Bicycle Art as my job

Kaleidopete

Kaleidopete

Well-Known Member
For the last 22 years my wife and I have made jewelry, art sculptures, and kaleidoscopes for a living. Now that we hit 70 years old last year we retired as of December 2014. We sold to art galleries and stores all over the world.
Here are some examples of kaleidoscopes we've made that were bicycle related. We hope you enjoy looking at them

photobucket killed my photos, I'll have to fix that.

Springy17.jpg
Bikemary01.jpg
Bikemary02.jpg
Bikemary04.jpg
Desk161.jpg
Desk420.jpg
Desk421a.jpg
rockss001.jpg
rockss003.jpg
Desk368.jpg
 
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This is great, really dig some of this stuff. Clap clap clap clap clap!
 
These are things we made over the years and they're all sold.
I can't even guess how many we've made over the years! We just thought the "bikers" would like seeing this strange bike art. We've made things with car parts, motorcycle parts, glass and metal mix and large five foot tall kaleidoscope sculptures. We still have some things available on our website.
 
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Very cool - I was wondering where the name "kaleidopete" came from. So this was a semi-retirement gig from age 50-70? I'm planning on bailing from the world of working next year and looking for things to do besides riding, running, golfing, fishing, hunting, working on an old muscle car, etc
 
rick81721 said:
Very cool - I was wondering where the name "kaleidopete" came from. So this was a semi-retirement gig from age 50-70? I'm planning on bailing from the world of working next year and looking for things to do besides riding, running, golfing, fishing, hunting, working on an old muscle car, etc
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Not really semi-retirement. I lost my good job in 1990 and that gave me a year unemployment to figure something else out. My wife collected kaleidoscopes and I said "I can do that". So we put the business in her name and we went to work as a team. We had great new ideas for kaleidoscopes and we were a big hit and were able to make a living, pay the bills and even afford $900 a month for health care. Now after 20+ years I got a bicycle ( haven't ridden since 1957), and I hike daily and do whatever the hell I want. Nice way to finish up a life, I think.
Thanks for asking, hope I didn't bore you.
 
best story ever! Nice work Peter & Skeeter!

Do you submit on public art proposals?
 
Kaleidopete said:
I'm not sure what you mean, what did you have in mind?
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Say the children's hospital is looking for a focal piece in a waiting area - they often put them out for public proposals.
so a concept is developed, they move some of the concepts to a more official proposal, and they pick one. Also municipal
parks/buildings, etc...

looks like the WTC piece was commissioned, rather then open proposal???

Friend of mine in CO has done quite a bit that way. http://marywilliamsart.com/
 
fidodie said:
Say the children's hospital is looking for a focal piece in a waiting area - they often put them out for public proposals.
so a concept is developed, they move some of the concepts to a more official proposal, and they pick one. Also municipal
parks/buildings, etc...

looks like the WTC piece was commissioned, rather then open proposal???

Yes, the WTC was commissioned. At this time we are retired and not really interested in another large project. Thanks for the suggestion though. Right now, to keep busy, I do custom things for individuals, like little desktop kaleidoscopes using their own parts.
Click to expand...
 
Yes, the WTC was commissioned. We are retired now and only do custom art kaleidoscopes that use unusual parts sent to us. You can see the examples above.
 
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