ART : OUT OF THIN GLASS : Fullerton Exhibit Patterns Itself After Kaleidoscopes With an Array of Colors and Shapes

We’ve all played with kaleidoscopes before, especially those cheap ones with the cardboard tubes and the bits of colored plastic. Put one end to your eye and turn the other end with your hand-- oooh, look at the pretty patterns!

Most of us put the toys aside when we were no longer kids, or after stepping away from our more popular hippie attachments like tinted granny glasses and statuesque bong pipes. But not so for the 39 artists who make up half of the 21st Anniversary Glass and Kaleidoscope Celebration exhibit at the Eileen Kremen Gallery in Fullerton.

Over the years, their mild interest in the small shape-shifters has turned into a compelling fascination, with elaborate craftsmanship entering the picture. Their kaleidoscopes are made of wood, glass and metals, much the same materials used for the first ones created during the early 1800s. A British scientist, Sir David Brewster, invented the kaleidoscope in 1816.

A focal point of the show--which also includes sculpture, vases, bowls and other pieces by glass artisans--is Steven Gray’s “Carousel,” an 18-inch-tall kaleidoscope made of carved walnut and ebony. A smooth telescope sits above a plate of wood decorated with abstract designs and spinning around a cone featuring a snaking pattern. Gaze through the eyepiece and a whirl of shapes can be seen.

Gray, who has won national awards for the ingenuity of his designs, said he’s been drawn to kaleidoscopes since childhood. His interest in woodworking also started young, back in his grandfather’s workshop, where Gray made his first simple carvings. He explained that his ongoing attraction to kaleidoscopes comes from their universal appeal.

“Kaleidoscopes do not seem to attract a singular group or personality type but are enjoyed by young and old, the quiet and the boisterous, the non-affluent and the well-to-do,” he said. “Nearly every person (is) excited by a scope’s captivating powers.”

Don Doak, whose “Liquid Wheel” kaleidoscope is made of black iridescent glass and leaded silver, agreed with Gray but took the appeal to a more romanticized, philosophical level. People like scopes, he offered, because they identify with them.

“We, like the seemingly meaningless pieces of shattered, splintered, imperfect glass in the object box, fit together perfectly to form a more beautiful picture than any one piece ever could by itself,” Doak writes in his artist’s statement accompanying his piece. “That each of us, flawed as we may be, is essential to the overall mosaic image called humanity.”

Although Doak’s kaleidoscopes tend to be small (the “Liquid Wheel” is nine inches long, with the patterned, triangular viewing stem attached to the six-sided, glass-filled object box), he talks of someday building a giant scope that viewers could walk into. Called a KaleidoSphere, it would be a geodesic dome “structured of mirrors containing a second inner sculpture of moving light and color.”

Gallery owner Kremen, who also curated the show, said the mechanical cleverness of the kaleidoscopes should intrigue visitors, but they’re not the exhibit’s sole appeal. Kremen, a long-time collector of glass objects who has emphasized them in her gallery for more than 20 years, said she’s also put together a diverse grouping of more stationary pieces.

For example, there’s William Kasper’s “Cosmos, I,” a roundish, hand-blown vase standing less than a foot high. With its blues, greens and yellows colliding against a mottled surface, it looks like a tilted planet.

Even more abstract in design are Zoe Adorno’s untitled sculptures of kiln-cast and hand-formed glass. These flowing, spiral-shaped objects, about 18 inches tall, look soft and liquid, colored by muted, almost smoky hues of turquoise and emerald.

The work of Kasper and Adorno can be contrasted with that of Marialyce Hawke, who specializes in engraved glass and cameo pieces. Her untitled, delicate bowl features engraved cameo designs with an Art Nouveau style, giving an impression of gently whirling petals and leaves.

* What: 21st Anniversary Glass and Kaleidoscope Celebration.

* When: Tuesdays through Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., through March 14.

* Where: Eileen Kremen Gallery, 619 N. Harbor Blvd., Fullerton.

* Whereabouts: Take the 91 (Riverside Freeway) to Harbor Boulevard and head north.

* Wherewithal: Admission is FREE.

* Where to call: (714) 879-1391.

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