I happened to catch this movie on PBS on Sunday night, and I have been haunted by the images and the information ever since.
art by Chris K. Palmer
Vanessa Gould’s film Between the Folds is about origami and the myriad ways in which artists and scientists have worked within its tradition, pushed its boundaries and even adapted it for practial use in the sciences. The rule is to fold a square piece of paper and to create a three-dimensional form only by folding, no scissors, no tape, no glue. You will be astounded to see how wonderfully various the responses to those parameters are.
I love paper. I get giddy in paper stores. I lived in Japan for two years, and although I never got the hang of origami, I came home with a suitcase full of Japanese paper. I learned to make books from washi and chiyogami, and I took what I learned and adapted it to other purposes: a paper quilt, memory boxes, photo frames. This film has become part of my magpie paper collection. Art that stirs the soul.
Nathalie Foy 
I know just what you mean about getting giddy around paper. I have never got over the thrill of having a new exercise book at school, the smell and the feel of it. Nor, have I got over the fear of despoiling it with my awful handwriting.
I love the idea expressed here about changing the memory of the paper. It speaks of the concept of paper as being sentient, which I’m quite sure it is.
The man who talks about the memory of paper is at work on how proteins fold. If they fold the wrong way, you get diseases like AIDS, so he’s working on medicines that make proteins fold the right way. It’s marvellous stuff. Do try to watch the film if you can, Annie. It’s truly wonderful, and the trailer does not do it credit. (You can watch it on youtube.)
That’s an amazing film. I saw it about a year ago at the Chicago Cultural Cente and was absolutely blown away.
I, too, am a sucker for paper, and one of the thrills of my life was a trip to Japan where we visited, and made paper with, Sajio Hamada, a papermaker who is a National Living Treasure.
Wasn’t it wonderful?! I love how the Japanese have National Living Treasures. What a joy it must have been to work with him.
I had no idea you had a paper fixation! I too love chiyogami — took a bunch of bookmaking classes and then promptly forgot all my skills. I still have an awl, a bone folder, special glue, about 7 how-to bookbind books and it’s, sadly, all in a bag in my closet. ah…one day. do you know Akemi Nishidera? she has a studio called KOZO (dundas/broadview) — amazing paper artist/printmaker (and awesome teacher!). I even took a papermaking class when I lived in Missouri…
ps: did you read that NYorker article about the physicist-turned origami artist? if not, let me know and I”ll dig it up for you (if you subscribe, it’s in the 2006 archives, i think…) FASCINATING!
No, I’d love to read it if you still have a copy. There is an annual paper and book arts fair in Toronto every Septemeber, I think, and the bookbinding techniques are breathtaking. One woman bound a poem about a quilt in a quilt-shaped, folding book. It was a marvel. I can only do the basic outside sewn spine, but would love to expand my knowledge. Maybe when I have an empty nest….
Is this the one? By Susan Orlean?
http://www.susanorlean.com/articles/the_origami_lab.html
yes! that’s it! it’s fascinating 🙂
I love paper too, and I was really into origami for a little while, before I discovered that I was far more successful constructing animals out of balloons. :p