Artist, Marie Wohadlo of Thompsonville is building a harmonograph in her front yard. But it’s hard to tell exactly what it is. She hopes that people will be curious and get out their cars to explore.
“Ideally I’d like it to be a roadside attraction," explains Marie, who says she's really into what she calls, 'the Route 66 romanticism.' "You drive along and you’re like, ‘What’s this? It’s so odd.’ And you pull off and you find out what it is.”
The harmonograph contraption looks like three tepees without coverings and a lifeguard stand on the side. The tepees will hold pendulums and the lifeguard stand is a viewing tower.
“They’re all made of wood and most of it is made of wood that used to be a military mess hall that I pulled out of dumpster," says Marie.
When the harmonograph is complete, the center pendulum will hold a large piece of paper and it will swing in a circular motion. The other two pendulums will move a pen in its own circular pattern. When all three pendulums are swinging, the pen will touch the paper and draw a mesmerizing design.
John Martineau is a publisher from England. His grandfather collected harmonographs and authored a book about them. Martineau says in the late 1800s you could buy portable models that folded up into a case and use them to entertain guests at parties.
“Victorian gentlemen and ladies would attend soirees or converzationes ... gathering around the instruments and exclaiming in wonder as they watched the beautiful and mysterious drawings appear,” he says.
But Marie’s harmonograph won’t be able to move at all.
“They’re generally tabletop size or maybe they sit on the floor, Marie says. "But you can see that this one requires a 14 foot tower. I call her Twylah, the World’s Largest Harmonograph.”
Marie was raised in the Detroit-area and studied photography and multimedia art at University of Michigan.
She has a big red photo album filled with her drawings from a smaller, homemade harmonograph.
No harmonograph drawing is identical. Some are more symmetrical than others. Some look three dimensional—like a holograph. And some are chaotic.
“I found out after doing so many drawings that the ones that are imperfect—that are slightly off, are the more interesting drawings,"
Marie says regardless of the result, seeing the drawing unfold is always entertaining— like watching your favorite movie.
"You watch it again and you know where it ends and you’ve seen it before," she says. "But you watch it again anyway because you think, ‘I’m going to see more in it this time.’"
Marie hopes that by early fall, crowds will gather in her yard to watch the wonders of the harmonograph swinging round and round.
Check for updates on Marie’s harmonograph here.