It was time to make another of these, so I did.
Folded from an uncut rectangle of foil-backed paper, two edges glued to form a cylinder.
9, because I wanted the viewer to see about 3 faces at once. (And because 8 is a boring number.)
Known inputs. A pot with faces I glimpsed at the Art Institute of Chicago in the 1990s, probably from bronze or ceramics; those little figures adorning portals to cathedrals, which from a distance look like pencil-marks or charcoal scraped on paper; David Huffman’s beautiful Tower Form. Thoughts about how the figures in a bas-relief are in process of freeing themselves from full immersion in their background (as in painting) to full independence in our world (as in sculpture)---and so thrive in this half-subservient state. Studies of face-making folds over the years, seeking always the minimum necessary lines . And technical investigations into curved folding.
About just the latter, a few words.
Apart from the pretty shape, I am showing off two kinds of curvature.
1. Curved hinges. Note the lines that descend from the top and taper inwards. Each line curves, but it bends to neither the left or the right: it is straight in the X and Y dimensions, curving only in the Z. And even so the planes to either side hinge along it. (Which fact is highlighted by contrast with the straight folds emanating from the bottom, which seem to behave normally.) This is not so common even in the world of curved-folding.
2. Bulges that emerge suddenly from flat areas, sometimes without the benefit of hidden folds, pleats etc.
A reaction I'm always happy to get to my curving origami is, ‘I don’t see how this is even possible’.
To which a response is: Sometimes, when you find that the one thing you have to do is impossible, it might still be that you can do two things, both of which are impossible, except together.
Saadya
posted also on Flickr
