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Ethan Plaut

The Origami Art of Ethan Plaut

Published by ericgjerde
Ethan Plaut

Ethan Plaut

I did some research into Ethan Plaut, and while I didn’t come up with too much here’s some tantalizing tidbits of info. If you have more that you can tell me about Ethan, I would appreciate it! I had no luck discovering his current activities and latest work.

You can look at the 4 photos on the link above; or check out some of his photos in the book Origamido, which also features wonderful work from Robert Lang, Paul Jackson, etc.

the Origamido store also is selling a video about Ethan’s work, appropriately titled Architectural Origami Design – Building on the Equilateral Triangle: The Many Facets of Ethan R. Plaut.

I also tracked down this old collection of photos (some are the same as above) at his university.

And lastly, this interesting piece of information, pulled from a Northwestern University pamphlet from 2000:

Weinberg junior and College Scholar Ethan Plaut grabbed the attention of USA Today this year with a unique talent for origami, in which he brings together the study of the structural and the expressive. In February he became one of 20 students nationwide and the first Northwestern student to join the newspaper’s All- USA College Academic First Team.

A lifelong love of art, music, and literature came together with the study of mathematics and linguistics at Northwestern, Plaut said. “When I got to Northwestern, I began to take a lot of linguistics classes, and I realized all of the things I was interested in were [related]. It was then that I began looking at the structures associated with ways of expressing yourself.”

Plaut studies how formal systems, such as math and linguistics, can be used to create and analyze art. His combined interests led him to origami, the Japanese art of paper folding. He has created works of unusual beauty in this art form, some of which have been featured in origami books and videos. He also teaches math and origami to area grade school and junior high school students and has shown and taught his work at origami conventions.

Plaut said he intended to be an economist when he entered the Mathematical Methods in the Social Sciences Program as a sophomore. He has since decided to pursue an ad hoc major — formal systems and the arts — an interdisciplinary program integrating classes from many departments. One of Plaut’s College Scholars mentors, Robert Coen, associate dean for undergraduate studies and economics professor, recognized the student’s unique talents when he first proposed his ad hoc major.

“Ethan had been working on some mathematical theorems that related to properties of [origami] folds. Then he used the theorems in designing various pieces of origami,” said Coen. “One of these was a three-dimensional mask, which looked like the mask of Agamemnon. If you hold it up to the light, you see the intricacy of these folds and the pattern they make in the mask itself.”

Yiibu » Creative Commons Origami Fortuneteller

Published by ericgjerde

Yiibu » Creative Commons Origami Fortuneteller

What surprised me when I first started researching the artform was how it was almost impossible to find un-copyrighted origami patterns. Of course, from a pure copyright law point of view, anything ‘fixed in a tangible medium’ is copyrightable and in many countries, becomes instantly copyrighted upon creation. But legalities aside, I was shocked at the depth of the proprietary movements surrounding origami. Not only were patterns or folds copyrighted, but often so were instructions. While there were ancient origami folds (dubbed ‘traditional’,) that presumably were in the public domain, their representation in books (the teaching of the fold, the photography, diagrams etc.) was copyrighted. The end result being that it was almost impossible to find origami that I could confidently distribute under a Creative Commons license.

So here is the best I’ve been able to come up with—a downloadable origami fortuneteller. Instructions included. Just fold on the dotted lines. And in the spirit of things, what better topic than Creative Commons licenses.

Amen, sister. You’re not alone in your despair on that front. And, like you, some of us are making an effort to change it.

I’m not claiming that the Creative Commons license works for everything, or everyone- that would be silly. But it really does go a long way to wards liberating content while keeping abuse from happening. Nobody likes releasing something they’ve worked long and hard on just to see it abused; the CC licensing doesn’t stop that, of course, but gives you some nice protection from the most egregious sorts.

This is a topic which I will revisit, but not on a lazy snowy sunday afternoon! I am very thankful for your effort in putting this out there and publicizing the CC license scheme. Keep up the good work!

The Art of Joan Michaels Paque

Published by ericgjerde

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.