A Vision in 3-D : Organizer of exhibit hopes to find a permanent home in Pasadena for holograms

Canadian physicist Bill McGowan has endured all kinds of troubles since he moved to Southern California two years ago and set up what he calls “the most significant international holography exhibition of the decade.”

Thieves on four occasions stole hundreds of thousands of dollars in prized holograms--artistic and scientific photographs taken with a laser. Pickpockets twice lifted McGowan’s wallet.

“I thought of writing a book called ‘The Sabbatical in Hell,’ ” said McGowan, 59, a former university physics department chairman whose bearing calls to mind a playful Mr. Wizard.

Nonetheless, after raiding his savings and borrowing against the equity in his Canadian residence to put $300,000 of his own into the exhibit, McGowan continues to keep alive his dream: to find a permanent home for the $1.5-million display, “Images in Time & Space.”

The works in the show, ranging from depictions of Japanese dolls and Russian urns to a human heart and a postage stamp, are framed or in display cases. Through special lighting, the holograms seem to have three-dimensional depth. Before reaching Pasadena nine months ago, the exhibit was displayed in San Jose, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Santa Monica.

Since arriving in the San Gabriel Valley, McGowan, head of Associates of Science and Technology Inc., the nonprofit company that is sponsoring the show, has staged the exhibit in a Pasadena school building and at the same time worked nonstop to solicit support.

To save money, he lives in a Pasadena condominium that doubles as an office.

“The good obviously outweighs the bad, or I would have gone home with my tail between my legs,” said McGowan, who resigned as director of Ottawa’s National Museum of Science and Technology so he could shepherd his brainchild when it moved to California after successful shows in Canada. “What encourages me is the response of this community of Pasadena.”

Because of that, McGowan said, he wants to make Pasadena the permanent home of the exhibit, which has attracted almost 1 million visitors--250,000 of them in Montreal alone in a three-month period. It was scheduled for only a six-month Southern California run when it opened in 1989 at the Museum of Science and Industry in Los Angeles.

Citing its strong artistic, scientific and educational influences, McGowan says Pasadena is the right spot for his exhibit. He believes there is strong local interest in laser technology, which in addition to creating art is also responsible for such modern facts of life as security-oriented imprints on credit cards, grocery store price scanners and the vivid, high-tech images of U.S. military aircraft bombing Baghdad.

McGowan’s immediate problem, however, is where to move the show in August. Because of changes at a Pasadena Unified School District building on South Oak Knoll Avenue, the exhibit will soon lose one-third of its already-cramped exhibit space.

So McGowan is wooing “anyone who will listen” in the Pasadena area. He has talked with officials at Caltech and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and met with artists, city officials and corporate executives.

On June 26, Parsons Engineering is hosting a breakfast on behalf of the exhibit and trying to stimulate more community support for it, according to Dorn Wimmer, a Parsons vice president and director of corporate relations.

Last month, with the blessing of Parsons, McGowan set up a small exhibit in the lobby of one of the firm’s buildings. “It’s generated a lot of excitement and enthusiasm,” Wimmer said, noting that even the company’s engineers and designers versed in science marvel at the holograms.

His supporters range from top scientific figures to local teachers.

William H. Pickering, the former head of JPL who for years has advocated the creation of a Pasadena museum devoted to science, said holography could well fit into that. He said he has met with McGowan to discuss their common interests.

La Canada High School teacher Pam McMahan, who recently took her science students to the exhibit, said McGowan is a gifted instructor. “Some people with higher degrees can’t work with kids, but he’s delighted to hear the same question five or 10 times over,” she said.

McGowan said he is fueled by a sense of wonder: “Holography was always a mystery to me, so I thought I should share that mystery.”

McGowan, who sings in a South Pasadena church choir and paints, said, “One of the things that has always fascinated me is the linkage between art and science.”

He got the idea for the exhibit in 1984 while he was director of the museum in Canada. During the next three years he oversaw the work of curators who gathered holograms from 17 countries. The show went on the road about two years ago, and McGowan came to California for what was originally scheduled as a one-month stay.

McGowan, divorced 10 years ago and the father of six grown children who live in Canada, said his children often ask him, “Dad, will you stop following your dream and come back home?” He said he tells them, “Not yet.”

Fred Unterseher, who teaches holography at Pasadena City College and is a researcher at UC Santa Barbara, said McGowan is a “brilliant, driven man.”

“Bill is hooked by holography,” said Unterseher, once director of education at New York’s Museum of Holography. “I don’t know of anything else that causes people to question what they see and to think about what is the nature of seeing more than holography. It’s an extremely good jumping-off point in all directions.”

Regardless, Unterseher said, it will take a great deal to fulfill McGowan’s goal of creating a museum and establishing a place where both artists and scientists can work creating holograms. “That show wants a big space,” Unterseher said. “It should find a nice, new home, a wing in a library or museum with nice lighting.”

‘Images in Time & Space’ The exhibition of art and scientific holography is open from Thursday to Sunday through August at 377 S. Oak Knoll, Pasadena. Hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Admission is $3.50 for adults, $3 for seniors and students, $2.50 for children. Group rates are available. Information is available by calling (818) 792-7374 or (213) 483-5543. .

Selected works are also on display at Parsons Engineering’s East Annex at 75 N. Fair Oaks Ave., Pasadena, Monday through Friday, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is free.