T Fuse

Future Folds: Panel discussion and Exhibition

| wonko

Coupled to 8OSME, RMIT Design Hub is currently hosting an exhibition of important origami works called “Future Folds”. The opening event featured a panel discussion with Tomoko Fuse and Robert J Lang.

Panel discussions can be wonderful if the alchemy is right – the right combination of guests and questions. I am not sure we got a stellar set of questions posed, but it was encouraging to hear the guests speak of their obvious love of origami, and interesting to hear about their differing approaches to the artform.

We then proceeded to the gallery space to view a number of precious “holy grail” origami objects. Presented as the centerpiece was a large scale installation of Tomoko Fuse’s “OROCHI” (or large snake) – beautiful organic tube sculptures that seemed to have a life of their own.

Around the walls of the gallery were astonishing things, many of which I have only ever seen in documentaries and books – Tomohiro Tachi’s “Rabbit” for example. This was posited proof that using “Origamiser”, you can construct a crease pattern to replicate ANY 3d object using folds only. An amazing demonstration that would have been a nightmare to actually fold, but entirely possible to do so.

We saw some lovely examples of Jun Mitani’s curved fold works (some I have the CP of but have never successfully folded) and some original tree-maker inspired circle-packed designs for bugs and lobster from Robert Lang.

Present also were some lovely spiral forms and tessellations by Tomoko Fuse and an assortment of other precious folded things.

It is rare for such works to make it to Australia, and I was so glad to have been able to see them.

1042: Starsea Kusudama

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Keeping my fingers buys, I had it suggested (on Redit) that I should try Tomoko Fuse’s ‘Starsea Kusudama”:

Tomoko Fuse's Starsea Kusudama

I had not seen this before, the unit is complex and folding it on a 1/4 6″ square was, in retrospect, probably a mistake but I like a challenge.

30 modules later, the construction was fiddly but the locked shape is really sturdy and there is no need for glue – tabs are buried deep in pockets. The last few units are really hard to seat (I needed tweezers to ease them into place) but paper tension causes the ball to become regular.

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950: Urchin Kusudama (Priceless Artwork #2)

| wonko

Riffling through boxes of stuff from our kid’s Kindy years, we came across a cache of artworks my Son painted. Being too precious to throw out (and long since removed from the fridge), I set about cutting it up into 2:1 rectangles – LOTS of them:

Urchin kusudama

I then arbitrarily folded them into a modified unit based on one I used that was designed by Tomoko Fuse.

paper prep
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949: Tomoko Fuse’s Truncated Hexahedron

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I love a good modular, and this little charmer uses a module not completely unlike “the little turtle” combined to form a rather lovely cube-like thing:

Tomoko Fuse's Truncated Hexahedron

I decided to use wood-grain paper, and the result looks like the work of a woodie with way more time on their hands than is healthy.

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697: (147/365) Flowered Window Cube

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Tomoko Fuse is a living legend in the Origami Community, her designs are numerous, intricate, ingenious and challenging to fold:

This is a 12 part modular with double-locks, frilly bits and framed holes in each face. Continue reading →

632: (82/365) Spiral Snail

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Inspired by the work of Tomoko Fuse, I began experimenting with a square and using most of it to do a spiral. Initially I tried even divisions but found a more logarithmic progression from wide to narrow worked best:

Using alternating mountains and valleys, a lovely spiral emerged and there was enough paper to fashion a head, antennae and foot. Continue reading →

585: (35/365) Many Hands Make Light Work

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As a teacher and pastoral care “tutor”, I am always looking for ways to get kids working together. At the beginning of the year the tutor group room is a mixed-year level (6-12) mixture of strangers and established friends so “GTK” exercises (Getting To Know you) are great icebreakers if you can get them actually talking and working together:

A few years back I struck on an idea to get kids collaboratively folding an origami mega-structure. The model is fairly simple – I taught the newbies (in this case the year 6 and 7 students) a simple modular unit. They then had to go teach another kid in the group, who in turn taught another. The central metaphor is “the WHOLE is greater than the sum of the parts”, “many hands make light work”, “we are as strong as the weakest link” … and so on.

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493: FuseBall

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They say “many hands make light work” and they (whoever “they” are) are quite correct:493FuseBallManyHands

My pastoral care group (the Mighty Magee F) and I folded Tomoko Fuse’s Icosahedron Kasudama, as part of a “getting to know you” exercise to start off the year, with the theme “the sum of the parts is greater than the individual”. Continue reading →

486: Little Turtle Kusudama

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A dear friend (*waves to Caff) holidayed in Europe, visited Florence and found some amazing block-printed handmade paper, popped it in a post pack tube and mailed it to me.486LittleTurtleKusudamaView

To be honest, I have struggled to use this paper because it seemed a such a terrible shame to cut it. Lovely irregularities, vibrant colours and relatively heavy cardstock suggested that a kusudama might be the solution.

Thumbing through Tomoko Fuse’s book “Multidimensional Transformations, Unit Origami”, I came across a unit called “little turtle” that I had not tried. I think they got the name because, as part of the folding process of the unit you make a shape similar to the “turtle base” I have used for other models.486LittleTurtleKusudamaScale

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386: Dimple Ball

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Looking for a neat, colourful use for a batch of poor quality origami paper I had, I stumbled across a modular dimpled sphere:

The paper cracked and spilt in ugly ways, so I had a good wrestle to actually construct this. Interestingly, when complete it became quite rigid and strong but prior to the last few modules were wrangled into place, it was floppy and kept unfolding inconveniently.

The result is spherical, with lovely pentagonal dimples, with modules centred in fives, meeting in threes – lovely application of maths.

I must look for modules that differ in the basic 32 module sphere, and also for one whose modules are more positively connected. This one is, however, randomly beautiful.

You can have a try of this yourself – go here for instructions

287: Fuse Box (Small Flowers)

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Tomoko Fuse is a genius in designing intricate boxes:

this is called “Small Flowers” because of an incidental pattern the overlapping edges make, sort of looks like aflower. I made it in colour only because a monochrome version would not have been remarkable.

The lid and the base are each comprised of 4 pieces of paper, an interlocking modular that is fairly rigid and would make a nice stocking case or filled with some sweet treat.

Why a “Fuse Box”? Well, Energex had a transformer on the street go pop and our school spent the day without power – all interesting. I thought a paper play on words might be fun.

276: Nautilus

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Tomoko Fuse is undeniably a genius, her work with exacting spiral forms unequalled:

This is her “Nautilus”, a lovely recursive form that, after the pre-creasing, almost folds itself.

Elegant and graceful curve, perfectly planned pleats and a tidy shell end make this model a keeper for sheer geometric beauty alone.

I want to pretend that I go tthis first try – truth is I folded a set of folds wrong way round first go (bloody Japanese instructions), but restarted because I wanted to make the model (so sue me)

Will be folding this again – would love to fold this in large format, will see how I go. really happy with this – who said geometric sequences were not beautiful (it is just mathematicians that wring the joy out of them :P)

237: Fuse’s Triangle Box

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Tomoko Fuse is renowned for her intricate boxes – this one is a version of her triangle box:

A modular, top and bottom each made up of 3 modules that interlock and lace together to create a curious container

I must explore these modular boxes some more, when I have more time, quite happy with this as my first fold however.

231: Tomoko Fuse’s Snail

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Now I found a collection of spirals and boxes by paper legend Tomoko Fuse, and the snail looked hoopy, so I decided to fold it:

A relatively simple fold, with an elegant curved pleat forms the shell and a simple shape for the foot topped off with lovely eye stalks.

If I was to fold this again I would use less symmetrical pleats, so the creases get closer together as the shell gets smaller, still it is a lovely bit of geometry.

Was puzzling what to do as today’s fold, glad I chose this.