KENNEBUNK, Maine — Deep in the heart of winter, inside Sue Rioux’s studio, bright flowers bloom, green frogs swim, yellow chicks appear, even lobsters frisk about. Holding her kaleidoscopes to one’s eye, worlds of color and magic unfolds.
Light-years beyond gimcrackery, her medium, kaleidoscopes, are as intricate as epic stained glass windows in the storied cathedrals of the world.
“In my mind I see a sunset, light off the water or sea smoke,” said the Bangor native, who dreams in color and sees reflections in snowbanks. “I can see it finished and I make it.”
In her compact studio in Kennebunk’s Lower Village, a kiln and trays of dichroic glass, beads, cutters and stacked mirrors await her next optical dreamscape.
Her craft is a fusion of art and science. The precision of angles, light rays and components all come together in these objets d’art. “I know what colors to use for certain patterns. My mind is constantly thinking.”
Kaleidoscope comes from the Greek words for beautiful and form and scope, to see. The device was invented in 1816 by Sir David Brewster. Of course today there is an app for that, but Rioux scoffs at turning her tactile craft digital. “I wish every kid walking around with an iPhone would walk around with a kaleidoscope in their hands.”
As the Japanese, who have a deep fondness for artistic scopes, know, “kaleidoscopes create a soothing feeling,” she said. “Japanese hold relaxation and happiness in high regard.” And they are some of her top collectors.
In cylinders or test tubes affixed to the end of glass tubes or rectilinear vessels, a sea of dichroic glass and colored baubles fuse together in passing forms. Some float freely in a sea of glycerin like a lava lamp. Turn a hand crank or turn it upside down, and the glass “transmits one color and reflects another.” Mirrors lining the scope produce changing symmetric patterns visible through an eye hole when the tube rotates.
Though many of us remember kaleidoscopes from grade school, hers are octaves above.
“It’s not a toy, it’s art,” she said. “People do need art, they just don’t know they do.” Standing on their own as visual jewels, “the outside of my scopes have to be as beautiful as the inside.”
After graduating from Bangor High School in 1974, Rioux didn’t apply to art school. Instead she bought a ticket to the West Coast and enrolled in the “school of figure it out.”
While working at a San Diego sculpture cooperative, she discovered stained glass and recognized a love and aptitude that would carry her for life. “I love what I do. That helps. I don’t consider it work.”
A stained glass artist for years, Rioux’s work can be seen in a chapel in Biddeford as well as in author Stephen King’s Bangor manse.
Turning to kaleidoscopes full time in 1993, Rioux’s sophisticated scopes landed in museum collections from New York to Canada to Japan.
Though she teaches classes on kaleidoscope making, it’s not a simple art.
“You have to have that perfection gene,” she said. “There are no seconds.”
Is this an antiquated pastime? A dusty throwback from another era? Not to the girl with kaleidoscope eyes.
“It’s something whose time has come again,” said Rioux. “With so much happening in the world right now, how can you not be happy when you use a kaleidoscope?”
