Grinding through my “must fold” pile, I decided to work on the modular “Taj Mahal” designed by Valentina Minayeva:

I am a member of PAQ (Papermakers and Artists QLD) and this month’s meeting was all about “working with colour” – as I am not really into painting, stitching and similar, the closest I get to colourful “collage” is multi-colour kusudamas, and this is a beauty.

A relatively simple bi-colour unit combines with adjacent units to make some fascinating emergent geometry – we see colour wheel points, and tri-colour cubes emerge from the tangle in fascinating and delicious ways.

Unlike many kusudamas, this one has a relatively simple unit locking mechanism – the tabs positively lock into the pockets – the REAL challenge is colour distribution.

I decided on 5 colours (because it is a 5’s and 3’s type construction (5 units connect to make a swirl of a point, and adjacent modules dock in 3s). So I needed 6 sheets of each of the 5 colours to make a total of 30 units. The first swirl dictated EVERY other placement, as the next unit to add is the colour of the one on the opposite side of the structure. Once I saw that, it was a bit of a 3d jigsaw puzzle from hell, but satisfying.

I decided to add small spots of white glue deep in the pockets, just to stop it pulling itself apart as I stretched it to add new units, but it would totally work without. As a display model I want it to be a lot more stable and “drop-proof” (fun fact, I am clumsy and drop things all the time – nothing is more dispiriting than to be putting a display together and dropping a modular – they “pop” and disintegrate).

I am curious why this was called “Taj Mahal” – designers are free to choose a name, sure, but the design motif of the resulting model is distinctly Persian/Middle-Eastern. It originally attracted me because it looked like one of those intricate geometric tile patterns you see in Mosques and Moroccan ceramics.

Super fun fold, love the resultant ball.