Why B Normal? as the old slogan asks
Via link-dowsing (it actually sort of counts as work, I was looking for visual references/ideas for illos) I came across this photo-essay on modern steampunk-inspired artists and artisans, which has some pretty cool pictures and links in it. You have to overlook the obnoxiously-patronizing tone of the text and the self-congratulatory cluelessness of the writer - hullo, dude? You write for Wired magazine, you don't get to be snobby towards other geeks, no matter how much of a mundane you may be, we're all daffy mad scientists with nerd cooties to the non-geek population - but that, alas, is nothing new for us fans and hobbyists (remember that awful article about reenactor-costumers in the NYT was it) and it certainly has gotten better since the days when they sighed that "this generation has got to die and rot" before SF would be treated as "real" literature...
I mean, why shouldn't high tech and low be pretty? My great-grandmother's old treadle sewing machine had baroque gold foil patterns on it, and in Oxford at a little diner that had been there forever, I saw an Edwardian potato roaster still in use that was a thing of beauty with gilding and embossing on it. Our ancestors tooled their bridles and stirrups into marvels of jewelrymaking (and modern-day critics sniff that it isn't real art, doesn't count because it's practical --) so why should we be content with boring/ugly stuff if we don't have to be?
I mean, why shouldn't high tech and low be pretty? My great-grandmother's old treadle sewing machine had baroque gold foil patterns on it, and in Oxford at a little diner that had been there forever, I saw an Edwardian potato roaster still in use that was a thing of beauty with gilding and embossing on it. Our ancestors tooled their bridles and stirrups into marvels of jewelrymaking (and modern-day critics sniff that it isn't real art, doesn't count because it's practical --) so why should we be content with boring/ugly stuff if we don't have to be?