MOUNT HOLYMPUS:
A compendium of memories of some of the deities and heroes inhabiting the lofty heights of holography.
HOLOGRAPHIC ARTISTS, A through Z
When I taught the Holography Classes at the School of the Art Institue of Chicago, I would show the classes slides that I had made of practically every artist of note in that day and age, the slides being shot of images in books or from the actual holograms as I had witnessed them in exhibitions. This is a Beta version, please be patient.
HISTORY ARCHIVES:
After having excavated The Museum of Holography/Chicago, aka The Fine Arts Research and Holographic Center, originally Gallery 1134, the HOLOGRAPHY MUSEUM of the web site of The Home + Studio of E. Wesly & Sons presents more than you would ever like to know about Gallery 1134.
ARTIFACTS:
What were once the mainstay business of holographic boutiques and museums, 4" by 5" stock images, are surveyed in this page. (February 2022)
And another crowd pleaser in the holo-shoppes were dubbed dichromates, and their story is here. (February 2022)
Here is a Slide Show survey of all sorts of holographic recording materials' packages, from Agfa to Ultimate! (December 2013)
Light Dimensions was an "Exhibition of the Evolution of Holography". held at the Science Museum, from December 1983 to March 1984. Here are its tri-fold colour brochure, and 25 pence Exhibition Guide.
Laser Technology, Inc. of Norristown, Pennsylvania was started by John Newman, a graduate of Lake Forest College and student of Dr. Tung Jeong. Here is the state of the art of his Holographic Non-Destructive Equipment in a Product Information Brochure, circa 1983.
Holographers' Business Cards, and other folk I have met who are involved with lasers, the arts, etc. These are cards handed to me, do I have yours?
GALLERIES:
ART EXHIBITION at the FIRST INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON DISPLAY HOLOGRAPHY (June/July 1982)
This art exhibition was assembled ad hoc with pieces loaned from the Museum of Holography and those that artists and scientists brought with them. A catalog was published with a checklist of the exhibition plus a reprint of Dr. Jeong’s Optical Spectra Encyclopedia article on holography, available here in a set with three other LFC ISDH catalogs, or here as part of a set of 4 exhibition catalogs and 4 proceedings from these symposia. It has an op-art style cover designed by Michael Croydon, consisting of two sheets, one on transparent stock with a set of radial lines, the lower sheet on metallic stock with similar lines so the two together make some interesting moiré interference patterns.
This pdf Slide Show was compiled from slides taken by yours truly and scanned hastily, please excuse the black dust marks. The order of presentation of the holograms matches their order in the catalog. Not all holograms in the exhibit are in this slide show. Switch to Full Screen Mode in your pdf reader for maximum viewing pleasure.
ART EXHIBITION at the SECOND INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON DISPLAY HOLOGRAPHY (June/July 1985)
This show was juried, with the pieces arriving in a more or less leisurely fashion for the show to open on time. A Lake Forest College Holography Workshop Student Worker, Bennett J. Feferman, made B&W prints from the slides which were sent in for the jury, so the catalog has photographs of almost every piece except for 6 out of 64. Unfortunately I only have slides of 16 of those pieces in the pdf Slide Show, so you better get the new old stock catalog with the op art cover by Michael Croydon here, in a set with three other LFC ISDH catalogs, or here as part of a set of 4 exhibition catalogs and 4 proceedings from these symposia. Here are the color shots in pdf Slide Show format.
ART EXHIBITION at the THIRD INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON DISPLAY HOLOGRAPHY (June/July 1988)
Another juried show, and the largest to date. The pdf Slide Show covers the exhibit completely, and the catalog does as well, available here,
or here as part of a set of 4 exhibition catalogs and 4 proceedings from these symposia.
ART EXHIBITION at the FOURTH INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON DISPLAY HOLOGRAPHY (June/July 1991)
Another juried show, even larger than the last one!
The pdf Slide Show covers the exhibit completely, and the catalog does as well, available here, or here as part of a set of 4 exhibition catalogs and 4 proceedings from these symposia.
ART EXHIBITION at the ELEVENTH INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON DISPLAY HOLOGRAPHY (June/July 2018)
This show was juried, and 30 pieces were to be shown. The organizers promised to pay for shipping and insurance on the accepted pieces, however they reneged, so the show consisted of about 2 dozen pieces that artists brought with them, and then took back with them at the end of the conference, except for a few which were left behind to be on exhibit until September, and then to be picked up by the artist or shipped back at their own expense. (My bargain basement solution: donate the piece to the college!) This pdf Slide Show covers as many of the pieces that were on display on the last day of the conference.
HOLOGRAMS IN THE DR. TUNG JEONG COLLECTION AT LAKE FOREST COLLEGE:
When cleaning out the basement Holo Lab in 2016, I also photographed a lot of TJ's collection for the College's archives. Here is the pdf Slide Show of these pieces. 2019 Update: here are my snapshots of the revamped Hologram Hallway, and even better, Zoe Darlington's Senior Thesis on the Curation of the Gallery.
HOLOGRAPHIC ARTWORKS by REBECCA DEEM
Click here for a Memorial pdf Slide Show of scans of all the slides I have of her art pieces, in a variety of venues
HOLOGRAPHIC ARTWORKS by ED WESLY
Click here for something special!
OTHER HOLOGRAPHIC ARTWORK GALLERY LINKS:
Hans Bjelkhagen: Hans has been working in the field for about 50 years, and is a dedicated scholar and collector of all things holographic, which you can see at the most appropriate URL, hansholo.com.
Walter Clark: His Global Images company produced commercial holograms, but also supported the artists by putting his money where his mouth is and collecting them!
Holocenter: Possibly the only active gallery dedicated to holography in the States!
Sarah Gardner: She designed a comp book for an imaginary holography museum, very nice work!
Jonathan Ross: One of the biggest collections in the world!
HOLOGRAPHIC ARTISTS'S WEB SITES:
Rudie Berkhout: In everybody's Top Ten favorite holographic artists list, this site is a quite complete listing of his accomplishments.
Mark Diamond: More than 40 years experience in his body of work, producing holograms and archiving its history, see his Holoroids of the Gods of Mt. Holympus and us mere mortals! And here he interviews yours truly!
John Fairstein: A witness to the wild and woolly and heady days of the Multiplex Company.
Al Razutis: How could one not check out a site with the URL of Visual Alchemy? Also includes work by Sharon MacCormack.
Jason Sapan: Known as Dr. Laser in the trade, as he did go to openings at the New York Museum of Holography dressed as Dr. Laser, complete with cape. Celebrating 50 years as a paid professional working in the field in 2018, he is the Mathew Brady of the medium, with portraits he has taken of everyone from Bill Clinton to Andy Warhol!
Matthew Schreiber: One of my students, who made a name for himself in the field working for "The c Project" and laser sculptures.
EXCAVATIONS:
Real museums send their archaeologists and paleontologists out into the field to dig for artifacts buried for centuries or millennia or whatever the word is for millions of years. Here are some “excavations” that this museum has made, in pdf Slide Show format.
LAKE FOREST COLLEGE, 1982 to 1993:
I worked for Dr Jeong's Annual Summer Holography Workshops and International Symposia on Display Holography and as a Research Associate during that time. There is no Slide Show yet, as I have to sort through hundreds of analog Ektachrome and Kodachrome slides and scan them, so don't hold your breath waiting for it, but do enjoy the two below, which are from the digital photography age.
LAKE FOREST COLLEGE, FALL 2008:
Dr. Jeong was at a barbecue at the Home + Studio of E. Wesly & Sons and mentioned that he had to clear out a lab at Lake Forest College and find a home for all the stuff. I asked if one of my garages would do, and that formed the backbone of my Holo-Studio! Here is a pdf Slide Show of the state of one of the basement labs at that time. It was named the Anait Laboratory for Pulsed Holography when she donated the laser to the College.
It was very surreal to go to this lab that I had left 15 years previously and found items like trays and boxes marked with my own holograph (samples of writing in one's own hand)! But thanks again, TJ, for the opportunities! And yes, this equipment is still in use!
LAKE FOREST COLLEGE, FALL 2016:
After TJ passed away, Mike Kash, chair of the LFC physics department, asked me if I would like to take the rest of the stuff in lab I had worked in during the 1980's and '90's that he wasn't going to use, so that was added to the above! Here are the last views of this lab, click here to see their present home.
EL-DON ENGINEERING (June 2014)
It would be hard to find any holographer's Spectra-Physics Model 125 Helium-Neon laser that didn't pass through the doors of 4829 Platt Road, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA at one time or another for a shot of gas and a thorough tweak at the hands of a man who was there at the dawn of the lasers and holography age, Don Gillespie. He knows these beasts inside and out, as he was the one who designed any serious competition to the fabled S-P Model 120 series He-Ne line up of yore.
Here is a photo gallery of the contents of the shop as taken by yours truly when Hans Bjelkhagen and I were visiting the Detroit area for Hans's beloved Fairlane Fest in June of 2014. A no particular order walk around of 7 or 8 decades of laser and radio tubes and other beloved tinkerer's what-nots. All that's missing is Don describing what you're seeing. (All photos credit Ed Wesly except for the one he is in, credit Hans Bjelkhagen.)
GALLERY 1134 (January 2011):
Here is a walkthrough of 1134 West Washington Boulevard, the former Museum of Holography/Chicago, aka the more pretentious Fine Arts Research and Holographic Center, but better know in these parts by its original name, Gallery 1134, as those digits upside down on your pocket calculator are a more accurate description of the place.
I had been asked by Hans Bjelkhagen to present an up to date report on the place for the annual meeting of the Holography Working Group at SPIE's Photonics West Conference in February 2011. I contacted Terry Kasprzak, Loren Billings's son, and he graciously consented to allow myself and Victor Heredia, who had built most of the equipment, and had not been back in that building since he had left there in 1981, to document the site.
FERMI NATIONAL ACCELERATOR LABORATORY 15 FOOT BUBBLE CHAMBER HOLOGRAPHY LASER ROOM (ca. 1985 with some 21st Century updates)
Home of bisons, which live in the middle of the accelerator ring, a structure large enough to be seen from space, and the largest ruby laser ever built for holography, the one and only JK HLS-5, pumping out more than 25 Joules! Hans Bjelkhagen hired me to be his assistant there, and it was one heck of an adventure! Here is a slide show of the laser's abode, and even further down the beam line. And here is the truth about Bubble Chamber Holography at FermiLab.
SCHOOL OF THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO HOLOGRAPHY STUDIO B013:
I taught Beginning and Advanced Holography there from Spring of 1986 to Summer of 1997. Here are some memorabilia of those years.
ODDBALL STUFF:
For whatever reason, I have uploaded these pdf's to this web site:
ACOUSTICAL HOLOGRAPHY, Alexander F. Metherell, Scientific American, October, 1969.
ULTRASONIC HOLOGRAPHY FINDS HIDDEN FLAWS INSIDE PRODUCTS, Product Engineering, November 17, 1969.
ATARI UNVEILS COSMOS, A HOLOGRAPHIC GAME SYSTEM, holosphere, Volume 10, Number 3, March 1981.