Although the joint is no longer there, there may still be some knowledge gleaned from these classroom handouts!

I was the “Director of Education” for the Fine Arts Research and Holographic Center (or Gallery 1134, or 1134 for short, just look at those digits upside down on your pocket calculator for the true name of the converted casket factory) from 1980 to 1981.  Prior to that I had been a 6th, 7th  and 8th grade math teacher at a parochial school, and concurrent to FARHC I was teaching Beginning Photography (with darkroom work) for High School District 214 Continuing Education.  I used to love making handouts for classes for those students.

At 1134 I learned the pleasures of rub-off Letraset and Formaline on drop-out blue gridded paper to add graphic flair to the handouts.  Remember that this is circa 1980, and while there were some of nerds sweating over isolation tables in our basements or garages, there were other nerds sweating it out in their basements and garages over circuit boards and codes.  Desktop publishing was still a gleam in a Jobs’ eye. I would also literally cut and paste illustrations from catalogs into them like a punk rock ransom note album cover. Or in some cases draw my own illustrations, like the laughable attenpts at sine curves in Wavelength and Color!

So let us return to those thrilling days of yesteryear, when we were in awe of intra-cavity etalons, to the Teacher’s Annotated Edition of the Holography I and II classes at Gallery 1134.  Not only is there a complete set of handouts, but my notes to myself about classroom preparation for that lesson. 

The textbook for the course was “A Guide To Practical Holography” by Christopher Outwater and Eric van Hamersveld, (Pentangle Press, Beverly Hill, CA, 1974, Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 74-83824, ISBN 0914748-01-7), and the handouts were how-to supplements for the 5 sandbox isolation tables complete with 5 mW lasers and their own complete set of optics to do everything in the curriculum.  Unfortunately I have no pictures of them!  If anyone does, please let me know and we could work out something on posting them here.

I cannot take credit for all the material presented here, in about 95% of it here is a date and initial visible in the lower right hand corner that identifies it as mine.  Although after I left there, one of my friends who stayed on told me that it was her job one day to white-out all my initials and rubber stamp the 1134 logo over them a la 1984!  And the handouts were still being used up until the very last session of classes there, with the teacher not knowing who made them up!  At least they didn’t try to take credit for writing them!
 
At the time of their inception, 1134 did not have a copier.  I had to call up the mysterious “Ellie” (friend or relative of Loren Billings, it was never made clear) who worked in the City of Chicago Traffic Court Building for an even more mysterious “Mr. Smith”, drive over to drop off the masters and a day or so later pick them up.  Yet another one of the Billingses penny-pinching schemes!  Great use of the taxpayers’ money!