![]() ![]() “Next year’s convention is in Kyoto, Japan. Their craftmanship is exquisite,” says Hirtzel. A large number of our members are from Japan because they’re very artistic people. “We have workshops, classes and a hands-on building of a scope. In the past, he has attended the group’s annual conventions where about 150 artists and collectors gather to share ideas and “scopes,” Each meeting starts with the singing of a “kaleidoscope song,” written by one of the members. Hirtzel is a 15-year member of the Brewster Kaleidoscope Society (), an international group consisting of artists who design and create kaleidoscopes, interested galleries, shops, collectors and museums. “We work with glass, but we use a lot of different objects in the chamber, mostly colorful beads, scraps of glass and small objects with color, and when you look at them through the scope in the object chamber, they become an organized pattern, and each (kaleidoscope) is different as long as the objects in the chamber are different.” “A kaleidoscope is almost a metaphor in that it takes bits and pieces of glass and you look at them through mirrors and they become beautiful patterns,” he remarks. The Farmington resident says, “I think some people just aren’t aware that there’s a whole world of kaleidoscope makers.” As an active part of that world, Hirtzel spends every Monday morning at the Livonia Senior Center (15218 Farmington, Livonia) teaching others the joy of kaleidoscope-making, an art form believed to have started more than 200 years ago in Scotland by Sir David Brewster. The word “toy” is often associated with the term “kaleidoscope,” but John Hirtzel, an artist who’s been crafting the glass filled tubular instruments for the past 20 years, refuses to believe that’s how most people view them. ![]()
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