Origami For Kids

. . . . . What is it men in women do require The lineaments of Gratified Desire. What is it women do in men require The lineaments of Gratified Desire. -- Wm Blake Great old word that, lineaments, no longer much in use. An outline hinted at, is how we would put it today—except that outline suggests too much of contour and silhouette, not enough of the body lines. Lineaments: the lines, the main structure, the suggestion of it, the indication and idea of it, projectable from the surface, leaving aside almost the body itself, the skin and bones and flesh and motion and the very soul—all there but abstracted. What besides origami accomplishes this, hovers so precisely between idea and entity? Intelligence not quite incarnate, still hinting, suggesting, but obeying for all that its own strict laws. . . . . .

I am thrilled to announce here that beginning August 17, and running through the end of the year 2007, there will be a large museum exhibition of artistic origami in my country. The exhibit, “Treasures of Origami Art” will be shown at the “Tikotin Museum of Japanese Art”, in the scenic port city of Haifa, Israel. The Tikotin houses the most significant collection of Japanese and Asian art in this part of the world. The show’s theme is the emergence of origami into a full-fledged sculptural art. About 100 origami installations will be in it, representing works by some 25 artists and designers from 10 countries. These include: Akira Yoshizawa, Robert Lang, Tomoko Fuse, David Brill, Michael LaFosse, Joseph Wu, Roman Diaz, Brian Chan, Linda Mihara, Giang Dinh, Tomohiro Tachi, Joel Cooper, Ronald Koh, Arnold Tubis, Nguyen Hung Cuong, Saadya, Eric Gjerde, Christine Edison, Ray Schamp, Christiane Bettens, Fernando Gilgado, Bernie Peyton and Xander Arena. There will of course be expert worksho...

I’ve been asked more than once by people who see my curved things: do you wet the paper? And occasionally: do you press the paper into a mold? The answer to both questions is of course no. And as to wetting the paper, I don’t often practice wet folding (though a bit more so of late) but instead like to glue the paper to a stiff aluminum foil before starting out. But it took me a while to understand what people were really asking here; and also to realize that even some of those who have heard of wet-folding may have a mistaken idea of what it entails. People think when they see a curving surface (especially one curved in two directions), that since paper in its natural state is flat, its surface properties must have somehow been altered: that the paper has in fact been stretched . And they think that moistening a sheet of paper is what lets this happen. The question about ‘pressing into molds’ is contemplating the reverse: that the paper is being compressed. This of course is wrong. A ...

We haven’t had a ‘natural history’ post on this Blog for a while, despite its name which I’m still committed to. But this investigation of flowers is triggering various new thoughts on flowers themselves, not just the origami of them; and its time to put these down---while they’re fresh and crude, in fact. Before a guarded professionalism, the curse of the times, withers their innocent bloom. First, though, an old thought. No one seems specially surprised that flowers are delightful, exquisite, turn-ons, ideal objects for gifts, distinct and different and inviting of fine discriminations between them, a joy to multiple sense-organs, and connected more than etymologically with much of what we mean today by being “cultured” or “cultivated.” The question is, why should any of this be. Flowers are basically an invention of insects , who taught the first angiosperms, 125 million years ago, what forms tickle their fancy. Why should what appeals to creepy-crawlers have anything to do with us ...

Not all the flowers I’ve been showing (and others I haven't yet) do I fully understand the mechanisms of. For most I have at least a vague sense of how they work, but some are surprising even to me. That is: while looking in certain obvious directions and playing with various forms I’ve across a few that behave as wanted—they open and close reliably and in interesting ways just by pulling and pushing at two points. That doesn’t mean I necessarily know what’s going on. Of the three principles I mentioned in an earlier post—preliminary fold, Miura and twist—the Miura map fold has perhaps been studied most by physicists and engineers, its pattern having been invented after all by a physicist who wanted a nice reliable way of unfurling and refurling satellite panels in space. Even with this pattern, it seems to me, there is room for further research, and studying pop-up applications is a great way to do it. I’ve echoed the Miura pattern symmetrically across one axis, to take the shape...

These three are activated: Click to watch them bloom. No radically new flowers invented since the last post: instead I've been working on everything that surrounds them--the background card action, the necesary leaves, stems, vases etc; while rapidly trying to figure out how to film these things (my double-chin finally having found its purpose and vocation). Where things are headed: More and more I want the background card to pick up the non-flower elements; and I'd like to purify this so that the card too is origami as far as possible. Recent experiments suggest that very nice pop-ups can be made of just origami corrugation patterns--I mean, dropping the flowers altogether. I'm a little reluctant to go in this direction as there are some VERY talented people out there already doing similar things, who can do a better job of it if they cared to: I mean of course Fernando Sierra , Ray Schamp , Polly Verity , and Christine Edison , to pick a few names at random. One thing I...