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Head by Saadya, Oct 2023.
Folded from an uncut rectangle of watercolor paper. |
[November 4, 2023.] I’m processing lots. Like all my compatriots and I guess all of the Middle East. It's fair to ask, when I make time for origami, what I'm making time for, and what’s being set aside. Calm, is part of what the folding brings.
It quells agitation and gives a kind of time-out, after which one is mentally refreshed.
But there are positive activities that any citizen can and should get
involved with these days. At Soroka hospital up the street are wounded soldiers
and civilians; they have families staying with them in need of feeding,
lodging, entertainment which could include origami, of children especially but
not only. There are the fields west of here: much of the fresh produce in this
country comes from areas near to Gaza, empty now of hands for the fall
harvest and winter seeding. But I’m too old for a full day’s agricultural labor,
and limit myself to neighborhood-garden plantings for the food crunch that will
come in 3 months. Also I have aging parents in a bad way and obligations to
care for them; I can’t just hand myself over to national causes. In the Dead Sea
Hotel area which is close to me (mentally close for residents of the Negev;
geographically not really closer than the big cities of Israel's “center”) are
lodged residents displaced from the Gaza envelope towns and farms, tens of
thousands of them; I’ve made arrangements to volunteer and should start with
that soon. That may or may not involve origami: could be accompanying groups of
bicyclists, could be teaching English, or other involvements, we’ll see. I'm socializing more in this period, both with my eco-activist urban-farm group (Beersheva’s Khavat
Be’eri, what a team of Quiet Doers, real heroes!) which has stayed open
and filled the gap left by the shuttered educational institutions, and with the
art-activist group Homa that has also spearheaded activities.
In short I can’t say I’ve been doing much in the wartime
contributions department beyond worry, like most of the civilian population.
When I say ‘do origami’ and ‘where does it fit in all this’ what do I mean. Well I have this endless, lifelong research project (i.e., obsession) to get cleaner and cleaner renditions of the human face, the human head; so I have piles of studies done at cafes on cheap paper (about 20 minutes apiece), the best of which are tested now at home on good paper (2-3 hours apiece, including the cutting & staining). I’m committed also to going back to some of my
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| printer paper experiments |
best animal model designs, even from 30 years ago, and finding
the optimal size and colorations to make them with, again from the good paper
(2-5 hours each). ‘Good paper’ means for me Arches 300g pure cotton watercolor paper with a
mild grain: last week I finally bought a roll of this stuff at Uri’s Art
Supplies (Uri stayed open, yay!!) 130 cm by 970 cm, so paper size is no longer
a limitation. The material is so luxurious to handle, and as it dries
transitions through stages with distinct folding properties and a wonderful
solidity to the end-product. The plan is to get ready for a museum exhibition; details on that when things firm up.
And finally there’s this
scattershot origami teaching now, I go wherever the volunteers who are
arranging these things assign me in the neighborhoods. I got an unexpected burst
of joy on Thursday from teaching very tiny people—only two of the bunch had
made it to seven years old… Hamas did me the honor of welcoming me just when I
arrived at 4PM with some rockets to the skies right above—a pretty sight in the
late afternoon. (Taken out by Iron Dome; sorry, didn’t think to snap a
photograph). The little ones with their mothers all trooped out of the bomb
shelter and were folding away calmly with me minutes later. Gotta love ’em.
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success with butterflies by Sanja S. Cucek
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