DANSILVIA.COM
A BLOG ABOUT OMAHA & NEBRASKA
"Hey, is that lamp looking at me?" Well, maybe. The steampunk-inspired artwork of Omaha’s Dave Drzaic has a way of bringing lamps and light to life. Using salvaged metal piping and some old-school camera equipment among other materials, Drzaic creates unique light fixtures and other items to bring new life to the vintage material. You can see Drzaic’s work on his website at www.thevintageaddict.com or meet the artist in person at the Omaha Rockbrook Village Arts and Crafts Festival on Saturday, May 22, 2021, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. Steampunk is defined as a style of design and fashion that combines historical elements with anachronistic technological features inspired by science fiction. Drzaic is all about it. “People just do wondrous things with steampunk -- it’s just glorious. You have billowing jet-powered balloons and dirigibles, and all this with top hats and goggles,” Drzaic said. “For me, it is taking unique pieces that I find and creating something new from it that no one else would have envisioned.” Drzaic uncovered his passion for vintage material in a utilitarian manner. He needed to furnish his apartment when he first moved out on his own some 40 years ago. “I just found vintage pieces that I could put in my apartment. That is where I basically started. I have been collecting things and stuff for 30, 35, 40 years,” he said. After wrapping up a 30 year career at Union Pacific where he held a number of roles with an emphasis in Information Technology, Drzaic turned his attention to this vintage material and what he could create from it. “I found these cameras that I had from 25 years ago. I thought they were cool then and I thought they were cool now, and I am thinking, ‘What can I do with these things’?” he said. “The forms that these cameras have are just beautiful. I merge them with the black iron to create this piece and I love it." The cameras frequently form the ‘face’ of the piece giving them a futuristic ‘Wall-E’ robotic look, while still retaining a sense of nostalgia for bygone days. “This is something that people will look at and say, 'Boy, that's interesting'," Drzaic said. “I hate to part with them because they are all gorgeous, but I like other people enjoying it as well.” Drzaic will hit up flea markets and farmers markets to find new material to work with as well as some local spots. An Omaha native, Drzaic grew up near the stockyards in South Omaha and attended Gross High School before earning two degrees at Creighton University, a Bachelor of Business Administration and Master of Computer System Management. “I have never left Omaha,” Drzaic said. “I have traveled around the world, but never left the city.” Creighton’s reputation as a business school, it’s emphasis on Catholic and Jesuit education, and the sense of community fostered by the school is what attracted him to the Bluejay way. “I tell you what, those Jesuits are hard teachers and hard graders. The classes were small back in the day which was nice,” Drzaic said. “Creighton really creates a sense of community. I graduated with hundreds of students, and all of the thousands of students that have graduated since then, we all have that shared experience. The leadership of the professors was outstanding. You could tell they wanted to be there. They wanted to teach and they came in every day excited. They made me the person I am.” While Drzaic has the soul of an artist, it was all business, while in school -- almost anyway. “It was nothing but computers, business, and basketball. I attended every game from 1980 to this year,” he said. Drzaic’s Creighton experience powered him through a long career at Union Pacific (UP). His network of connections through Creighton and UP helped power his artistic career especially at start-up. His knowledge of Search Engine Optimization keeps the business chugging along. "I have gone through and optimized my webpage to increase my ranking and I continue to do that," he said "That is something that is very important that any small entrepreneur, whether you are in art or you are selling supplies, needs to understand. You might be thinking you have the best website out there, but if Google does not find it through these SEO standards, then it’s all for not.”
0 Comments
|
AuthorI am a professional communicator with experience in journalism, public relations, marketing, advertising, and technical writing. I strive to tell the great story regardless of the medium. Archives
April 2022
Categories |