Toiling away till the wee hours of the night under bright lights and magnifying apparatus in her tiny hilltop studio in the Antipodes, she fashions a range of robots, pocket watch inspired lockets and all manner of hitherto undiscovered creepy crawly, flying and swimming creatures.
She begins in two dimensions with drawings, and uses wood, wax and metals to carve and turn these objects of her mind-musings into the 3rd dimension, and perhaps a little more…
“Jewels” Vine is a skilled artificer working on a miniature scale, working mostly in Silver, bronze and gold with a mix of glass, ebony, titanium and stainless steel and sundry exotic accents; She has over three decades of experience in crafting these charm-sized talismans, many of which with moving parts and amazing detail.
Amphora Drop
ThingBot in Bronze
BABY TADFISH sterling silver on 60cm silver vermeil chain
Toiling away till the wee hours of the night under bright lights and magnifying apparatus in her tiny hilltop studio in the Antipodes, she fashions a range of robots, pocket watch inspired lockets and all manner of hitherto undiscovered creepy crawly, flying and swimming creatures.
L’Oracle du Mort: One of many amazing clockwork pieces by Thomas Kuntz to be featured here in the Archive.
Thomas Kuntz, a professional artist for over 20 years, began as a sculptor of Commercial Toys, but later gained notoriety circa ’89-98 as a pioneer in the making of model kits based on old silent films like Nosferatu, The Man Who Laughs, Vampira, and others.
After a period of time Kuntz found that merely sculpting his dark creations was not nearly enough for him, and that he wanted to give life to his creations through mechanical, perhaps supernatural means… This change in method resulted in some of the darkest and most interesting automations known to man, and not nearly as many fatalities and disappearances as may be rumored.
You may have seen Thomas’ twisted creations in many places, though you may not have been aware of the crafter behind them, or the astounding degrees of meticulous craftsmanship responsible for their being. Mr. Kuntz’ creations have served in the armies and arsenals of many noteworthy people, interesting types such as Kevin Ogilvie, a.k.a. Nivek Ogre, frontman of theatrical post-punk industrial band “Skinny Puppy”. Thomas has made mechanical props for the band, and for Nivek alone, with pieces for use on stage, and for use in video.
In his workshop, Thomas Kuntz controls an army of clockmaking lathes from 1880-present, and each piece he creates is more said to be more exquisite than the last. There are only a handful of builders in the world who make automata, and no one does it like Mr. Kuntz. (more…)
As you might have known: Me, Dunwich Horror am occupant of archive as well. Even though they try from time to time, or always, to make me leave archive by spraying things on me and calling me bad smell.
What you might not know about things is that Dunwich Horror has found new corners of archive no one knows about, even you, and those corners am currently empty of the sorts of interested things what decorate the archive where humans and others dwell.
My annex, as we in art worlds say about art places that are extra, has much need for things to make it more… “placey”, something to pretty up empty space.
I need better providers of stuff – here is why:
Ready? Okay!
Unknown decorators come throughout every day and try to decorate the Dunwich Horror Annex with things… many of which not too spiffy, such as bananna peels, empty milk cartons, styrofoam peanuts, and such.
Not to complain, they are not bad decorations – but apparently trucks like these things… A LOT!
Each weak, BIG truck finds annex, lifts annex up in sky, and eats all decorations what were donated. Sometimes Eats Dunwich Horror. Scares bejebus out of Dunwhich Horror each and every time… sometime Dunwich Horror has to walk home after being eaten.
Dunwich Horror wants make annex official with real stuff what trucks do not like. Dunwich Horror wants to sleep in on Tuesdays, and not get eated by BIG truck, and not have walk home.
More artifact and relic donations, crafty donations, and such – less dead cats and “sporks” – less mustache cream tin, less ”shaved snizzy magazine” (scary!). ART! That is what Dunwich needs to get annex up and running.
Send links to art donations and exhibits through handy contact form, tell Dunwich Horror about yourself and donations.
Today, I came across a rather strange assortment of artifacts, piled loosely in a duffel bag in the corner of my office. The duffel bag bore no distinguishing marks other than a sticker reading “Abney Park”, what I believe to be a stamp from a possible stop along the way from its unknown origin.
Having worked tirelessly throughout the day to ascertain their origin, I found about midway through spectographics and other means, that these items were by no means ancient, or even old. However, knowing that there exist modern-times dabblers and adepts in the metaphysical arts and aether-scientific spheres, I decided it would be a good idea to inspect these items more closely.
The first of these items – what seemed to be a pair of flight goggles, with a crudely fashioned set of secondary lenses bound by brass arms, which for some reason did not seem to bend or swing in ways that would be expected for functionality, or even bend at all. In trying to manipulate the lenses, I eventually broke one of these arms, and spent my first hours rather panicked that I may have irreparably damaged something of great importance.
Next I tried the simple approach of wearing the goggles. Whether a result of my error, or simply a matter of design, I found that though I do look quite smashing in them, the goggles do absolutely nothing, nothing at all.
The next items were a pair of what seemed to be hat pins, strange in their making due to the presence of gears and cogs at their tops, these gears not leading to other gears, I thought at first they might be some sort of key, perhaps to some sort of advanced alchemical device yet to be found. In trying to turn these gears, to ascertain how advanced the inner workings might be, I ended up breaking one of these gears from the pin, only to find it the gear was simply bound in place by a sort of jewelers’ glue.
Lastly, there was a top hat, not recently made but certainly by no means old. On it were a variety of things, including more of these rudimentary arms and lenses, some ribbons, and an insignia pin – showing promise in its obscurity. I spent the last hours of my day trying to decode this sigil, to no avail, and finally I surmised what only an educated man such as myself would… that perhaps it was a magical hat – the likes worn by those tricksters and charletans on the square, and by actual practitioners of the ancient arts as well. The only sensible place to go from here was to test this theory.
First, I tried the simple route, taking a nearby glass of goat’s milk, and pouring it into the hat to see if the milk disappeared, or perhaps turned into confetti. The end result was a desk covered in milk, a somewhat saturated hat, and a rather perturbed and milk-drenched dean as a result of my efforts to demonstrate the hat’s presumed powers of milk-to-confetti transmography.
The next test was to insert a pigeon into the hat, and see if it either vanished or turned into a string of joined handkerchiefs, or perhaps a balloon… I like balloons. In order to contain the pigeon, I placed a board over the opening, and set a heavy weight atop the board. This ended only in completely destroying the hat, and regrettably, its contents.
After a long hard day of work, including many many tests, leading to disassembly, and ultimately frustration in having wasted an entire day, I found that these items were all fakes of some sort, perhaps placed in my office by entities from competing universities or perhaps from BEYOND, towards the purpose of distracting me from something groundbreaking and important – such as my research or possibly even tea time.
The fiend, whoever they may be, did manage at both of these – I am however more determined than ever to succeed at whatever it is this miscreant or spectre sought to distract me from – beginning with tea and descending by order of importance.
If anyone has any knowledge regarding the perpetrators of this prank, hoax, or scheme, I would ask that they contact me in my study as soon as humanly or inhumanly possible.
