This piece is one I designed for my show at Furman University in 2014. This is the widest piece I’ve folded: I used one sheet of Elephant Hide cut and re-glued to make a total circumference of 126 cm (diameter of 40 cm, or 16 inches). Here’s the crease pattern, showing the painted areas on the paper:
Crease pattern: Large purple bowl Read More »
I’ve folded a few models recently that combine origami with knitting, and this piece is the latest in that series. The vertical curve of the origami piece is constructed using the pleats I explored several months ago. The curved sides of the knit piece are created using short rows, which mimic the pleats in the origami piece. Both pieces are based on triangular tubes, so the sides that face each other are both flat planes.
New work: Pleat-curved origami/knit vase Read More »
I recently posted the crease pattern for another piece from my Intersections series. Here’s another from the same series.
Crease pattern: Split vase 2 Read More »
I’m excited to announce that I’ve opened an Etsy shop for my origami! I’m happy that I have the opportunity to share my folded models more widely, and I hope they will find homes with people who will enjoy them.
As a start, I have three different ornament designs available in different metallic colors (pictures below). Since my time is fairly limited, quantities are limited (currently 12-15 of each) and I make no guarantees about when more will be available.
Each ornament is folded from a hand-painted rectangle of Elephant Hide paper, and the tag is printed onto Stardream paper to give it a bit of sparkle. The Elephant Hide is a fairly sturdy paper, and the curves create an eggshell-like effect that also strengthens the model. One of the advantages of painting the paper is that I can be sure I’m using lightfast colors that won’t fade over time. I started folding similar ornaments almost 9 years ago, and they’ve held up well over the years even in relatively humid environments (just don’t drop a drop a book on one, or anything like that).
I’m hoping to add more colors in the coming months. If you have any specific requests, let me know, and I’ll see what I can do!
Etsy shop launch! Read More »
Over the past several months, I’ve been enjoying folding ornaments. I’ve designed ornaments most years and folded a small handful for specific purposes. This year, for the first time, I’ve been folding enough ornaments that I can make them available to other people! More details to come this weekend.
Here’s a preview of one of the designs:
Ornament: More news coming this weekend! Read More »
This design from 2013 is one of my early pieces from the diagonal shift series. The crease pattern is below:
I folded a variation in 2014 with the same crease pattern. The only difference between these two pieces is the painted pattern.
Crease pattern: Double diagonal shift vase Read More »
I recently posted a test model of a cone-based diagonal shift where the cone pointed inward toward the shift. This model is the reverse of that, where the cone instead points outward toward the shift.
The math of this variation is very similar to the inturned cone. For both variations, if the cone angle and the plane angle are the same, the convergence point is exactly the same distance from the top edge of the ellipse. But, when the paper comes back to being a cylinder, the effective distance of the horizontal shift is very different. When the cone is inturned, the top edge of the ellipse is shifted toward the center of the base cylinder, so the shift looks small. Here, since the cone is out-turned, the top edge of the ellipse instead sticks out quite a ways past the edge of the narrow base cylinder, so the amount of total shift horizontally looks much larger.
Test fold: Out-turned cone-based diagonal shift Read More »
I’ve always been far from a purist in origami, but the one line I haven’t crossed so far is incorporating cuts (though I have used a few torn edges before). This model changes that. I cut a lacy pattern into the top couple inches of the paper. I started placing the lacy pattern by laying out the folded pleats and avoiding cutting through them, drew pseudo-random straight lines between each set of pleats, and cut out segments between the lines. The pattern was deliberately laid out to make sure the paper kept enough structural integrity to be foldable, and the irregularity makes it easy to disguise minor mistakes.
Here’s a glimpse of what the paper looked like before I folded it:
And a better view of the top edge:
New work: Vase with a triangle lace edge Read More »
Hopefully this will be the last admin post for a while so I can get back to focusing on origami updates!
Since Google is deprecating Feedburner for email subscriptions, I’m transitioning my email list to MailChimp. To this point, 100% of emails to my subscribers have been updates that I posted something new on my blog. Going forward, I may on rare occasions send things to that email list that aren’t just blog posts, but I don’t expect that to change too much.
If you subscribed to my email list in the past month: You are already subscribed via MailChimp, and shouldn’t notice any changes.
If you subscribed to my email list more than a month ago: I imported your email address from Feedburner to MailChimp. For this post, you should receive two emails, one from each list. These emails may show up an hour or two apart, since each list auto-sends all posts from the day on its own schedule. For future posts, you should only receive an email from MailChimp. If you do not receive an email from MailChimp, check your spam folder, or re-subscribe to the MailChimp list.
If you are not subscribed to my email list: If you would like to subscribe, you can subscribe here. Like most email lists, look for an initial email in your inbox asking you to confirm that you want to receive these emails.
If anything on my email list seems to be behaving incorrectly: Please let me know so I can deal with it!
Updates to email list Read More »
I’m pleased to announce that my series of three curved-neck vases is now part of the permanent collection of the Museo del Origami in Colonia, Uruguay! The museum has a few more details on the addition on its news page.
The Museo del Origami opened in 2020 and is the only museum in the Americas that focuses exclusively on origami. Their permanent collection traces the historical development of origami in both the East and the West, highlights the work of contemporary origami artists across many design styles, and explores applications of origami in science, technology, education, and design.
Pieces in Museo del Origami permanent collection Read More »
