Monthly Archives: January 2007

Announcing a new version of Tess (1.4)

Originally uploaded by Paper Mosaics.

Alex Bateman has released a new version of his landmark software, Tess.

Tess allows you to create all sorts of tilings, and modifications of those tilings- so you can explore possibilities without having to fold it all out in paper, first! Also, this new version provides PDF export capability, which is a major plus for windows users.

Tess is a Perl application, and will run on any Perl-capable system with a bit of tweaking. (This means you, Linux/FreeBSD/MacOSX users.) Or, if you’re running windows, you can download a standalone version, which will run on it’s own without requiring any Perl resources. Both of these are available to download from Alex’s website.

Download the latest version of Tess!

Lotus

Originally uploaded by tekuila.

I found this origamic architecture piece really quite beautiful- from my flickr contact tekuila.

Wonderful color choices and a great design. I love seeing these kinds of things.

little face

Originally uploaded by origami joel.

There’s been a lot of “nano-tessellations” folded on the Origami Tessellations group on Flickr lately; Joel Lorenzo Marchi started this madness off a while back, and the ante keeps being upped by various people folding smaller and smaller designs. (See some other patterns from Ralf Konrad, for example.)

But of course Joel came back with this: part of a mask, folded from tiny, tiny pleats, less than 4cm across for the whole piece. Wow. That’s really quite something!

Francesco Decio taught this model of mine at the Italian CDO convention in Verbania, in December. I was really impressed to see that he had made some great instructions, much much better than the confusing CP that I made a while back.

He also sent me some great instructions for my simple octagonal twist, which again are very clear and understandable!

I’m really thankful that he created these wonderful instructions, and furthermore that he has shared them with me and allowed me to share them with you.

Download them here:

Star Twist Progression, Two Layers (PDF)

Star Twist Progression, Three Layers (PDF)

Octagonal Star (PDF)

Here’s a good story in the Japan Times about american artisans living in Japan, learning and then teaching others to make washi. It also talks about the efforts to keep the papermaking tradition alive in a country that is speeding headlong into the future, often at the expense of ancient methods, processes and skillsets.

Since he likes the traditional Japanese aesthetic of “wabi sabi,” which connotes austere beauty and elegant simplicity, he often uses what he calls “tone-downed color,” such as earth colors and charcoal gray, to give it a more “warm or natural feel.”

…

Some of Flavin’s washi, including paper made from kozo and from pineapple, was listed in an updated version of a book of paper samples titled “Washi — Handmade Paper of Japan,” which was published in 2006 by the nationwide association of handmade paper makers.

“Mr. Flavin cultivates the raw material himself, and is sticking to the ancient form of papermaking,” said Shohei Asano, president of a washi paper outlet in Tokyo who helped compile the book.

The Japan Times, January 6th, 2007

Thanks to Mark Kennedy on the O-list for the link!

I was playing around yesterday with some star-puff related shapes, and thought these might be interesting to someone out there.

Ron Resch photo from the 1960′s

Originally uploaded by EricGjerde.

Given to me by Joan Michaels Paque, as some wonderful background information on the work of Ron Resch. Fantastic! Thank you so much, Joan!

I don’t have a date on this one, but from his hair and clothing it looks almost like the early 60′s. Wow. Isn’t it amazing to see the tessellated structure from back then? This is fantastic to me.

Check out the three other photos including a great letter from 1978, on my flickr photo stream.

I was just made aware of some fantastic newModular Kirigami pieces being created by George Hart, (previously linked to on OT:here).

image from georgehart.com

It’s no secret that we have a big love for kirigami here in our house- my wife is a kirigami fanatic. So when a mutual friend, Jeff Rutzky, pointed out this new work by George I had to go check it out.

It’s quite fascinating stuff, and I can’t wait to devote a big chunk of time into going nuts with our CraftROBO, and give this kind of wicked geometry-meets-craft-meets-kirigami-meets-art a spin. I’m a paper arts freak, so all this kind of stuff just gets me really jazzed up!

Check out some of the other amazing work that George has- there’s a plethora of it to gawk at, and be amazed by.

-Eric

do I get extra points for dropping as many names as I possibly could in one paragraph? I tried!

Luny Lunoid

Originally uploaded by lilzabubba.

We’ve been folding a lot of Lunoids around the house lately, really enjoying this great model by Philip Chapman-Bell. Most definitely download the CP and give it a try, it makes an oddly appealing shape that is most hard to identify.

We haven’t yet figured out what the shape looks like the most, but seed pods, loaves of bread, peasant shoes, fat little boats, and other such things have all taken a run at first place…

Hi there everyone. I’ve been a little busy lately, going a bit bonkers with projects and some new 2007 craziness at work. Just posting some quick links and general end-of-the-year roundup bits here.

In case you missed it before, I uploaded some photos from my trip to the Italian origami convention in Verbania. I can’t lay claim to them being amazingly wonderful photos, but there’s some nice stuff in there, and lots of tessellations (what a shock, I know.) Make sure to check out the nice pieces by Sipho Mabona, who I had the great pleasure of finally meeting in person. (his flickr page: www.flickr.com/photos/sipmab). I was also very excited to meet Ralf Konrad, to see my good friend Mélisande again, as well as Roberto Gretter and several other nice people that I ran into at the OUSA convention in summer 2006.

OK, so moving on… I’d also like to point out the really interesting work coming from Ray Schamp and Polly Verity, and the group they post to most often: Origami Corrugations

There’s a lot of stuff here that I really dig, and it’s a good place for folded pleated goodness. I’m really into 3D pleated structures, and I’m just pleased as punch to know there’s other folks who feel the same way and who actually made a Flickr group about it!

Some other great stuff:

Tachi Tomohiro: so glad he joined Flickr- I love his work and being able to interact with him about it is doubleplusgood

Fernando Sierra (elelvis): I haven’t spoken to him yet, but seeing stuff like this over and over again from different people makes me think that I need to go to Colombia to study! There must be something amazing in the air down there…

Pietro Seminelli: Saw his work via a video link from Mélisande, and I’m floored- check out the leather pillow on his website. It’s fantastic, and I really need to make one just like it to match a chair in my office. That seems like another project for a rainy day, right there…

Marius Watz: I continually get a little buzz from his work, every time I see a new piece. This guy is great. His recent foray into rapid prototyping (with bronze!) is worth checking out, too.

Lots of things going on these days, I’ll try to make a better effort to post things rather than stashing them away with the best intentions of posting them “some day”!

Hope you had a stellar 2006- here’s to a wonderful 2007 and all the great things that the new year brings.

-Eric

(P.S. – we had a site glitch this last weekend- oops! back up and running now.)