Joan Michaels Paque

I recently became aware of Joan’s amazing work due to a posting of hers on the Origami-L mailing list. She has a wonderful portfolio of art, crossing many genres and materials, including sculpture, textiles, paper and more. I highly recommend taking at look at her collections online, or in person if you have a chance. She’ll be doing a two-day workshop in early March 2006 in San Francisco, and also a Paper Arts course in Door County, Wisconsin in late July. (a little closer than SF to me, although any excuse to go to SF is a good one in my book.)

Her Paper & Related Arts section has this to say about her artwork:

This current series of kinetic sculptural artworks are the result of my research and experimentation with complex pleat-and-twist folds and tessellations. They are related to and combined with a variety of book and paper arts philosophies including traditional and innovative building and binding techniques. Additionally, origami and pop up architecture influences are expressed through the use of conventional and unorthodox materials.

I am indebted to Japanese mathematician Fujimoto Shuzo Sensei for graciously providing me with copies of his three seminal out of print origami books. His contributions, written over 20 years ago, were far ahead of others in this field of study. I became intrigued with the potential of applying his concepts in unique ways.