Animosity

When I started folding in high school, I was basically the only person interested. A classmate had been somewhat excited about origami as a subset of Japanese culture (which was a passion of his), and another student knew a handful of models, but had no interest in learning more. My only interaction with professional origami artists was via their books and websites. Many of my books were gifts given to me by friends who mysteriously had an origami book, but had no interest in folding. Origami was associated with generosity, both in giving of books and in teaching through those books. Also, many people put their diagrams online with no expectation of reward for their work. 

I had in my mind this idea that origami was a force for peace. Sadako Sasaki gave the crane new meaning and millions of people across the world have folded cranes with a hope for peace, tolerance and unity. The act of folding is a slow, calm process. If you fold too quickly, you may rip the paper or fail to line up two edges or fail to set a crease correctly. Patience and attention are the keys to a successful folding project. It also helps if one is gentle. So you can imagine how one can quickly construct an idea that origami is a pathway to inner peace and eventually social peace. 

My first introduction to animosity in folding was when I started to learn about copyright battles. Akira Yoshizawa accused his Japanese contemporaries of stealing his ideas and publishing them. Robert Lang, John Montroll, Michael LaFossse and others tend to spend much of their time developing content for books and presentations and rely on royalties. Those who share their diagrams via books can be very protective because it is often their only income. No one likes working on a huge project, expecting to get paid and then find out that others stole their ideas. I recognize that this is an acceptable and necessary form of animosity in our competitive, capitalist economy. I can see the financial pressures that cause people to be angry. There is, of course, also the anger from someone stealing your idea without even giving credit. I grudgingly acknowledged that this was a symptom of or economy, not of the art form.

Then I attended an origami event (organized independently of Origami MN or OrigamiUSA). I showed up and folded. People were having difficulty, so I helped them out. People asked me questions, so I answered them, and next thing I know, I realize that I am a much better teacher and better informed than the woman running the event. She went to get a drink of water, and a few minutes later, another woman is trying to explain to me that this event belongs to the first woman. Essentially, I was unwelcome and the woman running it did not have the courage to even figure out what my name was. So, I left.

It shook me, though. I never realized that my folding skill might be intimidating to others, that this knowledge was power. Folding had always opened doors, never closing them. I had only seen folding as a way to cheer people up, make things better. 

Recently, I was talking to a fellow folder at Origami MN and we discussed animosity in origami. It seems that people can become prideful in their skills and refuse to mingle with the lesser folders. That for them the art is measurement of worth and everyone is ranked, with the highest rank imbued with some sort of authority. It is elitism, just like everywhere else. I had always hoped that origami was more democratic because the medium (paper) is universally accessible and I had encountered so much in the way of free diagrams. 

Peace, democracy, origami. 

How can anger be a part of this?

[The picture is one I took of the Spirit of Peace]

Unpredictability

I have been thinking a lot about anticipating the future. About how a single decision today may greatly affect everything I do from that point on. I have been thinking about it in the context of job searching. A good or bad interview can radically change where I work, who I work with, when I work and where I might look for motivation and purpose. I want to rein in the future and take control of it so that I can determine how it will unfold.

And then I had an interesting realization. On several occasions I have spontaneously decided to start folding something or other and then presented a sheet of paper and began folding. Half way through someone inevitably asks what it is that I am trying to fold. Then they look carefully at what I have done so far and try to anticipate the final product. They say it will be a duck, or a lion or a spider or a chair. They make wild assertions about what the different flaps represent. They are legs, ears, arms and wings all at the same time.

I think that the observer making wild predictions regarding my folding is like me trying to make wild predictions regarding my future.

Now, in some ways, there is no parallel here since an experienced folder can look even more carefully and likely anticipate far better than an inexperienced one. The paper is bound by certain mathematical laws and someone who is well versed in those laws can accurately predict how they can combine. But in life there is no clear guide telling me what happens if I fold my career diagonally. Or squash fold my friendships. Or pedal fold my responsibilities. It occurs to me now (as it has to many people at many points in their lives) that the future is mystery. It is outside our grasp.

What rules are there when they are often broken? A friend of mine regularly notes that if he had not flown across the country to interview for a job that he believed himself unqualified for, he would not have met any of the friends he has today. I radically different future. And one that cannot be efficiently unfolded if it turns out to be a mistake.

So I guess I may as well not try and anticipate too much. There are some large folds that are clearer. Like, do I stay in Minnesota for now? Well, that's the only one I can think of at the moment. The smaller folds will work themselves out. I'll have to address them as I meet them.

Morris Park Players

Trevor the T-Rex and I went to a show put on by the Morris Park Players, which is a community theatre group. Other than the loose connection to origami provided by Trevor, there is one reason I think that this presentation of Cinderella is related to paper folding. Specifically, it is democratic art. I ranted about it a bit in a previous post and was hoping to add some new thoughts here.

I am falling in love with the idea of local art and local production. As an example, the MPP is a community group that exists by sheer force of will. They are not the local chapter or franchise, they are the whole of the organization, no "orders from the top". In fact, the "top" seems to have been conscripted to fill in minor (but essential) parts.

There are many ways to tell a story, and Cinderella is a perfect example. There are books, international movies, plays, and such. What excites me is a matter of scale. These some 50 people were pulled right out of the community and their work has come full circle to be enjoyed by the same community. It is custom, tailored, tuned. It is an expression that satisfies the artists and the observers in a way that Avatar 3D never will. When I saw the show one part of me saw the Disneyfication of the story how a similar play could be done in any American town, but I also saw actors and actresses I recognized. People I went to school with and their families were there, which came as a complete surprise. This wasn't just any play in any town, this was a production specially selected by my community for my community. I was sincerely told why I needed to be a part of future productions (not that acting is my cup of tea) by the father of a friend.

I think origami is typically like this. Sure, there are the big shots who fly around the world and take have speaking engagements and special commissions. But most folders are just people in the community who are trying to express themselves artistically. They are from the community, and they are absorbed back into the community.

I just feel so warm and fuzzy inside when I see that people are able to build up their own art. They cannot just sit back and hope that Hollywood will finally make a good movie. Instead they make a great play and share it with their neighbors.

There will always be art, so long as humans are human, but democratic art requires us as individuals to act.

[The T-Rex was designed by John Montroll]

Identity

I've been thinking a lot about my recent adventures into the wider world of origami. I have always been The Origami Guy. I know it, I share it, I talk it. And no one else did. I was in isolation for so many years where the only other artists were limited to folding half the crane from memory, or folding a flower. I was the regional origami master as far as I knew. Intellectually, I realized that there were those who knew more than me, who could compile their works and publish them. I read their books, I saw their superior skills. But they were so far away. East-coast, west-coast, Japanese. And they were obscure enough that only I knew their names among my social circles.

But suddenly, through Origami Minnesota and attending a lecture given by Robert Lang I realize that I am something of a nobody in the origami world. My compositions are not spectacular. My philosophical observations are not particularly profound. I am not a master, not much of a teacher, not a specialist I am just a guy with knack for reading diagrammed instructions.

Do I now re-invent myself? Do I want to be the greatest composer? do I want to be a renowned teacher? Author? Does it really matter that I be great? I guess it sort of bothers me that what I was uniquely in charge of, able to share it as I wished, is now out of my grasp. At the lecture I saw the joy of children learning a new composition, but it was not related to me at all. I might as well not have existed. So very weird. I feel like a priest who leads his small congregation for years, and then suddenly is called to the Vatican and is stunned by the realization that in Rome being a priest really doesn't mean anything. But Sadako is not considered a master. She only knew a few compositions, maybe only one, yet her name carries weight.

I just don't want my love for folding to be overwhelmed and diluted by others' love. I want theirs to strengthen mine, and mine to strengthen theirs. Hopefully, that is what will happen.

Lesson, The Third

The third lesson I have learned from origami is in regard to design. When trying to be representative with a design, it needs to balance simplicity with complexity. Many folders set as their goal to recreate some object out of paper. To make a paper fish, sandwich, house, boat or whatever. When complete, they rate the model based on how closely it resembles the chosen object. So then, a good origami fish looks like a real fish. For this to occur, a great deal of complexity is needed. Each mathematical calculation getting more and more confusing. The more fish-like, the more complex. It is like an act of alchemy, transforming the paper into something else.

But, the problem is that paper cannot be a fish. Fish are made of flesh and bone, not fibrous sheets. The fiber cannot become flesh, no matter how much it looks like it. And so subtlety can go a long way toward representing an object. The traditional crane is a good example of a model that reminds people of a crane, but not because if it's realism or detail, but because of it's simplicity and grace. By holding to more subtle techniques, there is often less paper to tuck away and hide, less thickness in that last fold.

It is awe-inspiring to see when complexity and simplicity come together. Where every inch of the paper is exactly where it needs to be. There is no bulk to hide, and no extra appendages just because there was an extra flap. The nature of paper forces the folder to think about the final arrangement of the paper in such a way that a painter or carver is unconcerned.

Lesson, The Second

The second lesson I ever learned from origami was that all must be accounted for.

In painting, pottery, sculpting or welding the artist starts with nothing and then adds material. They continue to add material until the project is finished. One way to know the project is complete is to see if any more needs to be added. When the artist can no longer add, the work is finished. This is an additive process.

In woodcarving, stone carving, bonsai, and similar works, the artist starts with too much material. They cut, trim, chisel off excess material so that what remains is beautiful. They continue pulling away the extra until there is nothing worth removing. When the remaining material must stay, that is when the project is complete. This is a subtractive process.

There are also those who combine an additive and subtractive process. Sculpture often uses both, carving away at one material, then attaching a new and different material. But origami is one of the few art forms which avoids addition or subtraction. Certainly, some designs are modular, several sheets added together, but the classic examples tend to be of one sheet. The exact same amount of material is present at the beginning and at the end, without significantly changing the underlying structure of the paper! It is metamorphic in that a sheet can become an elephant, yet subtle in that the sheet is still a sheet.

This is such a powerful lesson because it addresses the need to pay attention to the whole. Nothing is ever created or destroyed, it is only found or hidden, both in reality and in origami. Just because you throw it in the trash does not mean it is gone. Just because you need something doesn't mean it will be supplied. Origami hones the attitude that the artist must take what is there and use all of it as it is.

Lesson, The First

Thinking on all the lessons that I have learned from practicing origami, the simplest and most profound has been from junk-folding. Junk-folding is the practice of finding junk paper like old receipts and fliers for origami. Any sheet of paper that has lost its original purpose and has become trash can be considered junk paper. When one takes this paper and re-purposes it, they are taking trash and turning it into something beautiful, and with very little effort.

It is by no means a lesson unique to origami, and many origami practitioners never use junk paper and so then the lesson may be lost on them, but for me it is an ever-present truth. I love folding in public spaces, but rarely carry paper with me. That means I hunt for paper that is looking for a new life. This constant searching for renewal reflects an aspect of reality. Nothing ever ceases to exist, it is only re-purposed. We must keep in mind that the only way to get rid of something bad is to transform it into something good!

[The image is my own, of a model I folded. I do not know who designed it]