Origami Tessellations

Rhombic Flowers

August 10th, 2009

Hi everyone,

I’m getting all packed and ready to head off to Japan tomorrow for the JOAS convention this weekend in Tokyo! They’ve honored me quite a bit by inviting me there as a guest, and I hope to make it a very tessellation-centric time :) I’m looking forward to meeting lots of new friends!

I thought I’d post a crease pattern, as it’s been quite a long while…

So here’s a full CP for a design a did a while back called “Rhombic Flowers”. I’m not sure I have a finished model of this pattern, it’s just an idea that was kicking around my head; but it looks pretty neat, using rhombus twists to make star shapes. A good exercise in playing with rhombic twists, for sure :)

Let me know what you think! It’s on a 64 pleat grid, but by no means do you need to start so large. a 32 grid would be perfectly fine to start, bonus points for doing it on hexagonal paper. (You’ll like the final pattern better if it is even all around.)

Enjoy!

Rhombic Flowers CP in PDF format

Rhombic Flowers by Eric Gjerde is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at www.origamitessellations.com.

Tags: CP, diagrams, origami, origami tessellations, tessellations
Posted in creative commons, diagrams, my work, origami, origami tessellations | Comments (5)

Mother and Child

August 3rd, 2009

Christine Edison posted photos of this absolutely stunning piece. I am always impressed by her ability to take ideas and use them in new ways, creating completely unique and fascinating works.

She’s been making quite a few beautiful organic pieces as of late - pop over to her Flickr stream to take a look.

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Origami Tessellations Calendar

June 9th, 2009

We just published a 17-month academic year calendar full of beautiful images of origami artwork from my book, “Origami Tessellations: Awe-Inspiring Geometric Designs“.

Available now for ordering - it’s being printed on-demand by HP’s MagCloud, which prints out some extremely nice product.

Speaking of items on the calendar: The 2009 Origami USA convention is coming very soon, the last weekend in June in NYC. I will be attending (of course!) and exhibiting some new pieces. I hope to see you there!

I will also be attending the 2009 Japanese Origami Academic Society (JOAS) convention in Tokyo this August 14-16 as one of their invited guests. Needless to say I am quite excited about this - my first trip as one of the special guests at an origami convention. I’m honored that the kind folks at JOAS asked me to attend, and I plan on bringing some special works that I’ve been getting ready especially for this trip!

It’s going to be a busy summer - time to get a calendar to keep track of all of these events :)

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OMG NYC meeting, April 2009

May 8th, 2009

I visited the great people at OMG NYC (Origami Meetup Group NYC) last April, and taught some tessellation basics and a few models while I was there.

My friends Christine Edison and Adrienne Sack were also in town, and they came along - note Christine here on the left, no doubt explaining how wrong I am about something :)

It’s been a busy few months, but there’s a lot of upcoming origami stuff in the works - I’ve got a set of new pieces that are being made for several origami conventions and some exhibitions this year. Photos will be posted once I have everything finalized and ready to ship!

Hope you are all having a good 2009! happy folding!

-Eric Gjerde

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Which School? Help!

January 24th, 2009

I’m writing today to ask for your advice.

Over the last five years, I have come quite far - rediscovering and developing an art form which is fairly unique, meeting many like-minded and gifted artists, and making friends all over the world through our shared love of paper arts. This has been a wonderful journey and I have loved every minute of it.

However, I’m at a bit of a crossroads right now. I have so many areas I want to explore; working with metals, wood, fabrics, leather, and plastics, using CNC routers and lasers and plasma cutters and 3D rapid prototyping… but I don’t have the time, resources, or knowledge to do these things. This has led me to the decision that I really need to find a school or university where I can learn all about these technologies and techniques, and put them to good use making my own artistic visions become reality.

… And I’ve hit a stumbling block. Most of the schools I am looking at offer either focused Paper and Bookmaking Arts programs (like Columbia College in Chicago) or more general Fine Arts programs (Pratt, SVA, etc.) which often require students to have the ability to draw/sketch/paint. This is not a gift I happen to have :) I also have little desire in designing book art; I truly adore good book art but it’s just really not something I see myself doing, and I hesitate to look into a program that would want me to spend a lot of time working with books rather than the paper itself.

Here’s where I need your help, fair readers. Do any of you have suggestions or ideas as to schools or universities I should look into? Is there a better focus to look at, like design vs. art, that would allow me to better use the talents I have? I’m very interested in branching out to new art forms and materials but I do have a rather focused interest, which makes this all a bit complicated. I want to find a school that focuses my geometry and pattern skills to their best possible level.

I’ve seen so many interesting things that people do - design, architecture, sculpture, paper arts, graphic design, printmaking, and so on… I’d love to pursue these things further and see where my potential can take me.

If you have any ideas, please don’t hesitate to drop me a line at ericgjerde@mac.com. I’d be happy to have a phone conversation with you, just send an email and I’ll respond with my contact info.

Thanks so much to all of you! I greatly appreciate your help.

-Eric Gjerde

(And a quick note - I’m currently working on some new projects out of leather, I hope to have finished pieces in a few weeks to share with you! I’m very excited with how this is turning out!)

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Hanatsubaki Magazine, Nov 2008, No. 701

January 6th, 2009

Shiseido’s in-house fashion magazine, Hanatsubaki (Camelia Flower). Shiseido is a high-end Japanese cosmetics company, and Hanatsubaki has been in continuous print since 1937 with a subscriber base of over 9 million. (thanks Wikipedia!)

I am part of a small story on origami and design process, or something to that effect - along with some material from Robert J. Lang and Yuko Nishimura, both artists whom I respect very much.

I would be very interested to know what this article says, so if someone out there is willing to translate this for me I would greatly appreciate it!

It’s a bit out of place, in some respects, with much of the content in the remainder of the magazine… it’s primarily about fashion and design, a lifestyle culture product. It’s quite interesting, but I must admit it was a bit of a surprise for one of their writers to ask me to participate and do an interview. I had a good time, though, and it was helpful for me to think about my design process and actually write out some thoughts on how I go about doing this. The answers surprised me a little bit! When you’re creating things, you don’t consciously think about the creation process - you’re just creating, and in the moment, so almost all other thought is pushed back while you’re focused on the task at hand. To reflect on it after the fact isn’t something I normally do, so it was quite a good exercise for me to undertake.

Thanks to the kind folks at Shiseido and especially to writer Yukari Miyamoto for allowing me to contribute to their magazine.

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Oceania Box by Christine Edison

January 5th, 2009

Our friend Christine Edison posted these fantastic boxes - something she first made about four years ago. The blue one is a new version, slightly modified with additional pleats, and she’s thinking of teaching it this year at the Origami USA convention in NYC.

I have to say that I’m completely in love with this blue box. The curving shape, the textures of both the elephant hide paper and the spiking, ridged pleats - it’s a beautiful piece of art. I want to see it folded on a grand scale out of some kind of marvelous leather, all shiny and smooth.

It reminds me of a leather pillow that I saw on Pietro Seminelli’s website - www.seminelli.fr - but it looks like he has done a site update and I can’t find an image of it anymore, sadly.

I believe there is a photo of it (or a similar pattern) in Jean-Charles Trebbi’s book, L’art du pli. It features a wide array of pleating and folding eye-candy - a must-have book. More on this when my copy arrives here in the States!

Christine has been on a real folding kick lately - check out her blog, at cedison.wordpress.com for updates. She’s also posted a partial set of instructions for the Oceania Box:

Keep up the good work Christine, your fan club is loving it!

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Octagons for October contest winners announced!

January 1st, 2009

The Origami Tessellations group on Flickr created a contest for the month of October, asking people to create octagonally-themed works to celebrate our lonely eight-sided friend and all of his creative possibilities.

My deepest apologies to all of your for the delay in choosing and awarding the winners of this contest - sometimes life has a way of becoming very busy and suddenly two months have passed in the blink of an eye. As penance for being two months late in my judging, I’ve added some additional prizes to this contest: Three contestants will receive a one year Flickr pro membership!

I’d like to thank everyone for participating and contributing such beautiful artwork - so many varieties and methods of folding, I was really astounded to see the diversity of ideas at play in all of your creations! I think everyone who has created something here and shared it with the world is a winner, and you should all be proud of the artwork you have created.

So without further ado, here are the three people who submitted artwork which I thought was the most compelling:

Andrew Hudson (origami_madness) - Andrew absolutely blew me away by creating a new octagonal art piece for each single day in October! I never imagined in my wildest dreams that someone would take this contest to such a level of creative energy. Along with the Flickr Pro account I will also be mailing Andrew a special copy of my origami tessellations book, along with a selection of papers from my own studio paper collection. I’m completely amazed by what he has done! There are so many favorites here, and some truly astonishing new ideas he has shared… but here’s my favorite three:

Endre Somos (soma0213) - Endre made a delightful floral octagonal pattern which reminded me greatly of illustrations from the Grammar of Ornament, my most beloved book of architectural elements and design. The use of visually complex floral design elements together with empty space linked together structurally reinforces the beauty of this artwork. I’m quite fond of this pattern!

Carlos Natan López Nazario (Origami Natan) - Natan creates these phenomenal 3D tessellation structures, which have long fascinated me; but he really captured my interest with his “8 Cubes Star” model, which is a three-dimensional version of my absolute favorite octagonal star pattern. He also has a larger model of a previous version, his “8 Points Star” design, which is similarly delightful.

There was additional work by friends and group members which I also thought was quite deserving of award:

Almost Orange Octagons, by Yureiko

Octagons and Squares Twists, by Andrea Russo

Octagonal Spirals, by Ben Parker

October Blooms, by Ilan Garibi

Dana Hall Display, by Alexander Soukas

Khatam, by Mélisande

If you are interested in looking through all of the submissions to the contest, you can see them via the following link:

http://www.flickr.com/search/groups/?w=90644975%40N00&q=Octagons+for+October&m=pool

There were so many beautiful pieces submitted, I loved them all - thank you everyone for participating and sharing your art!

Tags: flickr, octagons, origami, origami tessellations
Posted in art, flickr photos, origami, origami tessellations | Comments (0)

My book is shipping in mid-December! Pre-order now!

October 19th, 2008

My book, Origami Tessellations: Awe-Inspiring Geometric Designs, is now available for pre-order on Amazon. My publisher has indicated that it will start shipping sometime around mid-December, although no dates have been set in stone yet.

I had a chance to see the proofs of the book two weeks ago at my editor’s office - it really is a gorgeous book! And I’ll be receiving my advance copies within a few weeks, in time to bring them with me to the Italian origami convention in Verbania, IT this December for my book’s first official showing to the public.

I know many of you pre-ordered this book when it was with my previous publisher, Lark Books, and after that deal fell through I’ve had many people asking me “when will your book be available?” Well, the answer is now very very soon - within two months from now! It’s been a long time in the waiting, but I feel that this book is well worth the wait :) Having the chance to change things around with the help of a talented editor/book designer really allowed us to make it a better book, and I think you will be pleased with the result. I know that I am!

Tags: author, book, eric gjerde, origami tessellations
Posted in art, design, geometry, my work, origami, origami tessellations, paper, weblinks | Comments (5)

Buckminster Fuller Quote - Poster Offensive 4

October 13th, 2008

I was contacted by a local designer, Peet Fetsch, about using some of my work in a poster design for the fourth annual Poster Offensive exhibition.

As he was planning on using a quote from Buckminster Fuller, one of my personal heroes, I was quite interested. I’m so pleased with how this turned out.

I had a great time seeing it in the gallery - it’s always a blast to see something of yours on display, even if it is just background imagery for a Bucky quote!

It’s also intriguing to me how other people find the crease lines in this work to be the real focal point… I’m always fixated on the folding process, but with this piece in particular the unfolded crease lines add something to the piece as a whole, and for many people it’s what they focus on. Most people seem to think it is pen or pencil, which makes me chuckle a little bit. When I explain it’s all just folded lines, they don’t always believe me. :)

The original work of mine can be seen here:

Posted in art, design, flickr photos, my work | Comments (3)

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