Special Guests
Bodo Haag
Bodo was born in 1999 in Tübingen, Germany. He has been folding ever since he was 6 years old and started creating his own models when he was 7. He discovered Origami through his mom; after seeing origami for the first time, he was amazed by it and has never stopped folding since then. After working his way through every origami book he could get his hands on, he discovered complex origami and started working on learning as many designing skills as possible.
Bodo has attended many conventions all around Europe, giving workshops and exchanging knowledge with other folders. He is mainly interested in designing animals, most recently working on spotted and striped animals and other complex color changes. Bodo’s main focus is capturing the spirit of an animal, but he’s also very interested in using advanced design methods in his models, using new structures and ideas whenever possible, pushing the limits of what’s possible with origami. His greatest pleasure is seeing his work being folded by Origami friends all around the world.
Miyuki Kawamura
Miyuki was born in Osaka, Japan in 1970. She started origami at the age of two. When she was a small child, she loved animals and folded many animals. Miyuki majored in particle physics at university and then began to create many polyhedral origami works. She is known for some amazing origami works such as the Cosmosphere. She published Polyhedron Origami for Beginners in 2001. Miyuki is currently a board member of the Japanese Origami Academic Society (JOAS) and is the host for the Origami Tanteidan Kyushu Convention every May. Her other Publications include Tamentai-no Origami (NIPPON HYORON SHA, 1995) and AKARI ORIGAMI Otona-no Kagaku 29 (Gakken, 2010).
Paul Jackson
Paul Jackson has been a professional paper artist, paper engineer, writer and teacher since 1983, specializing in origami and the folded arts. He has written more than 40 books including origami books for adults and children. His more recent books have applied folding techniques to design, a subject he has taught in more than 80 Universities and Colleges in 13 countries. He was one of the pioneers of folding/origami as Fine Art and has exhibited his folded artworks in many galleries and museums. He has also curated several ground-breaking exhibitions of origami, undertaken many commercial commissions for print, screen-based media, festivals and more. In 2000, he married the Israeli origami artist and educator, Miri Golan.
Featured Guests
Robert Lang
Robert J. Lang has been folding origami for over 50 years and has designed several hundred original figures. He is the author, co-author, or co-editor of 21 books about origami, both collections of folding instructions and books about origami mathematics and engineering, as well as numerous scientific journal articles about origami mathematics and engineering. He lives in Altadena, California.
Boice Wong
Boice is an origami artist from Portland and is known online by his handle, OrigamiByBoice. He enjoys folding and designing models that represent or render forms such as humanoids and dragons. A goal in his folding is to trick people into thinking the fold is not just a single square.
Boice is an International Origami Intenet Olympiad (IOIO) Silver medalist winner. He has continued his interest in competitive origami by hosting bi-monthly competitions on his website. Boice also makes YouTube tutorials where he seeks to make complex topics, like learning crease patterns, much less intimidating. Boice helps lead the YouTube community in showing proper permission and crediting standards.
Kara Fedrigon (Karagami)
Kara Fedrigon is a paper artist with over 2.6 million followers on social media under the alias “Karagamii.” On her platform, she features her own origami and paper craft designs as well as detailed tutorials and other paper-related projects. She grew up in the Chicago area and currently attends UIC pursuing a bachelor's in industrial design.
Leyla Torres
Leyla has been practicing the art of paperfolding since 1988. She is the founder of OrigamiSpirit.com where she shares her own origami creations and origami video tutorials. Leyla has conducted paper-folding workshops, in-person and online classes for young and old, at international origami conventions, libraries, schools, and businesses in The United States, Europe, and South America. In 2022 she received the Teaching Award from Origami USA.
Leyla was born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia. Presently, she lives with her husband and cat in Arlington, Vermont.
Madonna Yoder
Madonna Yoder is a MIT-educated origami tessellation designer and instructor who helps aspiring tessellation folders to deeply understand tessellations so that they can fold from crease patterns, reverse engineer from photos, and even start designing their own tessellations. And unlike most origami instructors, she doesn't focus on individual designs in tutorials, but instead teaches broader structures, theory, and skills so that her students can start folding new designs with confidence and get the most out of any tessellation workshop they attend.
Katherine Kei Adams
Katherine is co-CEO of Paper For Water, along with her sister Isabelle. She is 17 years old and an 11th-grade student at The School for the Talented and Gifted. Katherine enjoys rowing, running, and traveling. Isabelle and Katherine started Paper For Water together when they were 8 and 5 yrs old and can't believe how it has grown over the years! They hope to someday end the world water crisis with the help of others! To learn more about the paper for water project, see www.paperforwater.org.
Chris Conrad
Chris Conrad is an artist with over 13 years of experience folding origami. His original work pushes the limits of the medium, creating unique and complex pieces which take months of planning and thousands of folds to complete. He draws inspiration from high fantasy, medieval history, pop culture, and the world around him, typically focusing on creating expressive human figure designs. Chris was awarded a Certificate of Artistic Achievement from the Luxembourg Art Prize in 2022 and has also won a Joisel Award, the highest artistic honor in origami.
Evan Zodl
Evan is an origami artist from New Jersey. He has been folding paper for over 15 years, and in an effort to share his passion with the world, he began making instructional origami videos on YouTube in 2008. Since that time, he has taught origami to tens of millions of people around the globe and has developed a following of over 145,000 people. In 2019, Evan was awarded the OrigamiUSA Teaching Award. He has also spent many years designing original origami models inspired by fractals, spirals, and recursive patterns found in nature.
Miri Golan
Miri Golan founded the Israeli Origami Center in 1992. It has participated in many festivals within Israel, organized countless meetings for origami enthusiasts of all ages, curated exhibitions, published 6 Hebrew-language books and organized 10 international conventions.
Miri has also developed the Origametria system of education, using origami to teach geometry. It is used weekly in more than 600 Israeli schools. In 2021, she received the 2021 Florence Temko Award for Innovation, from Origami USA.
In 2000, she married the origami artist Paul Jackson. They have one son.
Nobuko Okabe
Nobuko Okabe was born and grew up in Tokyo, Japan and currently lives in New Jersey, USA. She started designing her own models about 10 years ago. Most of her models are modulars but she is interested in all types of origami. She has published one book “Modular Origami with Super Nobu Unit” and the unit was named by Tomoko Fuse.
John Szinger
John Szinger in an internationally recognized origami artist. His work explores a diverse range of subjects, including animals, insects, flowers, objects such as vehicles, airplanes and spaceships, and geometric sculptures. His geometric work features a unique approach to tessellations as well as as advanced single-sheet polyhedra. With animals and other representational subjects John seeks a balance of detail and simplicity and often favors a volumetric, sculptural approach. Mr. Szinger’s work has been widely exhibited. He is the author of several origami books and and contributor to numerous others.
John lives in the greater New York City area. He is also a jazz musician and software architect.
Brian Chan
Brian Chan has been designing origami since 2004 and folding origami since before 1990. His focus is mainly complex representational work, although he does occasionally experiment with simpler, more abstract forms. One of his most well known pieces is the Attack of the Kraken, which features a squid-like sea monster attacking a sailing ship, all folded from the same uncut square of paper. You can find the newest version of it on display this year at the OUSA 2023 Convention's annual exhibit. Brian has been invited to a number of conventions, including JOAS (Japan), AEP (Spain), and Origami Cusco (Peru), to name a few.
John Montroll
John Montroll is widely respected for his origami work. His published work has significantly increased the global repertoire of original designs in origami. John is also acknowledged for techniques such as the double rabbit ear fold and for groundbreaking bases like the dog base and the insect base. The American origami master is known for being the inspiration behind the single square, no cuts, no glue approach. Each model that John designs has a meticulously developed folding sequence. It is his constant endeavor to accomplish a model in lesser number of steps rather than plenty, and to give the reader a pleasing folding experience.
Marc Kirschenbaum
Marc Kirschenbaum has over fifty years of origami experience. He has developed hundreds of models on a large variety of subjects and has published numerous books showcasing these pieces. Marc is active in OrigamiUSA, in both capacities as a Director and Chair of the Publications Committee.
Meenakshi Mukerji
Meenakshi Mukerji was introduced to origami as a child. After a hiatus of two decades, she started folding again and has been designing since the late 1990s. She is the author of eight origami books. Though better known for modulars, she has many single sheet designs as well. She received OrigamiUSA's Florence Temko award in 2005 She has been a special guest at several origami conventions in the USA and abroad. She has also been an editor for TheFold magazine for many years. An engineer by training, she retired early and lives in California with her family.