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I just got a new order of kaleidoscopes from Boston ClayWorks. I’m going to be doing a kaleidoscope workshop on October 7th at the Clark library in Rhode Island. This is my second kaleidoscope workshop there - this time we’re going to be making the wand scope kits. It should be a lot of fun.

Of course, I also ordered some other supplies while I was at it. Larry had a new necklace scope kit since my last order and some glass spheres for making teleidoscopes. (A teleidoscope is basically a kaleidoscope without the bits at the end to make up the image. Instead the world around you becomes the image)

This may be just what I needed to re-inspire me on the scope and clay front again

Artist Carolyn Bennet recently gave a kaleidoscope workshop to kids and there was a nice article about it.

Carefully selecting colorful beads for her handmade kaleidoscope, nine-year-old Gianna Campanelli said she wanted to pick shapes that she and her parents would enjoy.

“The best part of making a kaleidoscope is that it’s so nice to share the beautiful view,” said Gianna as she carefully arranged translucent pearls, hearts and even dollar signs at the base of her creation. “And no matter how many times you look through it, the picture is never the same.”

I’ve done a similar workshop at my local library for kids and their parents and it was really rewarding. Everyone had fun and the oohs and aahs as people traded their completed scopes were delightful. Everyone started with the same kit, but ended up with something uniquely their own.

If you get a chance to teach a kids’ workshop or just share your art with some kids, take it. It takes some planning but it’s well worth it.

I came across a nice article featuring kaleidoscopes in New Zealand.

Kerikeri couple Andrew and Robyn Leary have been in the business for 27 years and sold more than 200,000 kaleidoscopes.
…..
Mrs Leary, an industrial chemist and leadlight artist at the time, asked her husband, a joiner, to make her a kaleidoscope. The end result led to commissions from friends followed by the establishment of their own business, Scopes New Zealand.

I baked an eyepiece from black clay, then glued that to one end of the PVC pipe. Then I covered the pipe with a layer of clay and smoothed it up over the edges of the eyepiece so there was no seam. I textured the clay and added three sculpted swallows. Once the body was baked, I antiqued it with acrylic paint to bring out the texture.

Then it was time to start assembling everything. The glass magnifying lens was glued up to the eyehole on the inside of the scope. Then I gently put the mirrors and packing in. I epoxied the aluminum collar to the object chamber, then the bearing was pressed into the pipe (no glue was needed since the fit is so tight). Finally the aluminum collar was glued into the bearing.

This kaleidoscope has an acrylic liquid-filled cell. The cell is one of the ones available from PolymerClayProjects and is filled with silicone oil and sealed with epoxy. I also glued a black acrylic circle to the bottom of the object chamber so it would be a sidelit cell with a black background.

I didn’t quite like how that looked - you could see the epoxy through the end of the cell, so I made a polymer clay endcap to make it look a little neater.

The cell contains polymer clay objects, including a sculpted swallow like the ones I used on the exterior, my own lampworked glass pieces and bead-filled ampules, beads, metal findings, and cathedral and dichroic glass. I probably should have used a few less items in the cell but it makes a great image.

I’ve wanted to do a kaleidoscope with a nice, smooth turning end for awhile. After a workshop with Scott Cole, I did some searching for good bearings with a large inner diameter (ID) so I could use some decent sized mirrors. I found some bearings with an outer diameter (OD) of 2 inches which were nice and thin.

The bearings then sat around in a drawer for a year or so… My husband gave me a hand with the engineering this time around. I didn’t have any tube for the kaleidoscope body that was exactly 2″ ID but we found some PVC pipe to use which was close. The bearing fits directly in the pipe but you need to have some way to attach the object chamber to the bearing so it can turn.

Dave turned down a collar for the bearing using some square aluminum stock which he had on hand. (If we do this again he’s going to look for some thick walled pipe instead). Then he bored out the inner hole. The metal lathe makes some intricate spirals and shavings of metal which I think I’m going to have to try in an object chamber eventually. The bearing fits just perfectly on the aluminum collar - it almost snaps into place.

Useful little tool that someone posted about on the Polymer_Clay_People yahoo group : http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/colors.php

It allows you to upload a photo and it will generate a coordinating color palette. Great for web design or just jumpstarting clay color choices. I could see it being really useful if you wanted to pick coordinating colors (in clay or beads) for an image transfer. And it would be great for picking kaleidoscope objects for a harmonius image.

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.

I came across this article about an exhibit which included a video kaleidoscope.

Ara Peterson and Jim Drain’s “Large Video Kaleidoscope” (2003-06) looks like the most direct remembrance of Turrell here. It opens a hole in the wall through which angled mirrors multiply the changing light, colors and figures of an abstract video projection.

And here’s an article about kaleidoscope artist Jerry Farnsworth.

Farnsworth exhibited and sold wooden toys and kaleidoscopes in several imaginative designs.

He said he has been making wooden toys for 26 years and began adding kaleidoscopes 16 years ago.

“I wanted to do something more difficult,” he said.

The kaleidoscopes allow him to create not only the outside of a piece, but the inside as well. He said the mirrors used to create each kaleidoscope must be fixed at an exact angle, although several combinations of angles are possible.

“You have to arrange them in the exact position to get what you want,” he said.

The kaleidoscopes for sale Saturday ranged from a small wooden heart necklace with a kaleidoscope inside to a crab, a car, a camera and other designs. Farnsworth also has more traditional-looking rectangular kaleidoscopes.

He said he began creating all the different shapes and sizes to make something unique. “I started making my niche in the business by making something you wouldn’t be expecting in a kaleidoscope,” he said.

He said he even has kaleidoscopes that four people can all look into at the same time.

“Anything in the world can have a kaleidoscope in it or pointed at it,” Farnsworth said.

If you have a Yahoo account you can see some of the pictures from the Stowe Kaleidoscope Festival.

I used a batch resizer on the photos instead of touching them up individually so some of them are a bit dark, fuzzy because of low light, etc…. But you can still get an idea of the variety of scopes that were there.

http://photos.yahoo.com/skygrazer1 - then open the stowe2006 folder.