Cranestorm Has Reached Its Goal!

The people over at the Brain Injury Association of Minnesota have reached their goal of collecting 100,000 cranes! Now they will be hosting events to string up all the cranes. From their site:

The Brain Injury Association of Minnesota will be holding crane stringing sessions at our office where you can bring your kids, spouse, friends, or anyone you may know who is interested in helping us get the art installation ready. The times are open and you are
welcome to drop in whenever it fits for you. Also, if you know of any groups who are looking for something to do this Spring, please let them know about these dates!


Thursday, April 7 from 1 to 3 p.m.
Saturday, April 9 from 1 to 3 p.m.
Thursday, April 14 from 1 to 3 p.m.
Saturday, April 16 from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m.
Thursday, April 21 from 1 to 3 p.m.
Saturday, April 30 from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m.

I'll put them on the calendar as well.

Modular Origami

Last week at Origami Minnesota, we had a swap day. People brought in books, diagrams and paper that they had no intention of using in the near future and then people like me claimed them! I got a few new books, of which I am excited. One in particular I wanted to write a bit about. It uses a style of origami often referred to as modular origami. Instead of taking a single sheet and folding a whole model out of it, the process involves several sheets, each one a piece of the whole.

The book I now have on the subject is written in Japanese, so I'm not sure what the title is (if you can translate, I'd appreciate it!). It uses a form of modules that each look identical to one another, but combine to build an interesting whole. It reminds me a lot of the days when I played with Legos. Each block was rather nondescript and boring, but several blocks combined could build a spaceship or castle.

As my first attempt, I made a fish. 

It was not the same experience as folding from a single sheet. I made 28 identical pieces and then plugged them together. Unfortunately, just plugging the flaps into the pockets is not that simple. The flaps don't always want to stay in the pocket, especially when there are a lot of flaps in the same pocket. 

I imagine that people who like knitting patterns and cross-stitching patterns would like the designs I found in the book, but I wasn't all that excited, myself. I think in the near-term, I'll stick with origami from a single sheet. Maybe in the long-term, I'll take another look at this style again. 

CraneStorm

I attended the November meeting of Origami Minnesota recently, and we talked about a new project called Cranestorm! 

The Brain Injury Association of Minnesota had a meeting a while back where they decided that they wanted people to "see" how many people were affected by brain injuries in Minnesota. Their estimates are that roughly 100,000 (yes, that's one-hundred-thousand) people in Minnesota (which has a population of 5,266,214) are suffering from a brain injury. 

The problem is that people cannot really understand such a large number as 100,000 unless they see 100,000 things all in a collection. To facilitate this, the BIAM is building an instillation piece in their headquarters. It will be 100,000 paper cranes hanging about the lobby. 

Now, I don't know how many of you have folded a thousand cranes (personally, I am at 0256/1000) but it is a lot of work to repeat the same model over and over. Even if you are comfortable with the process, it still takes a lot of time to fold all 1000. Now imagine doing that 99 more times!

Luckily, no single individual is going to fold all of them. They are soliciting donations of cranes from groups all over the world and have collected over 28,000 at the last count.

So, if you want to help out, go to the BIAM website and check it out!

Hamdmade Paper

If you read the previous post, you'll know that I participated in a day of paper-making goodness with Origami Minnesota. We made several sheets, all by hand, and it was awesome!

I thought I would share with you some of the paper we made:

Some of the paper was thicker and some was really really thin. The one above was thick, especially because it is double layered, each layer being thick individually.

 

This is my favorite one out of all of them, mainly because of the color mixture. I thought it might be cool to look at close up. This is as good as my camera will do.

 

The one on the bottom right is an odd one. I was experimenting with shaped molds, which is how I got the star in there. To be clear, I realize it is the Star of David, but there is no intended religious symbolism in it. That one is also odd in that I used the blue fiber, which had been mulched too much. It had the consistency of snot, which made it difficult to use, both physically and mentally. When I strained it, I put it on a shelf because it took so long for the water to seem out and when I tired to lay it neatly on the yellow sheet below it, a glob flew off and landed on the black one that is above it in the photo.

The lesson is, do not over mulch your pulp!

Paper Making!

On Saturday, Origami Minnesota hosted a paper-making workshop! We took over some space at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts and made ten sheets. The workshop was led by Amanda, one of the people at Cave Paper.

We had two fibers to work with: abacá and flax. Abacá is a banana plant that grows in the Philippines, Borneo and Sumatra. It also works well for paper. It does not require the harsh chemicals that would be necessary if we were using most tree fibers. That means that we only had three ingredients, all non-toxic: fiber, water, and dye. We also had a relatively small supply of flax which is grown from the Mediterranean to India. It is notably stronger than abacá, but can be thicker.

Before we got there, the fiber had been sent through a machine that tears it into bits. These bits are dyed to a preferred color and mixed into a pulp.

The pulp mixture sits in a large tub, and a mesh mold is used to scoop up the fiber.

Then the water is drained out. The amount of time this takes is variable, dependent on the fiber and how much it was shredded before mixed into the water. One pulp we made was shredded really finely and absorbed an awful lot of water, which took a long time to drain. It was also really gooey, like snot.

The mesh mold is then flipped over and pressed against a wet piece of felt.

More felt is placed on top, several layers, until it is large enough to be pressed.

Note, the press uses a car-jack. It is pumped up to 5000 PSI and then released. Then each sheet is removed from the stack and put on a rack to air dry.

I think that it is important for a folder to make paper at least once in his life. It has given me a better appreciation if the fiber and the quality of the sheets. It also makes me more aware of the fact that each sheet can be customized for the model that is folded. First there was paper-making, and then as a natural extension, there was paper folding. Now I have a better understanding of that progression that has led to my chosen craft.

I had a blast making paper! Thanks to Cave Paper and Origami MN and the MCBA!

[All pictures taken with my camera.]

From Flapping Birds to Space Telescopes

I attended a lecture hosted by the University of Minnesota Institute for Mathematics and its Applications (IMA). The speaker was Robert Lang, renowned origami master.

He talked about the basic principles of origami design from the perspective of crease patterns. He identified four rules:

1) Two-colorability. The open spaces in a pattern can be colored in using two colors and no two adjacent spaces will be the same color.

2) M-V=+/-2 At any given vertex the number of mountain folds will be exactly two more or two less than the number of valley folds.

3) Around each vertex, alternate angles will sum to a straight line.

4) No self intersections of the paper.

For more, watch one of the videos provided by TED or the IMA (for the IMA find the Videos section and click on IMA Math Matters Public Lectures).

He also talked on the modern uses of origami technique and its applications in space, cars, medicine and science. He also answered questions and signed autographs.

I asked him if he thought there was a philosophy of origami. He said that if I asked a hundred folders that question I'd get as many different answers. That every folder has their own philosophy. Lang seems to be a technician at heart. He works out the techniques and the mechanisms so that others can do the art.

The lecture was a chance to expand my origami horizons. Origami Minnesota did some recruiting, so the next meeting might be a bit more energized. I also met Eric Gjerde, author of Origami Tessellations (he is a member of Origami Minnesota, but was not there at my first meeting).

Origami Minnesota

I attended my first Origami Minnesota meeting today! We kept it simple, folding a few heart-shaped models. Unfortunately, I showed up late due to a flat tire, but the meetings are three hours long, which means I still got to spend a lot of time with the group. There is one woman who spends a lot of time crafting, and origami is one of many hobbies for her. One woman is a school teacher who holds a folding group during recess. There is the veteran who shares all her memories. And the organizer who's schedule is filling up. There were also two children with a knack for folding and their parents. There are many others who I have yet to meet!

My ego is a bit enlarged since finding out that I am a pretty good folder based on discussions of what people find challenging. But I think I can still learn a lot from this group. They can help me on the technical as well as the philosophical.

And it sounds like I will see many of them at Robert Lang's visit to the U of M on Tuesday. It is good to be with people who see origami as the fascinating hobby that it is.

[The image is a photo of the models I folded at the meeting. I do not know who to give credit to for designing these.]