(Orsolya Skultéti - The Steampunk Scientist’s Room)

Stellar Steampunk

by Pam North

The spectrum of Hungarian artist Orsolya Skultéti’s work is wide and interesting, but incredible detail marks all of her creations. After sixteen years of miniature making, she has gone from specializing in making miniature foods to working with metal, and building houses and room boxes. “My style changed a lot during this period,” she explained.”In the first years I concentrated more on the medieval period and Tudor era; nowadays I prefer modern pieces, clean lines, and less shabby items.”
Orsolya’s latest piece. called The Steampunk Scientist’s Room, reflects this metamorphosis. Her idea was to to create the book itself, turning it into a steampunk style room. “Steampunk, which is popular in the US, is pretty much unknown in Hungary,” she commented.
Everything in the piece was handmade by her except the glass bottle, glass beakers, and balls she used to create the lamps. It is a one-of-a-kind vignette, with everything designed and handmade for it. The large book itself was made of birch plywood, covered with bronze-colored pleather, decorated with cogwheels in various sizes. The interior walls were painted with acrylic paint; the floor, desk, chair, and the cupboard hiding the electrics, were made of walnut wood. “I used around 350-400 tiny brass cogwheels to create the lamps, the working wall clock, 3D seahorse art piece, and handles for the desk drawers. The bookshelves were made of brass pipes and walnut. Polymer clay was used for the whale, octopus lamp, and chameleon sculpture on the wall. Only simple hand tools were needed, no power tools. I used cardboard on the walls to hide the plywood fibers and the electrical wires, making the walls smoother and more realistic. It was painted with a mixture of steel and brass-colored acrylic paints for a unique shine. The floors were made of walnut, aged with oil paint and overlaid with a mixture of beeswax and carnauba wax. The desk is a combination of walnut (exterior) and 2 mm plywood (body for the drawers), aged with oil paint and finished with wax. The desk is designed as large, antique luggage with leather straps and one of the metal handles I made from metal parts and cogwheels. The desk shelves were made of brass pipes and walnut. On one of the shelves I placed a tiny glass container containing a small plant and a glass bottle decorated with cogwheels and ‘gems’, and the wall focal point is a seahorse created of watch parts, in artificial water and in a walnut frame. The hat with the glasses is a favorite of mine. The hat is a combination of plastic and leather, aged by me, then decorated with watch parts. The glasses have a movable magnifying glass and adjustable leather straps. I wanted eye-catching items in the room. The whale lamp, chameleon sculpture, and seahorse were inspired by Pinterest images. The whale lamp on the desk is a combination of polymer clay and metal, the eyes are  blue crystals. The whale’s head is hollow and contains an LED which gives a muted blue light. The strange plant-in-beaker/lamp combination, is built onto a brass base which holds a tiny glass beaker with soil and a plant inside. A brass wire surrounds the mouth of the beaker, leading into the brass base and implying that it is connected to the lamp on the base and that probably the plant produces electricity to illuminate the small lamp. The hot air balloon chandelier on the ceiling is a glass ball painted with light blue glass paint, illuminated by a warm-white chip LED. The clock on the wall actually works; the body of the clock is covered with a bronze net and decorated with hundreds of tiny brass cog wheels. On the wall is a huge chameleon sculpture made of polymer clay, part of the ‘skin’ is removed so the intestines (made of watch parts) of the chameleon are visible. The chair I made as something special. For the base I rummaged through my screws and nails box, choosing silver-colored items to emphasize it. I sawed the seat, then made a cardboard model of the back, then cut it out of wood, which I steamed and bent to the perfect shape. I let it dry completely, assembled it, then upholstered it with fine leather. The hardest part was to hide the electricity. Even though it is a small book box, I used seven different LEDs to illuminate it. The chandelier and the octopus are illuminated by chip LEDs, while the whale, the plant-in-beaker/lamp and the desk lamp use nano LEDs. All wires are connected to a battery box with two AAA batteries. All these were hidden in a cupboard. The cupboard door closes with two tiny magnets, and the cupboard exterior is covered with cogwheels, painted brown and aged a bit. I used brass-covered steel rods as handles and screw nuts as legs. Creating the pleather cover was difficult; the 5 mm-thick plywood made it harder to prepare the cover.
Orsolya confessed to a favorite piece – the desk lamp. “I built it from brass pipes, brass wire, and cogwheels. The lamp’s base is a larger cogwheel used by scrapbook makers; the individual lamp posts are joined to this base, and the LED wires are hidden in the lamp posts. I used different watch parts and the tiniest available screw nuts to complete the fixture. The lamps are made of glass balls, decorated with tiny cogwheels. The octopus lamp was the most fun to create. With an image vaguely existing in my head, I  just sat down with a piece of clay and a bunch of metal (tiny screws, pins and wire), and began; eight hours later the octopus was born. It is hollow inside, with two tiny bulbs in the eye sockets; the ears are emphasized with brass metal parts, and a cogwheel from a watch is the mouth decoration. When the lamp is lit, the cogwheel pattern appears on the floor.” 
Orsolya made the piece to attempt something unconventional and totally different than her earlier works; it was all about the creative process.

Contact Information:
Orsolya Skultéti
Business Name: Orsi’s Miniatures
Email: orsi@orsisminiatures.com
Phone:  00 36 209 355 144
Website: https://www.instagram.com/orsisminis/
Website: www.orsisminiatures.com
Address: Skultéti Orsolya
    1071 Budapest,
    Bethlen Gábor u. 43. 2/10.	
    Hungary