Most of us with less folding ability than we’d like find reasons to justify our modest efforts – “I’m not patient”, “Life’s too hard”, “I’m not artistic”, “the diagrams are not clear” and even the old classic, “the paper’s not square!”. I suspect a lot of it is down to confidence and being prepared to put the hours in to refine our techniques.
Now and again, you learn about an individual who puts things in their proper perspective, for example Saburo Kase. Kase lost his eyesight at elementary school, but it didn’t stop him from becoming a gifted teacher and creator of origami. I was lucky enough to attend one of his classes at the COET and he was so calm and confident. At one point, his translator asked “Mr Kase asks if anyone has problems”. One eprson did and handed his model to Kase, who calmly and nonchalently unfolded the last step, corrected it and gave it back.
I am organising an origami didactics one day event, to introduce basic folding skills to Sheffield teachers. Does anyone know a good way to send a message to all schools? There used to be an internal mailing list, but now, apparently, I have to mail each school individually. I can’t find a facebook group or any local teaching forums.
I have many dealings with advertising agencies, who in the main have no conception of how origami is created or the proper way to use it in their campaigns. Thus it is that there have been an increasing threat of court cases and legal exchanges over origami. A small number of people who were particularly concerned with “origami rights” have formed an organisation to support each other and other creators whose rights are being abused. Origami Authors and Creators (OAC) has four key aims;