Let Us Help One Another

In the hope of both illustrating and to some small extent alleviating this circumstance, I offer the record of my own first, plodding steps from laser boxes to laser sculptures. This writing marks the start of my sixth year of study in the field of holography . I have lacked the luxury of funds for travelling to workshops and seminars geared to keeping me up to date on state-of-the-art methods and equipment. The equipment I work with is relatively unsophisticated, as I have no access to tunable lasers, pulsed lasers or high-powered lasers. I am currently limited to a 4-x-5-in format . My small holograms act as tools that, when combined with other materials , aid in the expression of an idea rather than existing as independent works of art. While pursuing a master's degree in sculpture at Tulane University, in New Orleans, Louisiana, my fascination with light and illusion resulted in large complicated structures housing mirrors, helium-neon lasers, neon tubes and smoke. I wanted to use light in a more descriptive and narrative fashion that, when combined with other sculptural elements, would interact conceptually and aesthetically . Holography seemed uniquely suited to my ideas. I started out in a building on a heavily trafficked street, in a 16-cu-ft sandbox, with homemade optical mounts, a 5-mW unpolarized heliumneon (HeNe) laser and a copy of Holography Handbook [4]. I spent a long time learning about vibrations, and months of creative problem solving and troubleshooting passed before my setup began to work. I worked with single-beam transmission holograms and reflection holograms and was achieving passable results with simple split-beam setups when I had my first show of holo-sculptures at Tulane. These consisted of somewhat primitive, backlit plaster forms with transmission holograms embedded in them. In the fall of 1987 I was enticed from my Tulane sandbox to a discarded table saw that was topped with a 3Y,/-x-5 ft, ~-in-thick metal slab topped with magnetically based optics , which was created by Bert Myers. Myers, a surgeon at the Veteran's Mfairs Medical Center (VAMC) in New Orleans, Louisiana, and professor of surgery at-Louisiana State University, was interested in three-dimensional Fig. 5. Madeleine Faust, The Serpent ,brushed-aluminum backplate, red neon tubing, black plexiglass, 21 x 13 in, 1991. This sculpture employs a small redimage hologram of a rat, seen in the serpent's belly. The neon is used to create red reflections on the brushed aluminum , (3D) imaging as a medical training tool. Together we began to build what is now the Holography Research Lab ofVAMC. We currently have two working tables (one master and one copy, both set up for 4-x-5-in format), collimating mirrors and spatial filters (necessary on all appropriate beams), high-quality optics and two 5-mW polarized HeNe lasers. Two additional 2-mW lasers are used in developing areas for viewing. Though we have made many kinds of holograms, for now we have agreed on the image-plane reflection copy setup, since this seems the most convenient and viewer-friendly. Being restricted to the small format is a severe but challenging limitation. To offset this I have increased my visual information by multiplexing and combining masters; I have extended my image area by using mosaic techniques and photo-holographic montage; and I have expanded the light and 3D effects by combining the holograms with other materials whose surface treatment and/or forms echo the holographic image. I also incorporate other light forms of like spectra. My pieces contain varying degrees of conceptual depth and utilize the holographic image in diverse ways. Often the elements within a piece act with a spontaneous synergism. At other times the hologram acts as the seed image that determines the surrounding forms. The hologram can represent a mental process or an action frozen in time; it may replace a real object or even depict spiritual substance. The Serpent utilizes a hologram to mimic an X-ray (Fig. 5). I am a beginner in this study, motivated by the endless possibilities the medium presents to me. But the need for beginners to teach themselves the technology...