MIRROR IMAGES // A fond look at kaleidoscopes

Kaleidoscope! There's magic in the very name of this instrumentin which images form, reform and disappear, then are reborn inever-changing combinations of color and light.

What child hasn't loved playing with a kaleidoscope. What adulthasn't waited until no one is looking to peer through a long, slendertube at images from yesteryear.

As I write this, I pause every few minutes to manipulate thecardboard kaleidoscope a colleague whipped out of a desk drawer whenshe heard me rhapsodizing about the image-making device invented in1816 by Sir David Brewster, a Scottish scientist.

Brewster joined two mirrors at an angle inside a long tube withan eyepiece at one end and two circles of glass at the other, theninserted bits of colored glass between the two circles. Lookthrough the eyepiece and you see the pattern formed by the bits ofglass, with additional symmetrical images formed by reflectionbetween the mirrors. The angle at which the mirrors is setdetermines the number of images that combine to form the pattern.

Millions of children still play with dime store cardboardversions of Brewster's invention. The big news today is theemergence of the kaleidoscope as an artist-made adult toy costinganywhere from $50 to $5,000.

Their cases are stained glass, brass or wood. They may formpatterns with bits of colored glass, or with tiny glass tubes filledwith colored oils. Or they may replace the traditional object case(the end of the tube where the colored glass bits tumble around) withan externally mounted revolving wheel of stained glass. The fancierones may have three, four or five mirrors multiplying their images.

Then there's the teleidoscope. It replaces the object case witha clear or mottled marble at the far end of the tube. Images areformed by multiplied reflections of the world around you. Avariation on this is a little tube with a faceted clear lens thatgives multiple images of its environment.

Artist Sherry Moser of Duluth, Ga., makes a kaleidoscope for$255 that comes with a little flashlight at the end to provideflashing light effects.

Judy Kaponia stocks handmade kaleidoscopes by 30 artists in hershop, The Artists' Works, in Naperville. She said two-mirror scopesgive you a single image or star, called a mandala, the Hindu wordsymbolizing the universe. Three mirrors produce a honeycomb pattern.She has a four-mirror teleidoscope that makes things look like aquilt pattern.

This year's hot seller in the machine-made category is theIllusion by WildeWood Creative Products, Kaponia said. Instead of anobject case, it has a long, narrow acrylic wand clamped at the end ofthe scope. Star sequins and other glitter material suspended in oilmove up and down the wand, their images multiplied in the mirrorsinside the scope. It sells for $34.25.

The most expensive kaleidoscope in her stock is a $450 replicaof one made in 1873 by Charles Bush of Rhode Island. It's black, hastiny brass spindles at the end for spinning the object case, and ithouses tiny clear glass ampules of colored oil. A slow-motion effectis achieved by the movement of the oil.

Inventors tried for years to suspend objects in an oil-filledcase, but with unhappy results. "Oil-filled object cases tended toleak, until the invention of silicon glue," Kaponia said.

Moser makes many scopes with cases of stained glass. She was anurse, dabbling in stained glass as a hobby, when she rediscoveredkaleidoscopes and took up their creation as her life's work.

The conversion from hobby to business came when she met CozyBaker, the doyenne of the kaleidoscope world. Baker spread the wordabout Moser at art galleries and "since that time I have never had tosolicit any business," Moser said.

Anyone who makes, collects or sells kaleidoscopes knows Baker,who became enamored of artist scopes when she saw her first one at acraft show in Tennessee eight years ago. Baker had to have theseller sneak the scope into her shopping bag to avoid the scorn of acompanion who had scolded, "You're not going to pay $82 for a toy!"

Baker now owns hundreds of kaleidoscopes, including the world'slargest, a 12-foot-long wood-cased monster created by Al Brickel ofCleveland for a bar that went broke. She created the BrewsterSociety to bring kaleidoscope lovers together and writes a quarterlynewsletter called the Brewster Society News Scope. She also haspublished books on kaleidoscopes, and recently organized a travelingexhibit of scopes.

The newsletter, $25 a year, and her latest books, Through theKaleidoscope and Beyond and Kaleidorama, each $20 and published byBeechcraft books, may be ordered by writing to Baker at the BrewsterSociety, 100 Severn Ave., Suite 605, Annapolis, Md. 21403. Theyoften are found at art stores that sell kaleidoscopes.

MIRROR IMAGES // A fond look at kaleidoscopes

Kaleidoscope! There's magic in the very name of this instrumentin which images form, reform and disappear, then are reborn inever-changing combinations of color and light.

What child hasn't loved playing with a kaleidoscope. What adulthasn't waited until no one is looking to peer through a long, slendertube at images from yesteryear.

As I write this, I pause every few minutes to manipulate thecardboard kaleidoscope a colleague whipped out of a desk drawer whenshe heard me rhapsodizing about the image-making device invented in1816 by Sir David Brewster, a Scottish scientist.

Brewster joined two mirrors at an angle inside a long tube withan eyepiece at one end and two circles of glass at the other, theninserted bits of colored glass between the two circles. Lookthrough the eyepiece and you see the pattern formed by the bits ofglass, with additional symmetrical images formed by reflectionbetween the mirrors. The angle at which the mirrors is setdetermines the number of images that combine to form the pattern.

Millions of children still play with dime store cardboardversions of Brewster's invention. The big news today is theemergence of the kaleidoscope as an artist-made adult toy costinganywhere from $50 to $5,000.

Their cases are stained glass, brass or wood. They may formpatterns with bits of colored glass, or with tiny glass tubes filledwith colored oils. Or they may replace the traditional object case(the end of the tube where the colored glass bits tumble around) withan externally mounted revolving wheel of stained glass. The fancierones may have three, four or five mirrors multiplying their images.

Then there's the teleidoscope. It replaces the object case witha clear or mottled marble at the far end of the tube. Images areformed by multiplied reflections of the world around you. Avariation on this is a little tube with a faceted clear lens thatgives multiple images of its environment.

Artist Sherry Moser of Duluth, Ga., makes a kaleidoscope for$255 that comes with a little flashlight at the end to provideflashing light effects.

Judy Kaponia stocks handmade kaleidoscopes by 30 artists in hershop, The Artists' Works, in Naperville. She said two-mirror scopesgive you a single image or star, called a mandala, the Hindu wordsymbolizing the universe. Three mirrors produce a honeycomb pattern.She has a four-mirror teleidoscope that makes things look like aquilt pattern.

This year's hot seller in the machine-made category is theIllusion by WildeWood Creative Products, Kaponia said. Instead of anobject case, it has a long, narrow acrylic wand clamped at the end ofthe scope. Star sequins and other glitter material suspended in oilmove up and down the wand, their images multiplied in the mirrorsinside the scope. It sells for $34.25.

The most expensive kaleidoscope in her stock is a $450 replicaof one made in 1873 by Charles Bush of Rhode Island. It's black, hastiny brass spindles at the end for spinning the object case, and ithouses tiny clear glass ampules of colored oil. A slow-motion effectis achieved by the movement of the oil.

Inventors tried for years to suspend objects in an oil-filledcase, but with unhappy results. "Oil-filled object cases tended toleak, until the invention of silicon glue," Kaponia said.

Moser makes many scopes with cases of stained glass. She was anurse, dabbling in stained glass as a hobby, when she rediscoveredkaleidoscopes and took up their creation as her life's work.

The conversion from hobby to business came when she met CozyBaker, the doyenne of the kaleidoscope world. Baker spread the wordabout Moser at art galleries and "since that time I have never had tosolicit any business," Moser said.

Anyone who makes, collects or sells kaleidoscopes knows Baker,who became enamored of artist scopes when she saw her first one at acraft show in Tennessee eight years ago. Baker had to have theseller sneak the scope into her shopping bag to avoid the scorn of acompanion who had scolded, "You're not going to pay $82 for a toy!"

Baker now owns hundreds of kaleidoscopes, including the world'slargest, a 12-foot-long wood-cased monster created by Al Brickel ofCleveland for a bar that went broke. She created the BrewsterSociety to bring kaleidoscope lovers together and writes a quarterlynewsletter called the Brewster Society News Scope. She also haspublished books on kaleidoscopes, and recently organized a travelingexhibit of scopes.

The newsletter, $25 a year, and her latest books, Through theKaleidoscope and Beyond and Kaleidorama, each $20 and published byBeechcraft books, may be ordered by writing to Baker at the BrewsterSociety, 100 Severn Ave., Suite 605, Annapolis, Md. 21403. Theyoften are found at art stores that sell kaleidoscopes.