The Chronoscope

soft maple, mirrored paper, plexiglass, sequins, beads, glue, balsa wood (2021)

The Chronoscope began as a hopeful fishbowl shaped lamp with colorful tissue paper fish swimming inside, but as I encountered various obstacles, the starry, clock-themed kaleidoscope came to be.  I am much happier with the concept behind the final product than the original idea and it goes to show artisitc improvisation has the potential to yield far greater ideas.  

The vision for a kaleidoscope arose when all I had was a nearly impenetrable cylinder that I knew had to be the base of whatever I chose to make.  I have always loved kaleidescopes and they have been influential in my abstract drawings in the past.  When you look through the tiny peephole you see a whole new universe; a scene simultaneously familiar and alien.  I liked the idea of having a hidden kalediscope to draw the viewer into the piece, so I made a cover for one end, and disguised the other side as a clock.  Coincidentally, the cover sits at a similar tilt of degree as the Earth on its axis which is the optimum position to stablize the pins.  At first sight one might see a telescope-type device or a strange clock, but when you “detach yourself from Earth” and take a look “through time” you see a starry sky inspired by the universe card from the Aleistar Crowley tarot deck.  

There is nothing like a clear starry night sky to remind me of my infinitely small existence on a speck of space dust. For me personally, a circle is the most sacred shape because of its lack of sides, beginning or ending, and its symmetry from any point.  With each turn of the kaleidoscope there is a unique pattern of stars, yet there is no physical change in the sculpture.  It is everychanging within but never changing from afar much like the universe.  We watch the sun and moon rise and set each day yet the progression of time from the theoretically farthest observable point in the universe is negligible.