Through the looking glass: Balboa Park’s garden kaleidoscope

I love to garden. And take photographs. The colors, the shapes…there is always something to see that rocks my world.

But I have never before seen the perspective of a garden through the looking glass, or a kaleidoscope. On my recent trip to San Diego, I was able to do just that.

In 1817 by Scottish inventor Sir David Brewster, coined the word “kaleidoscope.” Kalos-eidos-skopeo is derived from the Ancient Greek (kalos), “beautiful, beauty, (eidos), “that which is seen: form, shape” and  (skopeō), “to look to, to examine”, hence “observer of beautiful forms.”

This kaleidoscope, which can be found in Balboa Park’s Spanish Village Art Center, is positively mind-blowing. Frank Casciani, the artist, created a magical view of his tiny garden in a bowl. The way this unique kaleidoscope works is you spin the garden bed below while peering through the kaleidoscope’s lens.

Pinks, whites, yellows, greens, emerge, shift and change shape before your eyes. I could have stood gazing through this looking glass for hours on end. A tiny world of beauty to behold.

Garden kaleidoscope

Through the looking glass

Pretty in pink

Anything but mellow yellow

Want to cast your gaze on more amazing sights? Check out DeliciousBaby Photo Friday!