MAN MEETS METAL; METAL MAKES ART

A GLIMPSE AT WALTHAM'S NEW-AGE INTERPRETERS OF THE HISTORY OF TECHNOLOGY

Photo credit: Babette Daniels

One of the biggest concerns in Todd Cahill’s life right now is to ensure that his steam-powered hand pump generates enough mechanical and rotational force to keep his art and his livelihood “alive and moving”.

Tucked in the heart of what’s left of Francis Cabot Lowell Mill, a site that was once the first industrialized textile mills in the country, he has sat for 10 diligent years lost amidst the rhythmic hissing and puffing of water, as it is metamorphosed into a misty steam that fades into the still air of his museum-like studio in Waltham, MA.

“Autonomy… that is all I have lived and worked for,” says the sincere-looking figure, hiding a faint smile behind a grey, wispy beard, ever so gently revealed by the lines that appear around his warm, blue eyes.

The 49-year-old is amongst a rare few people left in the world, who builds working model steam engines and steam-powered automatons. “Like a Brahmin merchant touring the countryside, Francis Cabot Lowell went to England in the late 17th century visiting these factories, you see,” he says. “They wouldn’t let him [Lowell] carry a pencil or a paper. So, he drew images of these factories on his way back on the ship and Paul Moody, the mechanic - in whose name we now have Moody Street - made it real,” and that is how the “real prototype” of Industrial Revolution came to the United States and to Massachusetts, he explains.

Growing up in Massachusetts, a state that has historically played a powerful role in the commercial and cultural success of the country, Todd's love for steam powered locomotives was a match meant to happen. The simple metallurgy course that fueled his artistic spark in college continues to nurture him to this day. “The sights, the sounds, the smell, the feel… I love everything about them,” he says.

Gazing at the sprinkler head, shaped like a flower vase, that carelessly rests on his work bench, he says, “My machines are like musical instruments and I am the only one who know how to play them. I am aware of their every quirk and the blueprint for a lot of them are taken from history”.

The Machinist:  Photo credit: Michael Wallmueller

The hand-wound mechanical brandy warmer that currently sits at a bar in Cambridge, the carousel-like zoetrope, built to depict the “change in landmass of Boston”, or the mechanical hypnotic wheel that transposes one back to the industrial era of this country, are some of his ingenious creations that seem to come alive by this simpleton's touch. 

“The zoetrope was displayed in Charlestown, near the Bunker Hill monument and then it was moved to Boston Commons. Now it is in storage somewhere,” he says, with an uncertain chuckle that breaks the monotony of his velvety voice.

“But it is interesting to come back on the radar through the realm of Steampunk,” he adds.

The Maker's Court: Todd Cahill standing next to the "heaven" he's sketched for himself, at his Waltham studio. 

Todd, is one of the few artists coming to recent light all thanks to Waltham’s persevering few who are embracing life that could have been in an alternate universe and, Melissa Honig, Lead Organizer of the Watch City Steampunk Festival is the voice driving the resurgence of the Steampunk ‘movement’. 

At a recent TEDx conference (posted on YouTube on July 18, 2018) about the city’s “live action festival”, Honig explains that in 1900, a series of postcards were published depicting how artists imagined life would be in the year 2000. “They pictured personal flying devices and life in grand underwater cities. Steampunk is a retro-futuristic style inspired by the Victorian turn of the century events such as this,” she says. 

The term coined by science fiction writer, K.W Jeter, which has increasingly gained popularity as a cultural genre around the globe, has inspired art, music, fashion, and various other subcultures and festivals. From the Steampunk Festival in Oamaru in NZ, to the Asylum Steampunk festival in Lincolnshire, England all are drawn to the very fascination of the coming together of man, metal and modern-day science fiction in an artistically esthetic way.

“What if all of the technological advancements imagined had come true but they were all handcrafted by brass and leather. Functional yet artistic?” wonders Honig.

Ushering in: Isaiah Plovnick at the Watch City Steampunk Festival, held on May 12, 2018 in Waltham, MA. Photo credit: Joe Niedbala

And the historical relevance of Waltham - being the city that gave rise to one of the world’s first wrist watches, cars, banjos and textile manufacturing plants in the country - was according to her, “a natural connection waiting to happen”.

“It is understandable why eight years ago the director of the Charles River museum thought of organizing this festival here [Waltham], a city that was at the forefront of the American Industrial Revolution,” says Isaiah Plovnick, Master of Ceremonies at the Steampunk festival and an employee at the Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation.

Pointing at the textile loom on display at the museum, Plovnick explains, “In the Victorian era, which was the greatest era of storytelling, technology had an honest purpose. You could look at it [technology] and see how it worked. Practical beauty”.

“It [Steampunk] is what the past would’ve looked like if the future happened sooner. It is the freedom to express yourself through whatever you want it to be even if it is just for a day,” says the history enthusiast.

This year, the theme of the festival was ‘Airship Battle’ and, as witnessed by this writer, was flocked by thousands of attendees, including performers, artists, vendors and hard-core “costumed steampunks” who attended the festival, despite the weather playing spoilsport.

The traditional copper pot churning fresh, hot popcorn as a seemingly exhausted gentleman filled them up in bags, while people dressed in alien costumes walked the streets of this historic city was a scene straight out of the fictitious world of H.G. Wells or Alan Moore’s works.    

It's been a wet day: Man dressed as a scuba diver at the Watch City Steampunk Festival held on May 12, 2018, in Waltham MA.  

Not far from Waltham’s historic downtown, as Todd sits, tinkering with the 2015 replica of the Galloway’s Model Steam Engine that has traversed across boundaries for his creative touches, he adds, “In the end, the purpose of all of this is to make the world a trickle more beautiful than it is, especially when we are being hit over the head with so much ugliness”.

Straining his voice over the once silent piston of the boiler feed pump that stands in the corner of his studio, now having gained momentum resembling like a loud metronome, he says, “When an artistic expression goes out in to the world, it spreads like seeds. The more people see it, the more they are affected by it, comforted by it”.

 “I only wish more people would see the beauty that I see in them. Someday, I’ll be gone and somebody will have a hard time getting rid of all this out of here,” he laughs.

                                                                                     - Manasa Joshyam

The 'Maker's' Chair

For more info on Todd Cahill and his artwork visit: www.steammachinesculpture.com