• Henry Burgles with his scope
• Image seen in Henry's scope
• Student building a new scope

MIKE: Travel Interstate 35 through Minneapolis, Minnesota in late summer and you can attend a convention for those who create and those who collect Kaleidoscopes.

MIKE: I haven’t looked through a Kaleidoscope since childhood. The last one I can remember holding was a cheap cardboard tube that came out of a cereal box. In the years since, kaleidoscopes have done a lot of growing up. For the artists who build them and the hobbyists who collect them, today’s instruments are far more than mere child’s play.

SFX: Crowd exclaiming over one of Henry Bergelson’s new scopes

MIKE: At a recent convention of the KaleidoClub held in Minneapolis, Henry Bergeleson was just one of several kaleidoscope artists unveiling their latest creations for admiring fans. Mr Bergelson’s scopes are constructed out of rare woods carved into fantastic shapes. His most popular new creation looks like some kind of futuristic spacecraft and was formed using a high tech computer controlled router.

BERGELSON : "I have gotten into using a machine called the C & C router in programming these shapes in, and trying to sort out how to create these surfaces, which has opened up a whole new thing for me, and has allowed me to do inlays like that, and get all these weird shapes that tie together, which is something I’ve never been able to do with wood before."

MIKE: Kaleidoscopes have gotten more complex on the inside as well. Modern scopes can incorporate multifaceted lenses and lasers that render three-dimensional shapes. Objects viewed through state-of-the-art scopes can vary from high tech glass chips to oil filled marbles the size of a grapefruit. Instruments can vary widely in size also. Collector Debbie Leroy describes just two of the more than two hundred scopes in her collection

LEROY : "They range from very small necklace kaleidoscope with glass beads design on it, to my largest one at this point, which is a Will Smith ‘Fountain of Oz’, which stands about four feet tall, and has two kaleidoscopes pointing into the center at a marble that’s turned by the water bubbling up through the center, and then the water flows down."

MIKE: New scopes can cost hundreds, even thousands of dollars. Antique Kaleidoscopes are routinely sold at auction for tens of thousands of dollars. Artist Scott Cole says the instrument’s inventor would be pleased to know that his creation lived up to his high expectations.

COLE : "The Scotsman that invented the kaleidoscope in the early 1800’s, his name is Sir David Brewster; he was a physician and minister and amateur physicist. He thought it would revolutionize art and architecture and physics; it was actually a physics project that it came out of. He was studying the properties of light."

MIKE: South African collector Bonnie Kneeknober believes that, while Kaleidoscopes may be getting technically more complex, the reason for their growing popularity is simple.

BONNIE : "I think it’s that amazement feeling from when you were a little child, and you discover something for the first time. Every time you look in a ‘scope, you get a different picture, so it’s like this continuous different patterns. It’s soothing to the soul."

MIKE: "Soothing…" is a theme I heard time and again during the convention. Every artist and collector I spoke to mentioned how relaxing it is to view the bright, beautiful and ever changing patterns created by kaleidoscopes. Debbe LeRoy is a computer programmer working in a stressful environment.

LEROY : "When I wake up in the morning, it’s just a calm, peaceful moment to look through the ‘scopes, and relax, and get ready for the day, because my job can be pretty hectic. And I actually took a few scopes to work, too. That’s a nice little break, very peaceful. They just calm you right down."

MIKE: Author Cozy Baker began collecting scopes following the tragic death of a son to help relieve her depression. She notes that kaleidoscopes are now being used widely in therapy.

BAKER : There are quite a few hospice groups and cancer clinics using them. And psychiatrists and different people. In fact in Japan, they’re having some serious studies right now on how they actually reduce stress. And not just a casual observance. They’re studying how many times the eye blinks while people look through it. How many breaths one takes. So it’s definitely very therapeutic and healing.

MIKE: Those healing properties were nearly lost before found late last century. By the 1970’s very few new kaleidoscopes were being built. Cozy Baker says American interest in crafts of all kinds revived the art beginning in the early eighties.

BAKER : "It’s interesting that while the kaleidoscope was invented in Scotland and was popular in Europe about fifty years before it became popular over here, that it’s only here in America that this renaissance is taking place. Well, I shouldn’t say only now, because Japan has some people making wonderful ‘scopes, but the renaissance itself is completely American."

MIKE: Artist Kay Winkler says that an unusual partnership between artists, retailers and collectors may well push that renaissance beyond American shores. Named for the instrument’s inventor, the Brewster Society now has members worldwide.

WINKLER : "And we have a convention every year in a different city, and have really great attendance. And everybody sees all the new kaleidoscopes that are unveiled for the year that the artists have made and present for your appreciation, which is really terrific. You have the opportunity to purchase directly from the artist, which is wonderful, because they can tell you about their ‘scope, and what they do, and how they’ve done it. They do such unusual things that it’s just a treat to go and see what they’ve made."

SFX: Convention floor noise up, then down and under to…