OUSA Live-Blogging

Matthew Green has been prolific in his postings regarding the OUSA Convention activities, including live-blogging.  Check out and "like" or "follow" his FB page.

Sunday Funnies

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Sunday Funnies

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Sunday Funnies

7 Origami Inspired Inventions

Sunday Funnies

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NOA #502

The Ultimate Pegasus

I've seen this before.

Folded by Hà Thanh Tú

And seeing it again, my mouth still drools.

Description:

Pegasus B3.0. 2002 version's shaping.Author and CP: Kamiya Satoshi.Folded by Hà Thanh Tú. From only one uncut square, 40 cm of "Dó" paper.

Sunday Funnies

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Sunday Funnies

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26 years later.....

....It is happening, again:





3rd season premieres tonight on Showtime!

What does this have to do with an origami blog?  Not much.  Just a lone paper crane used in one of the commercials.

Previously posted here.

Who is your superhero?

"Superhero" #SuperChargedSuperMom from Jane Qian on Vimeo.

Mother’s Day after the death of a child

Related to a previous article, The Last Crane, comes this sadness on Mother's Day:

How can I celebrate this day? How can I celebrate myself? Every day I open the door to my daughter’s room, sit on her tidy bed and wonder how any of this is real. How is it possible that all I have left is her collection of albums, stones and crystals, and her closet full of untouched clothes? How long will they serve as proof that she was here on this Earth, that she was real?
As the days go by, my daughter’s proximity to me fades, the reality of her absence becomes more concrete. This would be okay if it were because she had graduated high school, gone off to college and started her life, but that’s not what happened. She stopped existing at 15. She stopped.
I don’t know how to celebrate Mother’s Day without the consolation prize given all mothers — that our babies are gone, but we have laughing toddlers in exchange, that our toddlers are gone, but we have curious, bright-eyed preschoolers in their place, that the messy, carefree days of preschool meld into the primary years, when interests and personalities emerge and blossom, giving us teenagers who are whole, unique people. The fact that our kids grow up into actual people distracts us from the pain of their fading childhood. Except, of course, if they don’t grow up.
I am two mothers now — the mother you see walking beside my remaining daughter in the all-too-real world of chores and homework and trivial things and the mother you don’t see — the mother bereft, imagining that my daughter is two steps behind me, just out of sight.
There are too many mothers like me, rushing here and there, pretending we’re fully in one world when, really, we’re in two.
I look whole and normal, but deep inside there’s an emptiness where my heart used to be. I can’t walk with my surviving daughter without imagining the shadow of her sister right beside us, rolling her eyes, glancing at her phone.
I wish I could go back to when my kids were 9 and 6, when Mother’s Day was about hand-drawn cards and breakfast in bed. I can almost smell the burned toast, taste the mint tea. Dwelling on the past is the only thing that allows me to feel something other than numbness and despair. The others who walk this path of intense grief tell me it gets better. Eventually, I’ll start feeling what I’m supposed to feel. I’ll move more fully into the world of living children. Until then, I’m as much a part of my dead daughter’s world as I am my living daughter’s.

Read the rest at WaPo.

Sunday Funnies

Sunday Funnies

May issue of NOA #501

Cherry Blossom Festival last weekend in Monterey Park

Last Sunday in Monterey Park at the annual Cherry Blossom Festival.....


This is one of the first things I do in my demo, asking who in the audience has folded paper before (most people have probably done a paper glider) and as a lead in to action models.



My indoor stage demo was scheduled at 3pm on Sunday but then changed last minute to 4pm to accommodate another performer.

I've been doing this festival since 2002 or 2004.  I think it may have been my very first one and "big break" in doing things like this.  The first year I was outdoors with a booth.  I think my second year I had been given the center of the indoor gymnasium with 4 tables boxing me in.  At some point, I was asked to start doing stage demos.  That's when I had Yami and Joe with me, too.

I talk a bit about the evolution from traditional models into modern origami; including practical application nowadays into physics, sciences, and technology.  Then show off modern works of art.

My material has become such that it's growing a bit stale; but I follow a formula that I don't even need to rehearse, because I've done it so many times now.  Once I start talking about different moneyfolds, it segues into the realm of origami magic.

Us paperfolders love magic:




I'm a fungi:



After teaching Yami's banger to the group (really small crowd I thought, this year), I engage them in a "quick fold" contest for prizes:  Who can fold a banger (doesn't have to be the one I just taught) and make it pop first?





The big finish:

Seen at the Cherry Blossom Festival

Last weekend at the Monterey Park Cherry Blossom Festival, one mother was carrying this purse that was very much like a series of waterbombs:

This is wearable:

I suddenly want to make one of these:

Sunday Funnies

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NOA issue #500!

Completely missed this review:

Personally, I felt pretty let down by the issue.  I had bigger hopes there'd be something more special about it; but it was mostly bleh.  Such a milestone issue...

Oh, well.