Origami

About

Interacting with mainstream origami culture as an experienced folder is extremely painful. Origami is an art, and when I say that I feel several things.

I re-experience the pleasure of folding something which is pure joy in the experience of folding. Very few artforms - knitting patterns, painting tutorials - consciously design instructions towards the creators sensory pleasure while doing so. There are some origami folds that have had new instructions written by other creators, because they have realised you can create an identical model but by a new process that's more fun. I've seen people gasp with happiness at executing particular steps in a folding sequence. I've gasped simultaneously with people as we've folded side by side.

Great origami is unforced. It's not just that you're relieved to have created anything at all, it's that there's a kind of effortlessness of appearance, and that effortlessness stems from the process of folding. A model that looks like it was fun to fold, that has a kind of simplicity. In particular, a lot of the animals and figures made with bird bases are in every way miserable, like they've been dragged out of the paper by force, instead of a lovely little creature that's hopped onto your palm.

Great origami is well diagrammed. There are ways to think about diagramming, and you can make a model more pleasurable and by seeing this as its own skill.

Great origami is simple. I've folded some complex things in my time, but as I spent more time with some of the greatest living folders, I found them not only to be humble, but more delighted than anything by clever, simple puzzle toys, and easy, whimsical folds, and deeply appreciative of how much skill goes into something plain, yet perfect. I associate British origami with a sense of humour - a bunch of older blokes clustered around a bar transported with delight at a dog that nods or a paper whistle.

Origami has named creators, and the world is small - you can easily meet them or meet someone who has met them. With a handful of well-known exceptions, every model you see was designed by someone. Online, they are rarely credited. Origami isn't collectively owned just because it looks like a folk art, and it's basic courtesy to know and say the name of the designer. Online dissemination of models without credit makes it harder to learn and look for folders who are skilled in these ways over ones who are not, makes it harder to become aware such a thing even exists. (One habit I got into, and which I recommend to you, is to write the name of the designer on the back of a model - so you remember where you got it from!)

Great origami is easy. Paradoxically, if you're an extremely amateur folder, you're probably having a harder time than a hobbyist in the community. Cheaply produced generic craft books or instagrammable hobby folds are there to look appealing and shift product, but they're not always informed by deep craftsmanship. There are many ways to fold a box, but when you're immersed in the community & the history you'll know there are some great ways to fold a box.

If you've tried origami but found it frustrating - perhaps it isn't you. Perhaps the sources you can most easily access are, in all these ways, inferior models, but you don't have the discernment to know there are alternatives; and when the process is hard, the steps confusing, and the finished model unsatisfying, you assume that's the artform.

This webpage is an introduction to origami, prompted by annoyance at trying to find a simple box with a lid for a practical purpose. Back in the day, I would have known just where to find a handful of really good ones, but the beginner now looking for something will be swamped and not know how to choose between them. It took me a whole day to find a nice one, and that meant deep-diving into my memory, searching likely names, rummaging in my attic, and borrowing books off the archive (I settled for Dave Brill's 3 piece Opening Box).

To me, this is part of the tragedy of the contemporary internet - just as people have become used to depending upon it to outsource their thinking, so it has become truly unusable for locating information. & part of what the smallweb can do and must argue for is the importance of people making spaces about what they know. Finding information is half the battle, but assessing it is the challenge!

This page is a celebration & an introduction to what, in my opinion, is really good origami. I've curated some of my favourite models and memories.

Great Models for Beginners

(I think a big part of the trick for teaching beginners is: nothing requiring a bird base or a reverse fold! Lots of nice squares, windmill-bases and squash folds)

Objects

  • Belt and Buckle - trad
  • Cup - trad
  • Sanbo Box- trad
  • Samuri Helmet - Robert Harbin(? or trad)
  • Bookmark - Michael LaFosse - one of my favourites for absolute beginners, and for children who can then decorate it afterwards
  • Gnasher - ditto!
  • Banger
  • Laughter Lines (on a money note)
  • Windsurfer - in The Amazing Book of Origami by Jon Tremaine
  • Basket - ?Harbin? The one by Aldo Putignano is similar.

Decorative

Boxes

  • Nick Robinson - Open Cube
  • Nick Robinson - Triangular Box
  • Tomoko Fuse - Fuse Box

Creatures

(I think boxes, modulars and geometric subjects are easiest for beginners, compared to animals which tend to require some tricky basic folds & some sensitivity in the shaping to come out well. Many of the very good animals you see online either use extremely thin tissue to obscure the thickness of layers, or thick soggy paper that is sculpted into round shapes to give dimension, or textured paper that gives the impression of life. No good animal was ever folded from printer paper or origami squares)

  • Two Fold Santa - Paula Versnick
  • Rabbit - Edwin Corrie

Books

Anthologies of models for beginners with really wise selections

  • Origami Encyclopedia (Nick Robinson)
  • Amazing Book of Origami (Jon Tremaine)
  • Practical Origami (Rick Beech)

Some favourite models

A bit more advanced. All of these I have folded several times!

  • Book - Dave Brill
    • 30cm square of thin paper -> approx 6.2cm book height
  • Fujimoto Cube - famously very, very pleasurable to fold
  • Northern Dragon - Takashi Hojyo [in The Beauty of Origami by Yamaguchi Makoto]
  • Eastern Dragon - Joseph Wu/Kitamura Keiji
  • Waxing Waning Moon - Jeremy Schafer
  • Five Intersecting Tetrahedra - Thomas Hull
  • 30 piece Sonobe Star -
  • Flapping Bird - Paul Jackson variant on model by Sam Randlett
  • Butterfly - trad, via Harbin
  • Blakiston’s Fish Owl - Kyohei Katsuta
  • Origami Crossbow - Mark Leonard
  • Black Forest Cuckoo Clock - Robert Lang

Inspiring

(i have not folded all of these)

  • Full-rigged Ship - Patricia Crawford
  • Attack of the Kraken - Brian Chan [I am not immune to the delights of a complex model!]
  • Retractable Tape Measure - Giles Towning
  • Monolithic Rubblestone Boulder - Jeremy Schafer
  • Head Empty by Boice
  • Photos of original origami scenes by Akira Yoshizawa, whose ability to sculpt a finished model belies the simplicity of the actual folds. I love the squirrels, the frog on the lilypads, the bunnies, and the different breeds of dog. It's tough to follow a Yoshizawa model and get it look as good as his photographs!

Other folds I've done and liked!

  • Cat - Dave Brill
  • Opening Box - Dave Brill
  • Two Flowers in a Pot - Giles Towning
  • Bookcase (Uchiyama) [from Secrets of Origami (Robert Harbin)] -15cm x 7.5cm paper -> book max height 1.5cm; model 5cm tall; two-sided same color)

How To Find Origami

Here are some links

(just because someone isn't in the 'old guard' origami folding network, it doesn't mean they aren't talented or worth following, but like any self-taught artform, a lot of origami content creators seem to be out of the loop with how delightful it can be, having never had a chance to learn)