thing-a-week 23, 24, 25

For week 23, I made this simple kirigami model on a sheet of parchment paper about half the size of a sheet of bond paper. I wanted to set it against black paper, but unfortunately, my stuff is still in storage. A problem with my new apartment means I can't actually move into it anymore and will have to find a new place again.

Anyway, I wanted to do something more about interiors than exteriors, and while I don't know if it's clear from this picture, I wanted to do something that wasn't all right angles.

Week 24 was my first week at my new job, so I managed only to start folding units for another icosadodecahedron:

This time, half were some old editor cards, and half were some old writer cards.

I assembled it the next day, but since you already know what it would look like, I didn't take a picture of the complete model.

For week 25, I drew this background for my Processing project. This is a photo instead of a scan as, like my black paper, my scanner is in storage. :|

I'm a little over halfway done with this thing-a-week series, and I think this is the first time I've put up a more detailed drawing than a rough kirigami diagram. This is far from original, though, as it's largely based on a photograph by Cory Richards of the Tsarang temples in Nepal.

A little after my last post about my troubles coming up with an original story concept for my Processing project, I actually hit on something, so I guess we'll see how it turns out.

thing-a-week 20, 21, 22: macrame, sketches, Liana's birthday card + bonus origami vandalism

Week 20 saw me really busy, packing and moving out of my apartment. I had to stow my craft supplies for a while, but I managed to hang on to this bit of blue cloth, which I used to make another macrame bracelet.

It looks like any other rag, but it happens to be symbolic to me. The original length of cloth was used to tie up the new mattress I got from an outlet store, just a few weeks after I first moved into the apartment and maybe a month or so into my relationship with Cris. I remember feeling pretty grateful that day, that I could afford a little lifestyle upgrade and that I had someone like Cris to help me, even if he didn't have to. Physically and symbolically, the mattress was a nice step up from the old, sunken one I'd borrowed from my grandmother when I'd first moved into an apartment, now five years ago.

I also used a bit of the cloth in designing the cover of a journal that I completed in the apartment. Consider the fact that I hung on to the cloth for so long as proof of how big a hoarder I am sentimental I can be. (I still have a little more!)

Week 21 was difficult; the apartment I'm moving into next isn't actually finished yet, so I'm staying with friends for now. I made these sketches of kirigami models to illustrate verses from "The Black Riders and Other Lines," by Stephen Crane. But, the longer commute to and from my friends' place means less time to draft, cut, and fold models these days, so the sketches had to do for last week. I also couldn't find my craft knife; I should have set it aside during the move.

Today is my officemate Liana's birthday, so I made her this card. Liana loves dogs, and her family lost their beloved yellow labrador, Charlie, sometime ago. It looks like a lhasa apso puppy will be joining them this year, though.

To make up for the weeks I posted sketches, I learned a new modular origami unit that uses business cards instead of square papers.

I also learned that people in the origami community (!) can be pretty protective of models they claim to have discovered first, and because I learned the folds from Malachi Brown's website, I might be considered an origami vandal. (If you like, you can click on that link, and we can be vandals together.)

In grade school, I first learned origami from older kids who had books and who most definitely did not write to the authors of those books to ask permission to teach other kids how to fold the different models. All this time, I've experienced origami as a fun kind of geometry — everyone can learn geometry; there's no law against teaching each other math that happens to make flapping birds and inflatable paper balloons that inevitably get soaked with saliva at the blowhole.

I can understand how you might want something you've discovered all on your own to stay your own, but I don't see Pythagoras's estate chasing down everyone who wants to calculate the distance between two points, or Einstein's lawyers filing claims against every last t-shirt with E = m * c ** 2 on it.

But, okay, for the sake of attribution, an origami person (folder? craftsperson? artisan? artist?) named Valerie Vann claims to have discovered the base unit for the models I'm showing here. I did this for fun, not for profit.

Here are three hassocks, so called because they're cushion-shaped, and an icosadodecahedron. Oddly enough, I couldn't figure out how to make the pentagon hassock until I'd figured out the icosadodecahedron. There is also an octahedron in the back that uses a unit by Jennifer Campbell, but based on Mr. Brown's website, she doesn't seem as possessive of her discovery.

Perhaps this is a waste of business cards, but you'll have to take it up with the people who make them in such big batches. I didn't give out half of these before they became outdated.

Priorities 2

The reason I'm not so anxious to go home now is that over that weekend, for the first time, I wasn't sure if I could see myself being with my family again. I mean, I could imagine it well enough, but I wasn't sure anymore if that was where I had to be, and if it was right for all of us. For all I've said about wanting to be there with them, I haven't actually, really thought about what that would be like, or I hadn't until that weekend. Going to the grocery, helping around the house, prying my teenage brother off the computer the nights my parents are out, contributing to the pantry, talking more to Lola, being a daughter and sister--what would happen if these little, everyday things which gave me such a thrill during vacations became just everyday things?

I know I won't find out unless I actually go, but I'm a little afraid now. So, I'll stay here and take things a day at a time, hear what time will tell.

Last week, I had dinner with Mikko. He is just bumming around in these free weeks before graduation. He seems one step ahead of where I was when I was that age (as if it was so long ago). When I say that, I mean that he seems to feel now what I didn't feel until six months after my own graduation: a mild yet mounting panic at the thought of being jobless, dependent, and stuck in someone else's house without a ride or key to anywhere else.

I think it's just one of the signs that my brother and I are different people, with different priorities. After graduation, I just wanted to go home and soak up all Kalsangi's summer magic and my family's warmth and laughter, before I had to very reluctantly get on a plane back to Manila, to find my 20-something self somewhere in a career, apartment, and/or breezy strut between CBD skyscrapers.

Mikko's not really interested in going home, or at least not for long--maybe just long enough to soothe my mom's emptying nest aches and catch his breath before seeking his fortune in the style of plucky fairytale youths. That's really how I see him; "Very well, Father. I shall take my leave of you and bring with me this sword/advice/gold/magic chicken that you have given me and see the world."

I don't judge him; in fact, I kind of think that this path is right for him. He's always been the more independent, ambitious of us two, and I really believe he'll go far and that people will like him wherever he goes. It just gets me every time I remember/realize how different we are.

In other news, if you haven't visited my craft challenge blog lately, I've taken up origamic architecture. This sounds to me like a highfalutin way to say kirigami popup buildings, but that requires more explanation than just saying origamic architecture. Anyway, it feels perfect for me right now. I've always enjoyed origami and three-dimensional crafts but haven't made too many; there's no place to store them in my little shoebox of a rented room. This lets me make 3D things and then fold them neatly away for safekeeping.

I'm taking a break from my attempts to model the Manila Met to just make practice buildings and teach myself how certain forms should be cut. Here are some of the exercises I did while hanging out at Martin's yesterday:

I wanted to see how to make a staircase that went around a corner. Here I followed what I've seen in other forms on the Internet, but I'd like to see if I can work out how both parts of the staircase stick out, instead of one sitting in or looking like it's on the inside of the building.

Here I wanted to try making a rough dome shape for rooftops and put a "statue" on top for the heck of it.

Just more playing around. The fat building was supposed to be a cathedral or a government building, but I got lazy.