Matsuri 2009

While Won Park was here in Southern California entertaining us, Yami was in Phoenix Arizona as a guest artist for the Matsuri Festival. He and Phyllis Snyder, who also attended, did get to see Won on Friday, before heading out there last weekend.

Patty Grodner made a music video to showcase some of what went on at the Festival and origami workshop:

A "Won"-derful Weekend of Paperfolding Magic

Won Park holds up his "Won" dollar bill crease patterns.

Won arrived from Hawaii Thursday night. I picked him up from LAX and took him to Yukie's house, in South Pasadena. He and Yukie stayed up until 4am, working on the dollar koi. From my Convention experiences, I knew this kind of late-night folding would happen.

Toilet CP for those of you who keep begging for toilet diagrams in order to flush your money down the drain.

Friday, after treating Yukie and myself to a shot of wheatgrass- a daily ritual for Won-, we hosted a small origami gathering at Yukie's house. Beverly Baudino, Yami, and Phyllis Snyder made it; John Andrisan did not.

Won folds a napkin rose and gives it to Phyllis.

Won taught us his dollar camera and a dollar ring I hadn't seen before.

Saturday, he was at the Peninsula Paperfolders meeting at the Malaga Cove Library. There, he taught his dolphin.

Andrew, a very talented WCOG folder

Sunday, I brought one of my gymnasts to the Pacific Ocean Paperfolders meeting at the Roxbury Park Community Center in Beverly Hills. There, Won taught a dollar bill jumping frog design and his double crane.

My friend Erin was looking through Won's model, picks one out and said, "Cool...Yoda". I turned the model over, right-side up so she could see that it was a toilet, not a Yoda.

Fred, one of the WCOG members, was shown the base of Won's two-piece dragon and was able to do much of it on his own, just from looking at photos. Won was greatly impressed. Won was also impressed with the skill level of a number of the children in Joel Stern's group.

Sunday evening we wrapped up filming for an instructional koi video (it will take me a bit of time to edit). Basically we stayed up all night, with just enough time for us to fold a toilet and Herman Lau flower-in-a-pot before taking him to the airport.

Won wants to help his moneyfolders group get through the koi, and get through it as accurately as possible. There are a lot of details that are just hard to get across in diagrams. I learned a lot from having Won here for the weekend, and even though my kois have been decent enough prior to this visit, my understanding is 99% closer to being more "accurate" now. Already, the couple I've folded since this weekend are looking much more "Won-like". Yukie also got a heavy-dose of koi immersion training. I think she deserves a diploma from the Won Park School of Hard-Core Orikane, saying she is a certified phase IV black belt instructor in teaching the $koi. Her family was very gracious in "surrendering" their home to us for 3 days of imposing ourselves in paperfolding and raiding the kitchen refrigerator.

Won was absolutely generous with his time, patience, and willingness to share his knowledge with others. He is extremely gifted and talented in other fields; not just in origami. Thank you, Won!

"Kanpai!"Won's secret elixer for how he comes up with such amazing folds; it's "won" AM in the morning, and he's just getting started.

Stay-tuned for a couple of videos coming out, plus a new, if imperfect (you might here a toilet flush in the background and the pitter-patter of Skunky) koi tutorial.

More photos posted to my shutterfly account:

Won Park visits.

Peninsula Paperfolders

Pacific Ocean Paperfolders

Won Park: Year of the Ox

Happy Valentine's Day!

A gymnast I teach made me the following card:



I handed out David Petty beating hearts to my Thursday class; I gave one to Thea's brother, Isaac, who couldn't stop laughing and playing with the origami model:

And Thea makes her....I dunno, she's made it to so many meetings of late, I'm losing count: