From the editor ...
For the past three decades, whenever I went to New York (I live in Minnesota), Gay Merrill Gross and I would get together. We’d fold a bit and talk about paper, origami and life. Separately, Gay and I had the same introduction to origami — a dreadful book. I don’t know how either of us made sense of it or why we didn’t give up right then, but as Gay relates in her essay, we each found other, better books … and she found Lillian Oppenheimer.
Gay was a remarkable person. She had a keen mind and was always asking questions. Her origami models are elegant and fun to fold, and she had a great sense of design. Her knowledge of the world of origami was vast. She was a resource for me when I needed information for a Fold article.
Gay was kind. She befriended many newcomers to the annual OrigamiUSA convention (that’s how we met), and these friendships lasted. She had a way of focusing that made a stranger know that she cared about them and understood them.
My last meeting with Gay was on January 28, 2025. She showed me the models she had been working on, including many frogs and boxes. She asked if I would be willing to revise some frog diagrams and publish this article, which she sent to me in February. The article was a draft. Gay was planning to revisit it and send photos when she finished her taxes, but that was not to be. So, I have edited her text and added photos — mostly of models I folded based on her captions. In a few cases, I contacted folders she mentioned and asked them for photos.
I hope you enjoy Gay’s story and will fold a frog or two to remember our friend. — Jane Rosemarin
Origami Beginnings
One day, my fifth-grade teacher announced that we were going on a class trip.
We didn’t take a school bus or a city bus or a subway.
We walked from the Manhattan residential neighborhood of the school to a more commercial neighborhood a dozen or so blocks away.
I had no idea where we were going. When we arrived at our destination — some kind of Japan trade office on the street level of a commercial building — we walked into a large room that had tables set up around the perimeter. The tables displayed an origami exhibit. Most memorable to me were the Peacock, with a large fan-folded train, and a box with origami furniture, like a miniature dollhouse.
We then entered a second room, where chairs were set up. Lillian Oppenheimer and some of her origami friends were at the front of the room, and they took turns teaching us simple models from two of Lillian’s books that she wrote with Shari Lewis — “Folding Paper Toys” and “Folding Paper Puppets.”
Before that day, I’d had a discouraging experience at age 9 trying to decipher the not very folder-friendly instructions in Florence Sakade’s “Origami Book 1,” but my interest in learning origami was restored when I discovered in my local library the book “The Art of Chinese Paper-Folding” by Maying Soong along with Sam Randlett’s two books, “The Art of Origami” and “The Best of Origami.”
So, I had already been folding more-advanced models than the simple ones Lillian and her friends taught, but I was still enchanted, as these were all new to me. We learned how to fold the dollhouse furniture series: the Couch and the Piano that becomes a dustpan, and then a Bureau. These models and a Talking Fish from a rectangular strip were most memorable to me as was Lillian Oppenheimer telling us the newspaper story of “The Captain’s Shirt.” [Watch Lillian Oppenheimer telling the story at 27:40 of this video.]
The other model I remember learning that day was a Jumping Frog from an Index Card. This model puzzled me. I remember thinking to myself — This is supposed to be a frog?
Playing with Frogs
Over the years, I discovered that no one else seemed to have this same reaction to the model, and it was always a big hit, especially with beginners, so I have taught it many, many times, especially paired with the Magazine Cover Box as a destination for the Frog to jump into. These two models, along with the traditional Swan, were part of Lillian’s First Lesson that she would teach to almost anyone starting to learn origami.
But all the while, in the back of my mind, was the wish to have a simple origami jumping frog that looked more like a frog.
Years Later
Fast forward to 2016. I was contacted by some ladies from Macy’s headquarters in Ohio. I thought to myself, Macy’s has a headquarters in Ohio? I always thought their headquarters was in their Herald Square flagship store in New York City.
They told me that they were hosting a Lunar New Year party for the Asian community and they wanted someone to fold dollar bill origami on-site and put it into red envelopes, to be given away to party guests, as is the tradition for the Chinese Lunar New Year (although not necessarily the origami part).
I asked, “You want me to fold dollar origami in Ohio?” “No, we are just arranging the party — the event will take place on an upper floor in the Herald Square store.”
They told me that around 150 guests were invited and the party would be an hour-and-a-half long. That meant that I could spend only one or two minutes on each model, so before the party, I came up with some new and quick dollar bill models for the occasion: the Cute & Quick $Jumping Frog was one of the most requested. [Scroll down to the photo of the $Frog for diagrams.]
After the dollar bill version of the Frog, I tried it with an index card and a business card, and I also arranged a version from a square.
It was Deanna Kwan — who has stacks of leftover 24-lb. endstrips from when she cuts U.S. letter-size paper into squares — who told me that she has taught the traditional Index Card Jumping Frog by folding the endstrips in half, short edge to short edge, so you are actually folding a doubled sheet of paper. I tried this on my Frog, and it also worked.
Jane Rosemarin has taken time from her already full schedule as editor of The Fold to diagram the Index Card, business card and endstrip versions of the model:
By the way, if you are outside of the U.S., and your standard letter size is A4, I have heard that the endstrip from cutting A4 into a square, is close to the proportion of a U.S. dollar.
Back to Fifth Grade
As my fifth-grade class was leaving the venue, Lillian Oppenheimer handed each of us a recent issue of her newsletter, The Origamian 4, No. 1 (Spring 1964). The first page featured photos of a wonderful exhibit mounted by Lillian and her Origami Center of America friends at the Takashimaya department store on Fifth Avenue. It was this issue here:
I was thrilled to be handed this newsletter by the “celebrity” who appeared on page 1 and was also featured in Sam Randlett’s books.
When I got home that night, I found a shoebox, and I started making my own origami dollhouse, using the furniture we had learned that day, and I told my parents the story of “The Captain’s Shirt.”
Frogs Come in Many Shapes and Sizes
Getting back to the Cute & Quick $Jumping Frog, Chris Alexander has kindly diagrammed my original dollar bill version, and his diagrams [with edits Gay asked Jane to make] can be found here:
Marc Kirschenbaum has his own very interesting interpretation of the dollar bill version. Give it a try and see how using a 60-degree fold at the beginning of the model can give you the same model!
Marc’s diagrams start off with the square version that he kindly diagrammed for the OrigamiUSA Annual Gift. This expanded version of the diagrams also gives instructions for making the model from a business card, an endstrip and a dollar bill. [They show Marc Kirschenbaum’s folding methods, which, in some respects, differ from Gay’s.] See Marc Kirschenbaum’s diagrams of Gay’s frogs.
Right: Maria Laura Stella of Argentina, learned to fold the version from a square at Arlene Gorchov’s Lehigh Valley Origami Enthusiasts (LVOE) Zoom origami meetings. She then taught the model at one of the weekly Zoom sessions organized by Joan Sallas. He started these workshops for the children and teachers of Ukraine, to bring them joy and something to look forward to.
The Frogs as a Symbol
Frogs are considered lucky charms in Japan due to kaeru
(written カエル or 蛙), the Japanese word for frog, being a homophone of the verb kaeru
(written 帰る), which means “to return.” Kaeru
is used in Japanese phrases such as, okane ga kaeru
(money returns), fuku ga kaeru
(fortune returns) and buji ni kaeru
(to return safely).
A Japanese person may keep a frog charm in their pocket or wallet as a wish for a favorable financial return or a wish to return home safely.
And because a frog leaps, it’s good luck for moving forward and career advancement.
No need to order a frog charm online — you can fold your own!
A. In Chinese folklore, the golden toad is a classic and popular folk symbol of wealth and prosperity. Photo credit: Tristanb at the English-language Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
B. The Panamanian golden frog (Atelopus zeteki) or rana dorada is a national symbol of Panama, where the tiny creature is regarded as a fertility symbol and harbinger of good fortune. Photo credit: Brian Gratwicke, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
C. This golden frog was folded from the foil lining of an envelope for a holiday greeting card. I cut the white paper section of the envelope together with the foil part—this adds thickness to the paper and also allows the Frog to still jump. [Another photo that Gay never sent. This version folded by Jane.]
Thank you to Ayumi Hayatsu for her help with this section.
Turning Bills Into Frogs
Thanks!
Thanks go to Marc Kirschenbaum, Chris Alexander, Jane Rosemarin, Deanna Kwan, Arlene Gorchov and Wendy Zeichner. And also to Michael Shall, who taught me that soft folds on the two hind-leg folds that give the model a spring make for better hoppers! And first and foremost, to Lillian Oppenheimer.
[Thanks from Jane to Anne LaVin and Val Landwehr for reviewing this article.]