Remember that rush of excitement from opening your childhood holiday gifts? A family favorite has always been the kaleidoscope. When you looked through the lens, the beautiful mandala patterns were mesmerizing, captivating the young eye. It felt like you were in another world for a moment. Today’s woman dreamer, Brenda Hedden, turned her childhood passion into her own kaleidoscope business, and also combined her love for kaleidoscopes with teaching and art. The Girl with the Kaleidoscope Eyes, Brenda Hedden shares her wonderful story with us.

My father gave me my first kaleidoscope when I was seven. I was enthralled with the designs and full of curiosity as to how it was made, so I hid under my bed and took it apart! Fortunately, my father helped me put it back together in his workshop. I continued collecting scopes throughout my young life. I just loved the colorful designs and often wondered how many times I’d have to turn it to get the same pattern again. As an adult, when learning how to work with stained glass, I made a marble kaleidoscope. That was in the early 80’s and I’ve been collecting and making them ever since (I have over 40 so far!). I love making personalized scopes with friends for gifts, with objects important to the recipient: a child’s tooth, acupuncture needles, a baby’s ring, charms, jewelry pieces, beads, …you name it.

Sir David Brewster, a Scottish physicist, invented the kaleidoscope in 1816. He named it using three Greek words: kalos (beautiful), eidos (form/shape), and skopeo (to see/look). Cozy Baker, a curator and author, started The Brewster Kaleidoscope Society in 1986 with annual conventions throughout America and most recently in Japan. Kaleidoscopes come in many styles: hand-held, parlor or table, jewelry, sculptural, architectural, projection, and high-tech.

The mandala designs they create are found in most cultures around the world. They are often a metaphor for the cycle of life; how all entities move toward and away from each other, combining with others and affecting one another in a variety of ways.

After 37 years of teaching literacy and special needs in CT and MA, I “retired”. I combined my love of kaleidoscopes with teaching by volunteering at Wheelock College to mentor an art teacher in Boston. For her 3D project, her 265 students in 6th-8th grade made their own kaleidoscopes while also learning some history, science, technology, language, engineering, & math. Only three students had ever heard of a kaleidoscope, so it was a unique, learning experience! I went on to do more STEM projects in other Boston schools.

Art Week in Boston was a major project for my team, The Girl with Kaleidoscope Eyes. We set up four sculptures on the Greenway and hundreds of people from many cultures and all ages participated in sharing this unusual visual experience. I’ve taken these sculptures to art shows in Concord and Farmers’ Markets in Ashland and Framingham to the delightful amazement of many adults and children.

As a member of the Brewster Kaleidoscope Society, I’ve done presentations at conventions to teach STEM skills to other kaleidoscope makers to use when making scopes with children/teens. At assisted living facilities, I’ve shared some of my collection with residents. They reminisced about the cardboard scopes they used to have as children, and loved seeing the newer designs/types of scopes. Japanese artist, Takaaki Sonoda, and I had arranged for him to share his Universal Magic Cube Scope project with severely ill/disabled children in Boston hospitals this June before we went to this year’s convention. He’s made over 30,000 of them in refuge camps and hospitals throughout Asia and Europe. But then Covid 19 happened and we’re all on hold for a while. Stay tuned, stay healthy, stay connected.

As few as ten pieces of glass objects can arrange themselves into 3.5 million patterns before it repeats a design. Add five more, and would be well over a trillion!