Public Art Telidoscope
I came across this article, Weird Science Makes Wonderful Art about a teleidoscope as public art.
It’s a telescope. No, it’s a kaleidoscope. No, it’s both — a teleidoscope.
Local artist Gregg Payne created the teleidoscope from scrap metal, including a four-foot piece of copper pipe, stainless steel couplings and an iron base that used to be a giant belt wheel.
Out of scrap, a beautiful piece of art arose, and out of the scope, beautiful pieces of art arise.
The teleidoscope will become a piece of public art to beautify Park Avenue in Chico and it will produce photography used as art in a number of places, including the Jesus Center and the Butte Art and Design Digital Outdoor Gallery, along Second Street.
Payne explained that he started with a design for the piece about a year ago, and with funding from Rory Rottschalk, of Culp and Tanner Engineering, he ordered the lens — a sphere of leaded crystal from Austria — and had three 4-foot stainless steel mirrors cut.
Looking through the scope provides a fragmented, reflected and symmetrically replicated view.
But unlike common, hand-held kaleidoscopes that viewers hold up to one eye, the six-inch viewing end of the teleidoscope allows the viewer to use both eyes, rendering a three-dimensional image.
The scope can be swiveled and rotated to follow moving objects or to focus on any particular object, creating beauty out of ordinary objects.
“I always wanted to do more interactive and optical projects,” Payne said.