Origami Tessellations

Can’t help but post this beautiful octagonal star design by Mélisande*:

She calls this piece “Stars, Flower and Octagons”. It’s an extension of a design she was exploring in December, based on an irregular negative-space octagonal star – the shape created when you connect lines from all four corners of a square to the midpoints along the sides.

She further details the origins of this shape via some geometrical explanations on this flickr post:

It has been used quite a bit historically, including this Moorish mosque (now a church) ceiling in Toledo, Spain. (Image used under CC license permission from albTotxo’s flickr photostream.)

And of course I would be remiss not to mention Mélisande’s new blog, starting 1/1/2008!

La Chronique de Mélisande*

I’d be hard pressed to find a nicer person out there. She has this to say about her art:

I’m not claiming my art to be only a product of my own genius, nor have I proprietarian pretentions on it : many of my ideas actually come from friends of mine and I’m happy when someone else find my work inspirational. It isn’t origami until you share it, according to my friend Philip Chapman-Bell.
Art is a way to abolish time, distance, and a consolation to our mortality.

Congratulations on your new blog, my friend, and I look forward to reading more about your creations.

For all of you out there, С новым годом, Happy New Year, Bonne Année, Feliz Año Nuevo, and prost Neujahr! May this new year of 2008 bring interesting times and good luck to all of us.

-Eric Gjerde

I’ve been following the continued explorations of Andrew Hudson, via his Flickr stream.

Lately, he’s been working with a series of three-dimensional tessellation structures, particularly stretched pleats and box pleating. These are some areas that I have explored recently as well – there’s much fertile ground here for new ideas. Seeing what he thinks of and all his conceptual work is very inspiring, and I’m looking forward to seeing more of his constructs as time goes on.

Here’s a small sampling of his work, with links to the original flickr images.

Check out this box pleated house structure – imagine pleating together a whole city? Andrew linked to this additional blog post, as well, with another fantastic box-pleated house… it serves as a good example of what can be further be done.

This reminds me, of course, of a recent work by one of my favorite Italian origami creators, Lorenzo Marchi. When I see this design, all I can think of is a proto-city, waiting for tall skinny skyscrapers to grow upwards, making an entire cityscape. If one was sufficiently ambitious, I suppose an entire landscape could be created, from the city core to the rural countryside. I’d love to see that!

3D Cubes, by Lorenzo Marchi

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

Our good friend Jeff Rutzky recently wrapped up a book on kirigami, which is packaged in a delightful boxed kit. It’s now available at Barnes & Noble stores, as well as online at bn.com.

Kirigami: Exquisite Projects to Fold and Cut (bn.com)

We’re particularly fond of this book because it features some pieces by my wife Bekah as well a piece inspired by some of my tessellation ideas. I’ve talked about Bekah’s kirigami work previously; she has been very pleased about the opportunity to contribute to Jeff’s book.

It also features work from some of my favorite paper artists, including Paul Jackson, Chris Palmer, Christiane Bettens, Ingrid Siliakus, Fernando Sierra, Jen Stark, and many more.

I think perhaps my favorite feature of the book was the quantity of art included- as motivational and inspirational examples of what is out there in the world of paper cutting. I can honestly say that it opened my eyes to some things I had never even thought possible.

Congratulations on the book release Jeff!