Community Building

As president of the LA 3-D Club, I have have had the privilege to meet so many of you in the 3-D community. And I think that word, community, is an important one. We are all members of this club because we share a common interest and passion for stereoscopic images, whether they be still photos, motion pictures, or other forms of stereoscopic art.

Last month I announced the foundation of a new non-profit, 3-D SPACE, The Center For Stereoscopic Photography, Art, Cinema, and Education. As I have stated previously, our goals with 3-D SPACE include operating a 3-D museum, theater, gallery, and classroom. Our hope is that this will eventually become sort of a “3-D Clubhouse” where members of the 3-D world and the public can come together under one roof to learn, share, and experience the wide array of stereoscopic media that has been created over the last 175 years.

This month’s LA 3-D Club events are all examples of the kind of community building that we hope to continue doing:

• Pasadena Art Night is always a wonderful opportunity to show thousands of interested attendees some of the fantastic work being done by 3-D artists, our club members and our friends from around the world.
• Our ongoing exhibit at the Heritage Square Museum is exposing many people who are interested in Southern California history to the importance of stereoscopic entertainment in the 19th and early 20th centuries. And our 3-D movie screening on the grounds there will show the audience how great the 3-D movies of the 1950s were.
• This is the final month to submit 3-D films to the 11th Annual LA 3-D Movie Festival, which will be held in December,. It’s our biggest yearly event for presenting great 3-D to the club and 3-D fans of all ages.
• And our regular monthly meeting at the Armory will give us another chance to see what our fellow club members have been creating, collecting, and learning as we present our popular Show-and-Tell night, along with the annual members’ auction. It’s a great chance to learn something new about 3-D, about your fellow LA 3-D Club members’ work and interests, and to buy or sell your 3-D equipment and collectables.

I’m so glad you all continue to choose to be part of this 3-D organization. Through the work of the LA 3-D Club, and the future work of 3-D SPACE, we can continue to see interest in 3-D build in a positive way, and watch our community grow. But we still have a long way to go to reach our goals.

3-D SPACE is currently fundraising online, and we need your help if we are to succeed. Any donation that you can make would help, as every dollar raised goes into starting the museum and preserving our collection of rare and historical 3-D images and artifacts. And even if you can’t offer financial support at this time, please share the website www.3-DSPACE.org with your Facebook and Twitter friends, so that we can reach other people who might be interested in 3-D, and would be willing to help.

Opening this 3-D Center really is my passion, it will benefit all of us in the 3-D community, and it would mean so much to me if you could help this dreamer realize his dream.