Local playwright, Michael Neumann, requested the assistance of a few San Diego Steampunk members to help him with promo photos for a steampunk stage musical he has written and composed.  Many thanks go out to those of our group who were able to show up and help out with this: Keisha, Bob, Helene, Lisa, Jeff and Richard.  For more information about Michael's steampunk musical, the Beautiful Machine, visit www.thebeautifulmachine.net. 

Educators from all across the country came for a four-day conference and professional development convention held in San Diego this March.  One of the day-long sessions featured a steampunk theme.  It was titled Steampunk Your Passion and the organizers called on San Diego Steampunk to help demonstrate various aspects of the genre such as inclusiveness, kidness and equality, as well as the maker movement that is a large part of Steampunk.  Many thanks go out to those of our group who were able to show up and help out with this: Bob, John, Heather, Sarah, Patty, Triona, Henrik, Dean, Jennifer and Lisa.  To read the article in Education Weekly, click here. 

Since Riverside County's first Iron Horse event in 2014, San Diego Steampunk members have been supporting and attending it in great numbers.  This year, many of our members were either teaching classes, hosting visitors, presenting displays and/or vending their steampunk wares.  Pictured are Isabeau and Michael, members of the beloved Atlantean Foundation, who faithfully serve at the Iron Horse event each year.  To read the article in the San Diego Union-Tribune, click here.

The delightful Taylor Hamby, writer/reporter for the OC Weekly has penned an awesome article about everyone's favorite "honorary member" of San Diego Steampunk, Brian Kesinger, and you can find it at this link.  We are always excited to see our members in the news, even our honorary members.  As a Disney artist and steampunk enthusiast, Brian's tea paintings, books, toys and mash-up art are a huge hit with all of our San Diego Steampunk members.  And Brian has been a friend to San Diego Steampunk for years, showing up often at our local convention, Gaslight, and keeping us invited to his art shows and book release events.  He is pictured above with his friend Anastasia Hunter at one of his book signings.  For more about his dazzling art please look at his Deviant Art site at this link. 

Local steampunk artist and maker, Gearheart Vandegraff, is interviewed by Colonel Weatherby and shows us all around his beautiful home to discuss many of his whimsical steampunk art projects.  San Diego Steampunks are definitely blessed to have this wonderful artist-maker among us.  His contributions to our genre are inspiring and out-of-the-box.  To watch the Colonel's interview of Gearheart, click here.  To watch more of Colonel Weatherby's videos checkout his You Tube channel here.

En Vivo, a television program broadcasting in San Diego and Baja California, presents segments on local art, news and culture in our area.  Recently they featured a segment on the steampunk movement in San Diego and invited our SD Steampunk members into their studios for interviews and a brief fashion show.  The segment aired in April 2017 and you can see the video at the link below.  For a slide show, please visit this link.  We would like to thank these San Diego Steampunk Members for their participation: Bob, Tony, Jan, Jeff, Michael, Monique, Shela, Michele and Lisa.  We would also like to express our most sincere gratitude to San Diego Steampunk members Mike and Susan, for making this opportunity possible.

Circus Vargas' theme was steampunk for their 2017 season, and the show was called Steam Cirque.  Beginning in January and continuing throughout the winter/spring season they invited scores of San Diego Steampunk members to come to each opening night, dressed in steampunk attire, to receive free admission and to add to the steampunk ambiance of the shows.  The organizers of San Diego Steampunk were extremely grateful for this generous offer from Circus Vargas, one of the few remaining traveling circus shows, and many new friendships were developed.  There are too many member names to lit here, but we would like to thank all of the members of San Diego Steampunk who participated in these events for Circus Vargas and cheered-on our new steampunk-circus friends.  Please see this link for the Union-Tribune article about the Steam Cirque show and our group's tremendous support of it.  For more information about Circus Vargas shows, please visit their website at www.CircusVargas.com.

Recently the STEAM Maker Workshop asked San Diego Steampunk to provide steampunk judges for their Recycled Fashion competition and a steampunk booth for the exhibit hall at the annual event they host each year, STEAM Maker Fest.  In exchange, they offered our members free admission to the event to add ambiance and photo ops.  Primarily an event for school-aged kids, the San Diego Steampunk volunteers had their schedules full with answering questions, posing for photos, encouraging young makers and sharing all about steampunk with the curious youngsters.  It was also exciting for us to get to explore the exhibit hall and see the amazing advances in technology and how it impacts the maker movement.  We all came away inspired!   We are very grateful to our members Bob and Anastasia and Ramona for loaning us backgrounds and booth set-up materials.  We are also very grateful to our members Triona, Henrik, Gabe, Shela, Monique, Jan, Dean, Christopher, Jeff and Lisa for helping man the both and judge the Recycled Fashion competition.  To read more about the event in te Imperial Beach News article, please click here.  To find out more about the STEAM Maker organization in San Diego, click here.  

Everyone's favorite steampunk doctor, Dr. Artemis Peepers hosts a most impressive Halloween Party every year in Vista, CA at Art Beat on Main Street.  This year, the Vista Press showed up to cover the event, along with about 100 other steampunks and fans of steampunk.  As an artist and steampunk personality, Dr. Peepers (real name Dean LeCrone) has quite a following and it seemed that everyone wanted to be a part of this celebration of him and his work.  You can read the Vista Press article here.  You can find out more about Dr. Peepers on his Facebook page here.

Enjoy this City Times article all about the delightful Richard Ferrell, now affectionately also known as the "Steampunk Cop" thanks to this wonderful write-up.  Of course you might also know him by his character names: the Baron Von Gunter Zeiss or Colonel Malcolm Weatherby.  It is the Colonel who takes us all on those delightful You Tube adventures as he goes exploring (visit this link for the Colonel's travel adventures).  Additionally, Richard is a maker of extraordinary steampunk accessories that can be found at his vendor booth, Steampunk Arsenal, which you will see at various steampunk conventions around the south-west.  You can read the article about him being a Steampunk Cop at this link.

In the spring of 2016 San Diego Steampunk was asked to provide steampunks for the filming of commercials for the annual San Diego County Fair.  Because the Fair's theme that year was to be a steampunk-twist on Alice In Wonderland, our steampunk group was the perfect fit.  There were about 40 of our members involved in both the bid commercial as well as the final-cut commercials that actually aired.  Below are the You Tube links to a few of them:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bhJGa8bLaw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCw5COJyGig

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwRT4fzdfXo

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In the summer of 2014, local San Diegan, Mercy Baron wrote an article for the San Diego Reader about our steampunk community.  It is such a fine and in-depth write-up that San Diego Steampunk members still use it to give our "newbies" a comprehensive place to start when they are diving in to the local steampunk scene.  It also continues to be widely used by our members who give steampunk panels and presentations at out-of-town conventions and events.  Mercy is an award-wining steampunk (pictured above receiving her Starburner medal) and a certified barbecue judge (more on this later) and an all-around delightful lady to get to know.  The San Diego Steampunk community owes her much gratitude for her hard work on the research, the tracking-down of interviewees, and the detailed explanation of our beloved community.  You can read her article here.