One-of-a-kind kaleidoscopes light up Eureka Springs shop
Posted on Sunday, February 19, 2006
EUREKA SPRINGS — There’s an unrequited love behind every handmade kaleidoscope in Kaleidokites, a Eureka Springs shop.
The artists often use the same high-tech metals and glazings deployed by space shuttle engineers to create kaleidoscope patterns resembling fireworks and meteors on a night sky. Yet the toys are labor-intensive and, like any Old World craft, their worth relies on the artist’s hand and mood.
The craftsmen who create the kaleidoscopes know they will never land a big break of selling their wares nationwide through a chain store. Most kaleidoscope makers who sell to Kaleidokites tell the store’s owner their artistic passion will always remain just a labor-intensive, expensive hobby.
“I think we make the one product Target and Wal-Mart probably will never be able to duplicate because there’s no way to massproduce it,” kaleidoscope maker Buzz Peine said. He sells his kaleidoscopes primarily to Kaleidokites and to a gift shop in Jerome, Ariz., a ghost town that evolved into a funky tourist stop in the mountains near Sedona.
Peine uses materials from his handyman day job to fashion kaleidoscopes that look like they once belonged to Renaissance royalty: triangular, shimmering metallic ruby-and-sapphire barrels trimmed in metallic gold ribbons.
Natural Wonders, a national chain selling science-related gifts, once offered Peine a deal “If I could make 150 kaleidoscopes monthly,” he said. “The things take two hours to make. It really wouldn’t speed the process to have more people because a handmade kaleidoscope’s worth is that it’s crafted by an individual. Honestly, I’m not sure how a chain store could market handmade kaleidoscopes.”
It’s a hurdle Kaleidokites owner Steve Rogers faces daily.
He networks at the annual convention of the Maryland-based Brewster Society, a nationwide group of more than 1, 000 kaleidoscope enthusiasts. Brewster members told Rogers some doctors buy kaleidoscopes for patients who find playing with them reduces stress.
Brewster Society co-director Sherry Moser said a lot of collectors, particularly in Japan, slap on a music CD, then use a kaleidoscope as a meditative device.
“Schools for autistic children use them in therapy,” Rogers said. “I’m not sure how you market to all those types of customers. I need to get myself into the 21 st century and build a Web site.”
All kaleidoscopes are made with an eyepiece attached to a barrel containing mirrors with an object chamber at the bottom. Twirl the kaleidoscope and the mirrors reflect the chamber objects in fragmented and complicated woven patterns.
The difference in quality between manufactured and handmade kaleidoscopes is obvious even to a casual visitor to the store: Images in the handmade kaleidoscopes are clearer, with richer colors.
Moser attributes the difference to the high-quality optical glass used by artists “to give the best reflection. A lot of artists make exotic glass beads and fragments to insert in the kaleidoscope chamber. Those materials are too expensive for mass production.”
Rogers’ store resembles a wizard’s attic.
To get there, customers enter the Basin Bath House through a door framed by garlands of white and pink tulips, then follow twinkling purple and gold strands of lights upstairs.
Huge painted kites dangle from walls. Kaleidoscopes adorned with everything from gems to ceramic calla lilies sparkle from the shelves.
Rogers does sell factory-made kaleidoscopes in addition to handmade ones.
“Don’t look at those ! They were a mistake,” Rogers pleaded when a visitor picked up a $ 6 plastic kaleidoscope. “There are better cheap, factory-made kaleidoscopes if you just want to buy a toy to keep a kid entertained.”
Peine drops Mardi Gras beads, diachronic glass glazed with a rainbow of colors, seeds, flower petals and sometimes insects into his object chambers. Once, he put fireflies in a chamber to see what images their light would make. He let them go when the insects sat still without sparkling.
Some manufactured kaleidoscopes have screens instead of eyepieces so groups can view images together. But Rogers believes the kaleidoscope’s charm is that only one person at a time can glimpse a secret, shifting world through a tiny lens.
Kaleidokites’ most spectacular kaleidoscope has two stained-glass mosaic wheels attached to a shimmering indigo barrel decorated with a tiny iron dragon holding a crystal.
Looking through the eyepiece, a customer can see cathedral rose windows blooming against fireworks.
This kaleidoscope isn’t for sale because Rogers said he has no idea how to price it. He recently saw bids for one of the artist’s more modestly designed kaleidoscopes streak past $ 800.
Rogers wonders if the artist knows his kaleidoscopes now fetch fat prices. The last he heard, the artist had retreated to a home with no phones or electrical lines on an island in the middle of the Mississippi River.
“If I were to sell this, it would go for more than $ 2, 000,” Rogers said. “It’s almost like how an artist’s work gets more valuable after he dies. A few years ago, the artist said he figured he was earning $ 2 an hour making kaleidoscopes and never made another.”
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