479: Dollar Koi

There is a branch of Origami that I have not explored because I live in Australia and our bank notes are no longer paper, they are plastic:

Moneygami, an exacting discipline that uses USD paper notes, a particular format where all notes are the same size and still made of paper is fascinating for a bunch of reasons.

The accuracy needed to tease so much detail out of such a small rectangle of tough paper is an art, and Won park is an astonishingly talented designer that designed this fish – a lovely catfish/Koi Carp.

Mind buggering (and finger bleeding) details include a luscious fantail, scales, gills, fins, a majestic head with EYES that are part of the “greenback” printed design – wow!. Continue reading

330: Billfold

There is something I have learned about Australian paper money – it is NOT paper and it does not want to be folded. So I entered a little bit of a counterfeitting mode and made some paper money out of images and paper:

This is a billfold – one of HUNDREDS of models designed to be folded with an American $1.

Many are intricate and detailed, this one is merely figurative and works on many conceptual levels – making money work, making dollars with dollars etc.

I wonder what “greenbacks” are like to fold – the paper must be pretty strong to survive circulation and for there to be so many designs devoted to the medium I imagine it folds pretty well.

I miss paper money, I miss lower denomination coinage – as we jettison it, prices go up, value goes down, inflation goes crazy and exchange rates go through the roof.

A wise man once said that there is much unhappiness in the world because people spend most of their lives chasing little bits of coloured paper – this is odd because, on the whole, those bits of paper are not the least bit unhappy. DNA, I miss you.