Archive for the ‘my work’ Category
Branching out February 21st, 2008
I’m still folding paper - see some of the work at the end of this post! But I’ve just started taking GMAW/MiG welding classes, and it’s a lot of fun. I’m looking forward to learning some metalworking skills and applying some of my love for geometric design… and seeing what comes out of the combination!
I have a lot of fond memories of my grandfather working in his shop welding things, and my first attempts at welding tonight (while messy) made me feel a connection with him, and it was a happy-making experience.
And then this - my first exposure to a computer-controlled plasma cutter! It was love at first sight!
I have, however, been doing work in paper as well. I took a week in early February and went on a personal “art retreat” in NYC, and I was able to get some interesting work done. I also came away with a lot of ideas for new work, which is still continuing.
Here’s a design for a bowl (of all things) which I am still refining, to be completed in some wonderful multi-hued blue handmade flax paper. Please forgive the quality of the photos here, I was taking photos during the build process for my own reference.
Here’s the blue flax that I’m intending to use, from Cave Paper in Minneapolis.
And here’s a sample of a variant pattern folded from the same paper in a chocolate / brown hue:
The paper has a delightful roughness to it, with an uneven deckled edge that should really make a great rim to the bowl. I’m looking forward to the final version of this; I just have to make sure that I calculate everything properly, as I only get one chance to make it, and it’s going to take three sheets of the blue flax to do it in the proper scale.
If anyone has a good suggestion for a clear and strong glue, please let me know. I haven’t found any satisfactory “connecting” materials yet, which is also holding things up a bit. Ideas welcome.
Posted in WIP, art, flickr photos, my work, origami | Comments (3)
Vertebral Stretch - 3D Wigglies December 17th, 2007
I’ve been experimenting with this three dimensional folded structure for a little while now, and for reference I’ve created a simple crease pattern in case anyone wants to fold this.
You can grab one of two versions - one on a grid, and one without. They are much smaller versions meant for reference understanding; just expand the construct to make it larger.
http://www.origamitessellations.com/docs/3D_wigglies.pdf
The version superimposed on a grid: (sorry for the misalignment, this was done for reference purposes only, not for publication anywhere!)
http://www.origamitessellations.com/docs/3D_wigglies_grid.pdf
I hope you enjoy, and if you fold one of these please send me a photo! I’d love to see how it turns out.
Posted in art, creative commons, diagrams, flickr photos, my work, origami, origami tessellations | Comments (5)
Current and Future Exhibitions October 13th, 2007
I recently shipped 5 pieces to Vancouver for an upcoming exhibition at the Pendulum Gallery, coinciding with the PCOC 2007 convention. Much of it is new work, representing some new folding concepts and ideas that I have been exploring lately.
Night Creature, 2007
Odd Man Out, 2007
Printemps, 2007
Pecten Magellanicus, 2007
Vertebral Stretch, 2007
I also have a number of pieces on display at the Treasures of Origami Art exhibition at the Tikotin Museum of Japanese Art in Haifa, Israel. This wonderful exhibition was the product of much hard work and planning by Dr. Saadya Sternberg, who was kind enough to ask me to participate.
The Tikotin exhibition is currently open, and will be running until December 2007. The Pendulum Gallery exhibition will be from October 29 - November 10, 2007, in Vancouver, Canada.
Something I mentioned to my wife the other day- I have yet to participate in any gallery or museum exhibitions here in the United States! I hope to have a show in my hometown of Minneapolis some day soon, but so far I seem to spend most of my time shipping my creations abroad. At least I’m getting much better at filling out customs paperwork!
-Eric
Posted in art, design, flickr photos, my work, origami, origami tessellations, paper | Comments (1)
Tessellation Basics booklet now available - free PDF! August 15th, 2007
Well, I had all the best intentions to add more content to this booklet - but it’s hard for me not to just put in all the material from my book! So I’m posting it now in the same format that I used at the Origami USA convention this summer.
This document is just a small taste of the material from the book, put together from some of the draft work and preliminary writings. The final product is quite lengthier and more detailed, as well as more polished. (Editors are very good at taking text like mine and making it readable!)
This 8 page booklet is meant to be printed on 11×17 (or A3, in a pinch) double-sided- so it can be folded into a proper booklet shape.
I had a lot of fun putting this together- thanks again to Jamie and Jeff for helping me to create and format this document!
Posted in diagrams, flickr photos, my work, o-list postings, origami, origami tessellations, paper | Comments (10)
recent works in progress July 23rd, 2007
I’ve been doing a lot of “idea work” lately- also known as playing around and not doing anything seriously. Here’s some examples of work in progress, which I intend to keep developing into some new things.
This came out of some explorations with complex 3D surfaces with non-convex edges in the shape of a zig-zag. This came out quite nicely but the large zig-zag shape made the paper curve into a circle… so I added some compression in the center, which made a corrugated pattern in the midst of it all. It’s sort of a strange mix between my normal tessellation techniques and origami corrugations, as done by Ray Schamp and Polly Verity.
Working on completing this piece- it’s sort of a triptych, although it’s on one sheet of paper. Once I wrap it up I’ll be documenting the process via some instructional material to be posted on this site.
I’ve been fascinated by “pleat explosions” after seeing the work of paper artist Jen Stark. I wanted to riff off her work, transposed into my chosen methodology; it’s been difficult due to inherent limitations with uncut folded paper techniques. So I decided it was high time I start trying new things, and I cut the paper in specific locations to free up some pleats.
I haven’t spent a lot of time doing the modeling and shaping of this trial attempt, but I think there’s some nice possibilities in it. I think there’s a whole family of floral shapes that can be pulled out of this, and I’m contemplating a large tessellation of these floral designs. It will also allow me to try some dye techniques, using some ideas from Jane Araújo and Joseph Wu, both of whom have done a lot of experimentation with dyes of various sorts. More on this to come.
I found a new geometrical pattern to be exploited on a triangular grid- also used sparingly in the tessellated corrugation piece above. It yields a large 3D cone shape- I’m sure there’s something that can be done with this. For the meantime it’s being filed away under the “things to be explored later” category.
Last but not least, my publisher sent the final lasers for my book to me for last-minute corrections. After a few tweaks I sent it back, and it was shipped off to the publishers last week! I’m glad to have this project completed; it’s been a lot of fun but also a bit stressful at times. It was also a very valuable learning experience, and I’m better prepared now for the next book.
-Eric
Posted in art, flickr photos, my work, origami, origami tessellations | Comments (3)
Teaching Tessellation Basics at OUSA June 17th, 2007
Bekah and I are heading to NYC tomorrow morning, to do a little touristing and personal meet-ups before the Origami USA convention June 22-25 at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan.
I will be teaching two classes, one complex class on folding tessellations from this scallop shell unit, and one intermediate class on "tessellation basics". To that end, I whipped together a little booklet covering a few of the basic concepts, using some materials and ideas from my upcoming book. It’s really just a bit of a taste of the topic, but I wanted to help people grasp some of the simple bits, so the class would be a bit easier to teach- teaching is hard work, and I get easily sidetracked.
I will be posting a version of the 8 page booklet online after the convention, once I have an opportunity to shake out anything that the class (or others) feel is a little confusing, needs clarification, etc.
Jamie Kelley of Vancouver helped out enormously by taking my random snippets of text and imagery and wrangling them into a nice collection of pages. Thanks so much, Jamie! I’m very impressed with the final product.
For those of you going to the convention, who might be in NYC ahead of time- if you’d like to meet up for coffee or dinner please shoot me an email at origomi@mac.com, and we’ll see what we can arrange. I’m hoping to spend some quality time talking with other like-minded folders without the crush of the convention atmosphere, so if you’re interested in having a chat let me know.
Oddly enough, I always seem to travel on my birthday- tomorrow I turn 29 years old. The last year seems to have just whizzed past at a rapid pace. What new exciting things will the next year hold? I can’t wait to find out.
UPDATE: You can now download the PDF!
Posted in diagrams, flickr photos, my work, origami, origami tessellations | Comments (5)
Origami Tessellations: The Book April 30th, 2007
An alert Flickr friend let me know that my book appeared on Amazon.com:
Origami Tessellations: Fantastic Paper Geometry
I’m interested to see it listed, although it’s still in the final stages of layout and all that fun stuff. The “cover” shown is not the final one, but just the mock-up created for the catalog; I don’t know yet what the final cover will look like.
The final ship date is earlier than Jan 1, 2008- I hope, anyway- but nevertheless it’s not that far away, considering how much work still remains to be done on the publisher’s side of things.
Here’s the blurb text from Amazon, which (I’m guessing) is something that was written for the catalog that Lark sends out to all prospective purchasers.
Tessellations—shapes repeated over and over to fill a plane without overlapping—have inspired beautiful art, from intricate tile work to M.C. Escher’s playful graphics. Now, master origami artist Eric Gjerde has produced the same stunning kaleidoscopic patterns simply by folding paper! His awe-inspiring collection—the first of its kind—explores the creative possibilities of origami tessellations. The techniques will captivate anyone interested in papercrafting, mathematics, architecture, and design. Gjerde meticulously walks you through all the key folds and creases. Twenty-five projects are organized by complexity, beginning with the easy-to-learn Tiles Hexagon Tessellation and continuing to more exotic designs, like Arms of Shiva, Field of Stars, and Aztec Twist. Each one appears in extremely close-up photos—sometimes backlit—and an inspiring gallery of breathtaking tessellations by origami artists concludes the book.
So, things are moving along. This is the first visibly tangible evidence I have seen that this whole experience is actually real; it’s kind of strange, to be honest with you. I think when I hold the final result in my hands it’s going to be a very odd moment indeed.
-Eric
(PS: the amazon link is an affiliate thing, I don’t normally get all fired up about that sort of setup. However, I hope you don’t mind me referring my own book. Thanks!)
Posted in art, design, diagrams, geometry, my work, origami, origami tessellations, paper, weblinks | Comments (5)
Star Twist and Octagonal Star diagrams by Francesco Decio January 15th, 2007
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)
Posted in creative commons, diagrams, my work, origami, origami tessellations | Comments (2)
Having fun with Star Puffs January 8th, 2007
I was playing around yesterday with some star-puff related shapes, and thought these might be interesting to someone out there.
Posted in flickr photos, my work, origami, origami tessellations, paper | Comments (0)
3.6.3.6 Waterbomb / Flagstone Tessellation, Crease Pattern November 20th, 2006
If you are so inclined, I uploaded two different crease patterns for this design:
- 3.6.3.6 Waterbomb/Flagstone Tessellation, crease pattern (with grid)
- 3.6.3.6 Waterbomb/Flagstone Tessellation, crease pattern (no grid, as pictured above)
I’m really at somewhat of a loss on what to name these tessellations. If folded fully they become flagstone tessellations, ala Joel Cooper; if left three-dimensional, they are "waterbomb" style tessellations (although waterbomb is the wrong term for us to use here, but we’ll dispense with that argument for the moment.)
Regardless, this is a 3.6.3.6 tessellation- the old standard, triangles and hexagons together.
When you fold "normal" tessellations, the twists are always the dual of the tessellation you are folding. (For example, the 3.6.3.6 tessellation has a dual made up of rhombic stars- and the rhombic star tessellation, when folded, has hexagon and triangle twists, which most people actually think of as a 3.6.3.6 tessellation even though it’s really the dual of that…)
However, with these "waterbomb" tessellations, there seems to be a little bit of change due to the geometry involved. I still think they use the same "my twists are my dual" rule, but it’s a little different in how it folds out in the end, and I haven’t quite figured it all out yet.
This pattern (which I am currently folding) is really quite complicated to collapse. Much trickier than I thought it would be. However, I think the results will be quite interesting and worth the time spent.
It’s not really a full CP- many of the little creases for the hourglass shapes aren’t there- but I think you can figure it out if you fold these sorts of things.
Posted in art, creative commons, flickr photos, geometry, my work, origami, origami tessellations | Comments (0)