The tan house with a studio in the back on Kingfisher’s Main Street resembles any other from the exterior.

When you step inside, a vast array of art forms enrich the interior and invite you to explore: Paintings, stipple art, drawings, gourd art, sculpture and many more.

One type in particular stands out.

Steampunk.

Maybe you have never seen it or even heard of it. Kris Piersall says that is probably the norm for most people.

“I would guess there are more people that don’t know about steampunk than do,” he said.

A little over a year ago, Piersall and his wife, Janice, were frustrated with the often malfunctioning and unreliable floor lamps in their living room.

Most people would probably set out to find lamps that appealed to them and simply buy them.

But, not the Piersalls. Janice suggested Kris make lamps to replace the old ones.

And for Kris the gears began to turn.

Kris is an artist and was an art teacher for approximately 20 years.

He retired a few years ago from Hennessey Public Schools, where he taught classes from the most basic elements to very in-depth aspects of art to middle and high school students.

When Piersall began teaching in Hennessey, he and his art students held fundraisers to purchase much-needed equipment for the art program. They purchased four pottery wheels, a kiln, a pug mill, slab roller, etching press and other items with the funds they raised.

As an art teacher, “I worked to present as many types of art to the students as the program could afford,” Piersall said.

But he never taught steampunk while at Hennessey or any other school.

He said, although quite a few of his students probably would have enjoyed making it, it can be quite cost prohibitive.

Steampunk is a genre of art inspired by the industrial revolution, which combines elements of both the past and present to represent a nostalgic futurism.

It means finding old mechanical parts, often of brass, iron, steel, or other industrial metals, gauges, pulleys, cogs, rivets, pipe, and all types of antique items from days gone by.

When Piersall wasn’t teaching art he worked as a mobile telecommunications technician, which turned out to be an asset when it came to wiring the lamps properly.

Piersall completed his first lamp using an old wagon wheel hub, gears, a pressure gauge, and lots of metal pipe.

He and his wife felt the room needed “balance,” so he made a second, more simplified, lamp while still incorporating all the mechanical elements of steampunk.

With two steampunk lamps completed, Piersall was left with extra parts.

The question became: What to do with all those parts?

Make more steampunk, of course.

Piersall has since made two more lamps incorporating timing gears, a metal funnel, old farm implement parts, windmill parts and oilfield machinery.

He even added a bell that adorned their house when they purchased it and an antique apple peeler to the lamps.

“You have an idea you start with and go from there,” Piersall said.

He said the first lamp was where most of the learning occurred and found that it is much easier to thread the wiring through one-inch pipe, as opposed to the halfinch pipe used on the initial project.

Piersall has discovered the elements he needs for his steampunk art from junk-yards, estate sales, antique shops, online sources and anywhere he can find industrial parts. He said, many of the parts he finds require extensive cleaning before the process can even begin.

“Some of the parts are repurposed in a functional sense and others are strictly aesthetic,” Piersall said.

With four steampunk lamps behind him, he has his next project in sight.

A kinetic wind sculpture. It will be steampunk, but it will need to move easily in the wind, Piersall said.

Steampunk is only the latest of Piersall’s artistic expression.

He has won awards with his stipple art and had his gourd art displayed in a gallery in the Paseo Arts District in Oklahoma City.

He has also done watercolor painting, photography and pottery, which he says, is his favorite medium.

“Art is a way to express yourself and be creative,” Piersall said. “I’ve done a lot of different things over the years. Some people like them, some don’t.”