Thanks to Kate Perdoni of Rocky Mountain PBS for making this video 2 years ago and writing about Dorothy and Mel Tanner and the past, present, and future of Lumonics. (as of 2020)
“I love events that require suspension of disbelief; tales that cut under the fabric of reality to glimpse the inner workings of our subterranean selves; stories that highlight energetic receptivity; the marriage of natural law and other disciplines. Descartes received the notion of science from an angel. John Dee filled hundreds of volumes of communications with beings that advised Queen Elizabeth. And Mel Tanner got Lumonics from “The Hit,” an out-of-body experience in a diner parking lot that helped define and orient his life’s work.
Here, Lumonics co-founder Dorothy Tanner (in a 2017 interview with the Museum of Outdoor Arts- MOA) and Archivist Barry Raphael (in a 2020 interview with me at a Lumonics exhibit in Thornton) tell the origin story of Lumonics: a literal flash of light. Immersive Lumonics exhibitions since the 1960s featured live paintings, projections, sound baths, meditation rooms, and Dorothy and Mel Tanner’s renowned light sculptures, seen at Denver’s Understudy Gallery through January 30, 2021.
The exhibit at Understudy honors over forty years of the team’s intricate light creations — and marks an evolution of the Lumonics legacy. Dorothy, who received the Denver Mayor’s Arts and Culture Award for innovation in the Arts in 2018, passed in July at the age of 97. Mel passed in 1993 at age 68.
More at https://lumonics.net
