Goblin Ball or in a Fairie Market.

You use storytelling to describe most of your pieces. Do you think it enhances your shop?

Absolutely. I’m not just selling my pieces, I’m selling my stories too. I actually told myself when I started making this kind of jewelry that it had to have stories, as a method of getting myself to write more often.

Tell me a bit about the world your jewelry comes from.

Gaea is a world very much like our own, but with a very distinct difference- conqueror Alexander the Great was successful in establishing the Alexandrian Empire of Europasia. Most of the world exploration was done by privately funded explorers, and much of History as we know it doesn’t exist there. The World is also larger than ours, there are lost continents and the like. There’s a lot of world building still to do for me, and so many things are open.

What artists have inspired your own work?

There are so many fantastic artists out there! J. W. Waterhouse is a huge inspiration for me, especially in my home. Certainly Phil and Kaja Foglio have, as well as Rebecca Guay, Yoshitaka Amano, Jacek Yerka, Joseph Michael Linsner, R. K. Post, Arthur Rackham and Michael Parkes.

I’ve noticed that Etsy is very popular with steampunk crafters. How do you feel about the experience of selling there?

I think it’s a great community, and I’ve had a perfectly lovely time with everyone there, buyers and sellers alike. Everyone pays promptly, and is very polite!

Where do you get your materials?

I get a lot of my embellishments from etsy.com, as a matter of fact! Charms4Design and Luna Silver are wonderful suppliers! My gears are a bit more mysterious, for I buy from personal collectors and antique clock and watch specialists. Those sources I never give away.

Do you see yourself branching out?

I do. My art is ever-changing and never really stays the same for long, I’m always about getting better and learning new things, new techniques. Eventually I want to be casting and setting, that’s where my real desire is, I think.

Alexandra can be found on Etsy and deviantArt.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 13th, 2008 at 11:51 pm and is filed under Accessories, Interview. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.