PORT TOWNSEND — If the Victorian Festival and the Kinetic Skulpture Race got married and had a child, it would look a lot like this weekend’s Brass Screw Confederacy.
“I’ve heard a lot of people describe it that way, that it is a blend of the two events,” said Nathan Barnett, who is one of the event’s guiding forces.
The first Port Townsend steampunk event included a craft fair, a vaudeville show and whimsical demonstrations that blended the past and the future — or, in many cases, celebrated a view of the future that existed in the past.
The three-day festival concludes today with a Zombie Triathlon from 11 a.m. to
2 p.m. at Fort Worden State Park.
Admission is $10. Parking requires a Discover Pass.
During the first event, the Zombie Hunt, participants find “zombies” wandering around the park and must convince them to give up their brains.
In Zombie Skeet, people dressed as zombies can be shot with Nerf weapons in a shooting gallery, and in Zombies’ Revenge, catacombs can be explored.
The festival, at “year zero” this year, was immediately successful enough to guarantee a second year, organizers said, ensuring its place in the town’s series of summer festivals.
Barnett said he was enthusiastic about the festival’s success and already is planning for next year.
Many of the participants used a variety of themes for their costumes, including aviators, explorers and animal trainers.
One participant walked around with a 3-foot-long iguana on his head.
They would mix and match, creating what many participants referred to as “the steampunk aesthetic.”
The Victorian era, which is the basis for steampunk, is thought to be a prudish time, but several women were dressed in low-cut, revealing dresses that they could not wear outside of the steampunk environment — or their own bedroom.
“It gives grown-ups a chance to dress up,” said Kyra Stewart, who brought a selection of steampunk attire from her Bellevue costume shop.
“And it gives you the opportunity to build characters of their own.”
The crafts fair included demonstrations of textiles, blacksmithing and tintyping, which reproduces how photographs were created around the time of the Civil War.
Dinah DiNova of Chimacum set up her “lab” the same way it was done in the 19th century, creating a negative image on a piece of light-sensitive glass and reversing it with chemicals.
The results resemble that from a Polaroid camera, as there is only one copy.
“You take only one, and that’s it,” DiNova said.
“I tell people that I photograph that they should think of this as the only picture that will ever be taken of you, and you need to decide exactly how you want to present yourself.”
The exposures take several seconds, depending on available light, during which time the subject needs to stay very still.
DiNova, who charged $20 for each photograph, developed the pictures on the spot, kneeling down under a black cloth that stretched across a suitcase.
She also displayed several authentic 19th-century portraits as well as her own work, which included tintypes of modern gays and lesbians.
“This is my own community and I feel extremely fortunate to have the opportunity to photograph them in this way,” she said.
As of Saturday afternoon, more than 200 tickets had been sold for that night’s vaudeville show, Barnett said.
“The response has been fantastic,” he said.
“We made our nut with advance sales, and all systems are go for next year.
“It’s brought together a lot of people.
“It’s a form of expression that people haven’t been able to do before.”
Said Jefferson County Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Teresa Verraes: “This is real economic development.
“And it shows that economic development can be fun.”
For more information, visit www.brass-screw.org.
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Jefferson County Reporter Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at charlie.bermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
