There’s an origami convention coming up Chicago next month, so I’ve been getting organized about folding some new models for the convention. Having to do an exhibition is a great motivator. I’ve also been busy at work, transitioning from a part-time consulting gig to a full time staff position as Lead Engineer of Consumer Reports’ new Innovation Lab. I’ll be building an R&D software engineering team to create prototypes and products around consumer’s digital privacy and data rights. More on that as the situation comes into being, but soon, having Fridays off will be a thing of the past.
So last Friday I spent a good chunk of the day organizing my origami studio. Since the start of the pandemic there have not been alot of in-person conventions and exhibits, so I’m really just getting back into it. I have lots of boxes of half-folded experiments and ideas. I want to take the best and perfect them and fold them at an exhibit-quality level. Some of the stuff is pretty complex and ambitious.
While I was at it, I threw out lots of old models. One has to do this every few years, but it’s always funny because the stuff I’m getting rid of was once some of my best work. Michael LaFosse told me not too long ago that if the model has a face, like a human or an animal, he can’t bear to tear it up or crumple it. Instead he unfolds it first, then throws away an unfolded sheet of paper. I found myself doing that a few times.
I registered to teach classes at the Chicago convention. I signed up to teach two classes, and am thinking of adding a third. Among the models I’m teaching is my Space Cat, which I designed at the beginning of the summer, right around the time my jazz and funk band Spacecats decided on its name. The model is a variation on my Sophie the Cat, restyled with a sleek, atomic age midcentury modern look. Very hip.
And, it looks like the Origami MIT convention is back this year, after three years off!
