There are 4 related Webseums on this site: The Holography Museum, The Laser Museum, The Photography Museum, and the Optical Demonstration Museum. No need to pay admission, just click on one of the above for edutainment!
I have compiled a time line on Chicago's own Gallery 1134 in the Holography Museum, along with a time line on one man's attempts to revive it.
NEW! EXCAVATIONS! (March 2017)
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 as a matter of expediency.
LARRY ZGODA DIGS (1998-2016)
What is an excavation of an artist’s studio doing in an optics museum? Larry Zgoda is one of my best friends forever, having met him when we were both working at the infamous Fine Arts Research and Holographic Center, better known as Gallery 1134. We both survived that place and the ‘80’s and all the rest in-between and in the meantime Larry has evolved into the stained glass artist who is the one all the others emulate. He is the one who calls his Home + Studio "The Digs", whereas I call mine "The Crib".
The Photo Gallery is a cavalcade of photographs I had taken from approximately 1998 to 2016 at Larry’s Studio on Irving Park Road in Chicago, then at the Home + Studio of Larry and his wife Joan on Oakley off of Irving Park Road.
Images of workspaces, works in progress, household furnishings, backyards and birdbaths bring forth reminisces of these magical places.
This set of images was burned to disc and presented as a gift to all the members in good standing of the Tribe of the Trouser Trout at their 2017 Saturnalia. They are in no particular order as they don’t need to be, so just enjoy a trip into these magical workspaces and unconventional compositions.
Larry's Comments:
Ed,
Thanks for putting together the photo collection. It's fascinating to see how things evolve and change. Many objects have been turned into other things: some have gone away, replaced by better and more visually interesting objects.
Best wishes,
Larry
Click here for the photo gallery.
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.)