On Sunday, April 27 from 1-5 pm, the Springfield Museums will host a special “Meet the Artists” event in conjunction with their current exhibition Steampunk Springfield: Re-Imagining an Industrial City. The exhibition includes works by over forty artists from around the region, all on view at the Lyman and Merrie Wood Museum of Springfield History and the George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum. The event is free with museum admission.
Steampunk is a termed coined in the 1980’s to describe a fantasy world that combines steam-powered technology of the Victorian age with elements of modern and future times. Steampunk Springfield is composed of three exhibits of Steampunk art. At the GWVS Art Museum are the Humachines, large-scale installations in which Victorian-era inventors and writers are transformed into the creations that they envisioned. The other two components are Brassy Bridal, a display of Steampunk wedding attire at the GWVS Art Museum, and Fifty Firsts: Springfield Inventions Re-Invented, a series of creations honoring Springfield’s history of innovation at the Wood Museum.
The event includes a 1 pm tour of the Humachines by museum docent Xela Shultis followed by a lecture and discussion titled “What is Steampunk?” by Bruce Rosenbaum, guest curator of Steampunk Springfield, and Melanie Rosenbaum at 2 pm at the Michele and Donald D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts.
From 3–5 pm, the public can then visit the galleries in both museums and meet the artists who created many of the works in Steampunk Springfield. The forty-plus artists featured in Brassy Bridal and Fifty Firsts were selected last fall during a design competition, and hail from around the state as well as from New England, New Jersey, and New York. The full listing of artists exhibiting work in Steampunk Springfield is included below (participants in the Meet the Artists event are still being finalized).
Artists Featured in GWVS:
Bajgier, Jan
Borter, Bob
Bremer, Jim
Buckley, Mary Beth
Buffington, Ruth
Coniglio, Beverley (House of Coniglio)
Costa, Kristin
Dobrosielski, Mark
Drewry, Tobias (Mesa Mundi)
Franklin, Eric
Haala, Markus
Kelley, Brett
MacDonald, Ken
Mahoney, Alaina
Masi, Robin
Mostow, Dawn (Dawnamatrix Designs)
Norris, Janel (The Fairy Stitch Factory)
Ostroff, Sam (Salmon Studios L.L.C.)
Peltier, Mark
Pruitt, Sarah (Duchess von Pruitt Designs)
Random, David
Rodríguez, Patricia
Rosenbaum, Bruce (ModVic)
Rosenbaum, Melanie
Rosner, Darcy
Shima, Katie
Strattman, Wayne
Sullivan, Gary
Trombley, Ray
Artists Featured in WMSH:
Belli, John
Benns, Maryanne
Bond, Lahri
Bremer, Jim
Brickels, John
Brook, Steve (Steampunk Fabricators)
Buffington, Ruth
Dellert, Peter
Demarest, Jack
Dupuis, James
Dupuis, Karen
Fowler, Bruce
Gould, Ben
Haala, Markus
Hallgren, Gary
Harris, Todd (42 Design Fab)
Kacian, Jack (42 Design Fab)
Kelley, Brett
Kitchen, James
Landsberg, Mark
Luiggi, Mark
Montgomery, Susan
Nimmer, Dean
Osborne, Chris
Orlinsky, Gary
Pedro, Ann
Robertson, Lee
Rosenbaum, Bruce (ModVic)
Shultis, Xela
Stanley, Justin
Stupak, Janet
Ulman, Michael