Article in the NYTimes

The Modern Life of Origami, an Art as Old as Paper

Precision is key, whether folding a humble crane or an interlocking modular structure. So is enthusiasm.

Written by Kathleen Massara

Photographs by Ryan Jenq

“I would say the biggest rule is no cutting,” said Wendy Zeichner, the president and chief executive of OrigamiUSA. It’s “one piece of paper and no glue.”
OrigamiUSA is a nonprofit organization dedicated to educating the public about the art form. The group traces its roots to the 1950s, when Lillian Oppenheimer, one of its eventual founders, began to communicate with paper folders around the world, including Akira Yoshizawa in Japan, who is often credited as the father of modern origami — they would send each other diagrams explaining how to fold different shapes from a single square sheet of paper. Decades later, OrigamiUSA has around 1700 paying members, and it keeps track of nearly 90 community origami groups in the United States.
Origami as an art reaches back thousands of years. “Origami is really almost as old as paper,” Ms. Zeichner explained — it means “to fold paper” in Japanese — and paper in sheet form is thought to have been invented in China around 105 A.D. To start making shapes like cranes and frogs, it boils down to two basic techniques: mountain folds and valley folds, which are different ways to make the edges meet. After that, you can get creative

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