Origami Connect - Past Events

Autumn 2002, it was in the German city of Dresden a natural catastrophe: the water of the river Elbe was extremely high and flooded and destroyed many houses and killed many people. Some houses of local folders were damaged. Myself, I had a paper hats exhibition in a museum (Kunstgewerbemuseum). This city was destroyed from the flooding. In the same Christmas 2002, I proposed to organize a solidarity movement of sending origami stars from folders over the world. A lot of stars from many countries were sent and I hung them in a big origami Christmas tree inside of the museum. On the top of the tree was this star. For this reason I call it Dresden Stern (Star of Dresden).

Cristian Marianciuc is a Romanian paper artist whose work revolves around the origami crane. He started a project called Icarus.mid.air. Every day Cristian would decorate a crane as a visual diary. The plan was to keep track of the passing of time, each day, in the shape of a decorated origami crane – each crane would describe in a creative way the type of day he was having.
Since 2014 he has been perfecting his very personal style which sees the humble yet beautifully symbolic traditional model of the crane come alive with the help of intricately cut wings, flowers, folkloric motifs and other decorative paper elements.
One of the central characteristics of his work is the concept of layering, in a literal but also a metaphoric sense. Each piece comes with a backstory, with increasingly personal references, a dedicated piece of music, and for his most recent collection – a fragrant muse.
We will get a taste of Cristian's process as he leads us through decorating/embellishing paper to create a meaningful and personal crane. Prior to this class contemplate images and thoughts that hold meaning for you and gather supplies that will help you achieve a representation of those images and thoughts.

Joanna Star is one of Maria’s new creations. It has a fun folding sequence as well as a unique way to assemble the units. Joanna Star holds together with  great locks that have come to be Maria’s signature on a modular star. María will teach the basic version of the star and show how to make a color change for the center.

Himanshu likes to create a new model for each event he teaches. He came up with this beautiful snowflake that originated from his snow crystals, which were designed for his students combining techniques they had learned such as making a hexagon from as square, a tato fold, petal fold, open sink, etc. We are excited for him to present this brand new model, never taught elsewhere. During the live session, Himanshu had a variation. To see a pre-recorded video of the original model: https://www.dropbox.com/s/vodaphrscpfxlez/2021-12-01%2019-43-52__Merged....

For our last class we will travel down under to Australia and meet up with Winnie Leung. She will be teaching us about Truchet Tiles. Truchet Tiles were first described by Sebastian Truchet way back in 1704. The original version consists of squares split along the diagonal, with one half colored black and one half colored white (which means there are 4 possible variations). These 4 tiles can then be combined to form very intricate patterns.

In this class, Winnie will demonstrate a simple method to create any combination of Truchet Tiling of any size (in theory) via origami.
But be prepared to do lots of closed sinks!
(There won’t be enough time to make the 6x6 model. However, we’ll go through enough theory and practice so you can make your own big version in your own time).

We return to North America for this class with Mariela Recinos known on social media as Origami Maniacs. She will be teaching us a beautiful quilt model that can be used as a brooch, quilt or modular. The unit is based on a Froebel design using multiple pieces of paper. Join us to learn this versatile model.

Fynn Jackson, from South Africa, will teach us about mask making. The art of mask folding has become quite popular nowadays. Classical origami consists of only straight lines, in comparison, mask folding utilizes both curved lines, straight lines and other abstract angles. This opens up a whole new world of design possibilities.

We will be folding Mask 20, a design that consists of a face merged with a simple pattern. This is the perfect mask for both beginner and experienced folders. It is one of the top 3 masks normally recommended for people interest in learning this technique.

Mark your calendar for the 25th and come join us as for this unique class-We’re going to have a blast!