Okay so, still trying to catch up with the story. Before I dive in, I will say it’s the darkest time of year nowadays, and on top of that they changed the clocks last week, so I feel like it starts getting dark around two or three in the afternoon, and it’s a challenge to keep your energy level up and balanced.
Anyway, we got home from California two weeks ago Monday morning, and Monday night I finished my supply of elephants for AMNH. Jeannie was working in the city the next day, so she hand delivered them to the the museum. Since I’d given away all my recently folded elephants, including the golden one from my PCOC exhibit, I made one more during the week, this one from a 50cm square of red wyndstone paper. Friday evening we were off to Boston to another origami event the OrigaMIT conference. Our friend Adrienne, who we were hanging out with in San Francisco, recently moved back to Brooklyn from Texas, so we gave her a ride. She was staying with our other friend Brian, so we got hang out with him a bit Friday night. In addition to origami, Brian is into robots, 3-D printers, insect photography, anime and a bunch of other things, so his house is full of fascinating stuff.
The OrigaMIT convention is a one-day event that starts early Saturday. It’s usually in the student center, but that’s closed this year, so it was in the engineering building. It was fun to see a part of MIT campus I hadn’t been to before (been mostly to the student center and the Media Lab back in the day). Brian showed us some robots he built for his thesis project that mimicked the movement of snails. To get there we went down a hallway called the Infinite Corridor, but the name is an exaggeration; it’s just really really long.
In the morning I set up my exhibition, which had its own room this year. I gave my talk on Single-Sheet polyhedra for the fourth time at four different conventions. After this I’ll retire and think of a new topic, or at least wait a few years until I have an update to give. The talk went over well and the discussion at the end was interesting, with a different audience wanting know about different things. A group of us went to lunch we got to for a walk thru the far side of the campus and around Cambridge. In the afternoon I taught my Octopus and Cuttlefish. There was no document camera in the room, so I improvised a stand for my phone and hooked it up the the room’s projector. This worked great for ten minutes or so until my phone went to sleep and I couldn’t get it to connect again after it woke up. So I finished the old fashioned way, folding a model out of large paper and holding it up for everyone to see after each step.
After that I went back the exhibit area, which was also the vendor area. I ended spending a couple hours talking to Michael and Richard of Origamido. Michael was fascinated by the single-sheet polyhedra thing so I gave him a short, personalized version of my talk. Richard told us about a cool sculpture garden he knows of, not far from where I live. Origamido paper, as you may know, is handmade by Michael and Richard in small batches for the purpose doing advanced origami, and widely considered the best in the world. For many years I did not buy much of it because it’s very thin, which is not useful for my style of folding. However, they’re now making thicker papers, including some duo-color ones made by laminating two sheets together, so I just had to buy a bunch. I want to fold a bunch of photo-worthy models I’ve designed over the last few years, to update my web site and for my next book.
We drove home Saturday night, and Sunday we were not yet accustomed to the new clock situation. It’s getting to the point were every time we have a nice day it might be the last one until next April. It’s already too cold in the mornings for a big bike ride, so it looks like that’ll have to wait until the springtime to pick that up again. I decided to take the mustang out, possibly for the last time of the season, and we combined it with a light hike around the sculpture garden Richard had told us about. It’s at the Pepsi corporate headquarters in Purchase, NY, and indeed is a very pleasant stroll around some well manicured lawns and gardens, featuring an array of so-so to really impressive outdoor sculptures.
Finally this last weekend Lizzy was home for a quick visit after attending a conference for her work in Philadelphia; it was very nice to see her, and good that she’s doing well. Then there was one last origami event, a Special Folding Session at the American Museum of Natural History on Sunday. I taught my Octopus and Cuttlefish one more time, and this time the group was small enough I could just show them across the table. More than half my class was extremely talented kids, with the youngest ones being in the fourth grade. One kid in middle school brought a copy of my book and asked me to sign it, and said he was my greatest fan. He seemed know know alot about my models and could fold many of them. After my class was over I went outside for a walk around Central Park at lunchtime, from the Belvedere thru the Ramble over the Bow Bridge and back up past Strawberry Field. I hadn’t been there in many years, so it was fun getting reacquainted with a place I used to know well.
Now finally we have no travel plans coming up, and no events or concerts or anything. I’m looking forward a few weeks of cozying up against the cold and dark and making progress on some random tasks. Of course random tasks can turn into a slog, with the darkness and all, but I’m carrying on. I’ll let all y’all know when there’s news about any big updates.