It’s hard to accept that Mark is no longer with us, it is a huge loss to his many friends and admirers. Mark had been a folder for many decades. He was a regular at my early conventions and in 2004, he joined me in professional folding. He continued to be a close friend and confidant. Despite “competing” for work, it never felt that way, we passed work to each other and collaborated on several projects, including a display for n-power (right) . His working persona reminded me of Nicholas Parsons – smooth and unfailingly polite – he really knew how to interact with clients.
Mark worked tirelessly for the BOS (eventually as Chair) to get things done and took the lead for many projects including our convention alongside OSME at Oxford in Autumn 2018. He started to produce collections of his own designs and later published several commercial books, I passed one book offer to him (London Landmarks) saying “I don’t think this can be done”, but he did it! His creative work was extensive, both in conventional origami and in commercial work, where he came up with many elegant solutions to commissions.
If you are unaware of his work, check out his website (www.creaselightning.co.uk – we don’t know how long this will remain online.) We will have a proper tribute to him in the next magazine, but he will be sorely missed by many people and was a true servant to the BOS and origami.