{"id":6740,"date":"2011-06-09T12:00:44","date_gmt":"2011-06-09T17:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/?p=6740"},"modified":"2011-06-09T03:17:36","modified_gmt":"2011-06-09T08:17:36","slug":"apsu-brings-steampunk-to-campus-with-summer-art-class","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/2011\/06\/09\/apsu-brings-steampunk-to-campus-with-summer-art-class\/","title":{"rendered":"APSU Brings Steampunk to Campus with Summer Art Class"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AustinClarksville, TN<\/strong> – Several years ago, a group of science fiction and fantasy writers began developing odd visions of the future and alternate realities that looked suspiciously similar to 19th century England. Fascinated by the style of the Victorian era, these writers depicted strange, steam-powered machines in their works, thus giving rise to the \u201cSteampunk\u201d movement.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a bit of \u2018what if we\u2019d gone in a different direction,\u2019 and then being wildly inventive from there,\u201d Mike Mitchell, a local artist and Austin Peay State University adjunct art professor, said.<\/p>\n

The Steampunk literary subgenre took off, with its elements appearing in books, such as Philip Reeve\u2019s \u201cMortal Engines Quartet\u201d series, and the films \u201cThe League of Extraordinary Gentlemen\u201d and 2009\u2019s \u201cSherlock Holmes.\u201d The movement\u2019s visual potential was staggering, and it didn\u2019t take long for Steampunk elements to bleed over into other art forms.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe visual art side has developed as a result of role playing characters from that fiction, or folks inventing characters similar or altogether of their own imagination,\u201d Mitchell said.<\/p>\n

This June, the movement has come to APSU with a new special topics art course, \u201cSteampunk Sculpture,\u201d taught by Mitchell. The class, which meets until July 8th in the campus\u2019 Trahern Building, is one of the first of its kind to be taught at a public university.<\/p>\n

\"APSU<\/a>

APSU student Jeffrey Horton works on a sculpture of a hand while taking a Steampunk Sculpture class at APSU this summer. The goggles he is wearing were also part of a project for the class. (Photo By Mike Mitchell)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cIt will be organized by me (or other artists), teaching different skills that will give the students the structure to make pretty much any Steampunk-related item that they can image,\u201d Mitchell said. \u201cIn a lot of ways, it\u2019s a basic sculpture class with the conceptual component built in. We will do some welding, metal casting, sewing, woodworking, hatmaking, rubber stamp making, collage, etc.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mitchell came up with the idea for the class last semester when he began joking with students that he wanted to teach a course on steampunk. The students didn\u2019t think it was a joke.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat class would fill up so fast,\u201d Toby Lee, an APSU art student, told him.<\/p>\n

Word spread through the APSU art department, attracting the attention of both students and faculty. Eventually, a special topics class for the Summer I session was created. The class was opened to any student enrolled on campus, and it quickly filled up.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just snowballed from there,\u201d Mitchell said.<\/p>\n

At 7:00pm on July 7th, the class will host a screening of Kevin Eslinger\u2019s short steampunk film, \u201cNickel Children.\u201d The film is open to the public, and Eslinger will be on hand after the screening for a discussion.<\/p>\n

Mitchell also intends to add a professional practice component to the class, requiring the students to publicly exhibit their work.<\/p>\n

“Most likely, we\u2019ll do this on July 7th as part of the First Thursday Art Crawl,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

For more information on the class, contact Mitchell at Mitchellmd@apsu.edu<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clarksville, TN – Several years ago, a group of science fiction and fantasy writers began developing odd visions of the future and alternate realities that looked suspiciously similar to 19th century England. Fascinated by the style of the Victorian era, these writers depicted strange, steam-powered machines in their works, thus giving rise to the \u201cSteampunk\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[23,1064,262,7998,8730,8729,7801],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4xGYI-1KI","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6740"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6740"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6742,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6740\/revisions\/6742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}