WCOG January Meeting

Yami introduced a new die he made for a container designed by Clemente Giusto of Italy. Giusto's starbox has long been a staple of folding by Yami and Joe (just check the archives for festival videos).

In an email response to Yami by Tricia Tait:

The star (twist) box you are referring to is by Clemente Giusto of Italy. Sara Giarusso, from the Italian origami society, saw his little box in a pizza shop. She asked the owner about it and he hooked her up with Clemente. He was a "closet" folder and didn't know others in Italy did origami, as well. She invited him to his first convention (and my first Italian one) about 8 years ago. I remember that he had many creations that he was sharing with the other folders. He was teaching way past 4am when I finally went to sleep!

Through some correspondence with Tricia, Yami acquired knowledge of another design by Clemente Giusto: Scatola Rettangolare Chiusa. You can see it in last month's WCOG video; and in this month's, Yami introduces a new die he had made that scores the paper with a crease pattern for the Scatola Rettangolare. Yami's done this before for his Doodle-Bug, having index-sized cardstock scored by a die (actually, the cards are perforated off from an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper).

Why bother? Because Yami enjoys sharing the joys of paperfolding with the world. Even though folders are "cheated" out of the challenge of starting at scratch, and folding all the creases themselves, it allows beginners (Yami often has children in mind) to experience the magic of being able to complete what is otherwise a fairly complex (to non-folders) model, with a feeling of accomplishment that they did the work themselves. My friend Thea, who is 11, has some folding experience- but not extensive. Within a few minutes, Yami had successfully taught her how to collapse the model along its crease pattern, and follow the proper fold sequence to the model's completion.

Yami, Joe, and I often work with teaching and entertaining non-folders who come by our tables at festivals; so this is a great addition to our repertoire of origami.

Also uploaded to YouTube (Blip TV is higher resolution).

I also finally gave Thea her Christmas present. A Montroll Horse and a Kasahara cube that opens up with a Christmas scene inside (I've made a giant one before with miniatures nesting inside, each opening into various scenes and landscapes, similar to the one advertised in the inside cover to Origami Omnibus):