A room of one’s own (to fold)….

The nature of platonic/modular origami means stepping, although tentatively, into the world that is mathematical formulae. I may have hinted in a previous post that this is an unknown and often confusing land that I can’t seem to relate the pleasurable act of folding with.  I often look at a new model (paper form) for quite a while before starting, re-reading the images and miming the folds with ghost paper between my fingers. I do find doing this eases the frustration when attempting it in real time, as do the little notes I annotate new instructions with.

I remember reading an article written by Nigella Lawson about how she was left her Grand/Mum’s old recipe books when they’d died.  A recipe book is as much a social commentary as any found in the Lancet: finance, frustration, families etc. but all the more accessible as it is written in a familiar hand.   I am a natural cook. I suppose that instinct comes from learning by mistake; there have been a number of inedible meals produced by these origami-active hands that for want of a better phrase have to be put down as an experience.  Now I like the challenge of producing a meal fit for the ‘Art man’ out of fridge remnants. I enjoy that. In much the same way I enjoy forming paper modules for bits of paper that arrive in the slipstream of junk mail that arrives daily. I separate the paper/envelopes into 3 piles:

1^st: Urgent post to be dealt with 

2^nd: Crap to be recycled 

3^rd: Crap but with potential to be folded into something beautiful.

The only issue with the art of Origami is just that, appreciating it as an art as opposed to a craft. After a productive day I’m left with a plethora of forms that just sit there on our table looking unkempt. The ‘Art man’ can produce a painting and as it sits on the coffee table in its noble sketchpad there is almost an arty/elevator soundtrack to accompany it. Uber-cool!   My paper forms look as if a German designer has opened his Dyson and stuff has fallen out.

So, I plan on solving this dilemma. I like the form of hung origami (think 1000s of cranes) or paper tessellated quilts, strung across a wall. I’m lucky in the respect that I have near enough carte blanche to display work in our home, really the walls would be better if I did. But my idea is to decorate with folded wallpaper on the walls or generic landscapes turned into the leaf/tree design the paper started off from.

Wish me luck…