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Last November, we had a chance to meet up with French artist Vincent Floderer, at his home and studio in southwestern France.

I had always wanted to meet Vincent – his crumpling techniques and artistic style are unique, and extremely appealing to me in their wonderful organic style. I found him to be even more amazing in person than I could have imagined, and he gave me a lot to think about with regards to my own work.

Here’s a few selected images and a short video clip from our visit, and some additional images from one of Vincent’s gallery exhibitions with Viereck Verlag last June.

stars and leaves, originally uploaded by Imagirom.

Saw this beautiful piece by Imagirom, a newcomer to our Origami Tessellations group on Flickr.

He’s been folding some great things lately, and this one really struck me. I like the way it’s an abstract representation of some real things, it goes beyond the normal sort of pattern and becomes something even more.

It’s gorgeous, isn’t it?

dodecagon flagstone, originally uploaded by EricGjerde.

Here’s a basic crease pattern for a dodecagonal flagstone pattern, overlaid on top of a triangular grid.

The spacing between the hinges is not equal all around the dodecagon, but the actual tessellation itself is the proper dual of the 12.12.3 tessellation (two dodecagons and an equilateral triangle.)

What that means is we get two really big spiky 12-sided things and smaller triangular twists between them.

I haven’t tried it but if you actually squashed these they would probably overlap! I like them in their "uncollapsed" state, as I think they are more interesting as rigidly foldable constructs…

If you want to download the PDF version of this file, you can get it here:

www.origamitessellations.com/docs/dodecagon_flagstone.pdf

Here’s the folded version:

a new work, originally uploaded by EricGjerde.

I recently finished this piece and sent it off for a show in Ohio (The FAVA Folding Festival, organized by James Peake and Ray Schamp). I think it’s making it’s way from there to another show later on in the year at the Sandusky Cultural Center, also in Ohio.

On top of that, I’m going to be in Ohio later on this summer for the first Midwestern origami convention- creatively titled “Centerfold“. (Being in Minnesota, I’m not so sure that I think of Ohio as the “center”, but I digress.) So I seem to be interacting with Ohio quite a bit this summer. Looking forward to meeting some new people while I’m out there visiting!

There’s a good amount of behind-the-scenes work going on here in the studio as of late, with some very curious constructions coming together and a lot of large-scale work being done… photos and more info to come soon. It’s going to be quite a sight.

hope all is well, let’s talk again soon, my friends~

-Eric

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…

Rhombic Flowers CP

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.

Mother and Child, originally uploaded by cedison.

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.

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

20090418_1325, originally uploaded by one97tom.

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