Janus was the Roman god of beginnings. He was usually depicted with two faces pointing in opposite directions. Likewise, this vase has two ‘faces’, two halves with different shapes. I was originally trying to design a vase in a different shape, but I kept running into problems where I couldn’t get the paper to be where I needed it to be. When I instead started paying attention to where the pleats naturally fell and let that guide my design, this vase was the result. Because of the contrast in shape between the two halves, this form is probably more interesting that what I originally tried to design.
Like most of my recent work, this piece is part of my Intersections series. The whole vase is folded from one rectangle of Elephant Hide paper. This version has one small cut to help in collapsing the base, but I know how to redesign it without any cuts.
