What is the Larry Spring Museum of Common Sense Physics?

The Larry Spring Museum of Common Sense Physics is a small museum that displays the works of self-taught artist, experimenter and vernacular Renaissance man, Lorenz "Larry" Spring (1915 - 2009). The Museum is located in Larry Spring’s original storefront in Fort Bragg, a former logging town located on Northern California’s rugged coastline.

What is the Museum’s origin story?

Initiated in the early 1950s under the guise of Larry Spring’s Zenith Television Store, the Museum took root when Larry Spring began to blur the boundaries between his personal and professional practices. In 1954, he claimed to have independently measured the speed of light using his television repair equipment. He simplified the periodic table. He studied electromagnetism and became a Tesla acolyte. Gradually, Larry Spring’s Zenith Television Store became the platform from which Spring would share his burgeoning alternative ideas on the nature of the physical universe with a sometimes surprised and curious public. Eventually, the community referred to Larry Spring’s Zenith Television Store as simply Larry’s ‘place’ because its primary purpose became increasingly obscure.

Upon retirement, Spring made the dissemination of his discoveries into his full-time vocation. He renamed the storefront, the Larry Spring School of Common Sense Physics and solely identified as an explorer of radiant energy.

After Spring’s death in 2009, Spring’s collection was curated by his long-time creative director, Heather Brown (1955 – 2017). Her mission was to carry out Spring’s wish that his primary discoveries the Magnesphere and the Spring Atom, be accepted into the mainstream scientific community without alteration. Currently, the Museum’s aim is to animate Larry Spring’s spirit of amateur inquiry through public programming.

Why are we raising money on Patreon?

The Larry Spring Museum of Common Sense Physics currently operates as a ‘labor of love’. Our programming is self-funded and we urgently require additional resources in order to remain sustainable.

What will your patronage support?

Your monthly contribution will allow us to keep the Larry Spring Museum of Common Sense Physics organized and running, but most importantly, your patronage will help us to create opportunities for artists, thinkers, and the local community to engage with Spring's works.

For example:

Preventative conservation
Like other outlier makers of his era, Spring employed a waste not want not ethos and used available materials. Over time, these materials have become unstable and are showing signs of deterioration. Fundraising will help us to put processes in place that will preserve the hand-hewn aspects of Spring’s collection while minimizing further damage.

Archival organization
Larry Spring’s archive can be understood as an accumulation rather than a systemized arrangement of documents. It was as if Spring was aiming to create a navigable index of his production, but was immune to common organizational practices. The Museum would like to organize and make available the many fascinating documents contained in Spring’s archive. This task requires time, specialized software and archival sleeves and boxes.

Programming
We are a living museum. Our most significant programming goal is to facilitate meaningful community engagement with guest makers and thinkers who work at the intersection of art and science. Currently, artists who are funded and/or are interested in volunteering can install in our window space. However, we need to offer more expansive opportunities, which includes accessible open calls for proposals and fair compensation for creative labor.

We are in the process of digitizing many hours of previously unseen footage of Larry demonstrating his theories. Currently we offer small segments of this footage on Vimeo. In future, we intend to commission video artists to refashion the footage into compelling short films. The idea is to populate our Vimeo channel with the original footage, commissioned works, and works created at our experimental film camp (see below).

Adjacent to the Museum, is Spring Commons, which is an outdoor space that currently hosts movies and performances. In a town where there is very little programming for young people, the Museum aims to fill the gap by working with educators to design summer maker camps for kids. Spring Commons camps in process for July 2019: Maker faire and experimental filmmaking pending funding.

FUND The Larry Spring Museum of Common Sense Physics!

Along with good feelings, you get stuff! Here are the benefits!

Noyo Fish Scale
You will receive access to previously unseen footage of Larry Spring. We are currently in the process digitizing some swell VHS footage of Larry Spring demonstrating his theories. You will receive EXCLUSIVE access to our Vimeo channel,

Wave of Logic
Vimeo access PLUS Larry Spring’s illustrated Peer Review postcard. While Spring courted mainstream acceptance for his theories, he also distained Peer Review. Find out how he really feels! Fun fact: Spring originally made placemats from this illustration. Should we revive this? Only YOU can let us know through your generous donation.

Swell of Knowledge
Vimeo access PLUS Larry Spring’s self-published condensed reference book that focuses on his primary discoveries — the Magnesphere and the Spring Atom. Magnespheres and the Spring Atom was designed and written by Larry using hand-typed pages, tape, white out and photocopies. The text reveals his homespun approach to solving the mysteries of the physical universe.

More Knowledge Rolling In
Vimeo access PLUS Larry Spring’s self-published compendium of his experimental research. Common Sense Physics was designed and written by Larry using a manual typewriter, illustration, tape, white out and a photocopy machine. The text reveals his homespun approach to solving the mysteries of the physical universe.

Big Waves
Vimeo access PLUS a Mendocino Levitating Brushless Solar Motor. Larry Spring’s demonstration models were sculptural, as he took care in balancing form and materials. His Mendocino Levitating Brushless Solar Motor are painstakingly painted, laboriously wrapped in layers of copper wire and signed. We are offering them in a small Edition of 5, as their supply is finite.

About the Creator

In 2009, Heather Brown — my longtime friend and Larry Spring's creative director — introduced me to Larry Spring's collection. Knowing my deep interest in oulier makers and small museums, Brown invited me to help curate and market Spring's extraordinary collection. I was immediately entranced. In between freelance gigs as a visual consultant and producer, I worked with Brown to organize and promote the Museum. In 2016 I completed my Master’s degree with Spring’s process and collection as my focus. After Brown’s untimely passing in 2017, I became the Museum’s sole curator and director.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions about my fundraising efforts, the Museum, the collection and/or our future plans. I can be reached at am@energyismyteacher.com

With thanks,

Anne Maureen McKeating