Origami For Kids

[Revised January 2010] There are lots of ways to get a sheet of paper to fold up nicely. Here is one way I would never have come up myself: that is, if I hadn't tried to copy somebody else's work. I failed (at first), but came up with a different interesting something which seems not to have been remarked on before. The work in question was the piece of David Huffman's shown by the Institute for Figuring , who mistakenly label it a “Tower of Concentric Circles” -- when (a) it is not a tower and (b) Huffman has another model which is (!).  I imagined at first that this was simply a cone with concentric mountain-valley reverses, which is what I tried to make. You can see from the Huffman photograph that the cone-tip is twisting its orientation as it moves toward the center, which wouldn't happen with concentric-circle folds around a cone's apex, but I explained this to myself as either a trick of lighting or as some flexibility in the form that allows it to be be...

This model with all its drama and flourish was designed by Neal Elias in the 1960s in the USA, and folded expertly a few years ago by Eyal Reuveni, here in Israel. Full of suspense, presence and equipoise, it is the only ‘dated’ work I included in the Tikotin show, besides the Yoshizawas. But it not only holds its own against the four decades of advances in origami technique that came after it, it even remains distinct, like an island jutting from the sea. It’s kept its innocence too. Though it points in the direction of technical origami, this creation by the pioneer of box-pleating manages to avoid most of the clunkiness to which that technique is prone in lesser hands. It is not "showily technical", does just enough to get the job done, and so holds a quiet strength. Elias was also the pioneer of the joined two-object model, and of course of the significant color change. I’ve noted elsewhere that having two objects of equal weight in a sculpture turns it from being a ...