The Art of Origami

(First published in Small World Ezine on 10 June 2002)

 

When the first atomic bomb was dropped in Hiroshima on the
sixth of August in 1945, Sadako Sasaki was 2 years old. The 
little girl was 1.5 kilometers from the explosion. She 
survived it without an injury while most of her neighbours 
died. People said it was a miracle. Miracle was not forever. 
Nine years later Sadako was diagnosed leukemia.

There was an old Japanese legend saying anyone who folded a 
thousand paper cranes would be granted a wish. So, Sadako 
started folding the cranes and made a wish to get well 
again. When she died on the 25th of October 1955, at the 
age of 12, she had finished only 644 cranes. Her classmates 
finished the 1,000 cranes for her, and started their 
campaign against war in her honour. Sadako and her cranes 
have become the symbols of World Peace. And children all 
over the world fold paper cranes and send it to put beneath
Sakado's statue every year on August 6 (anniversary of the
first nuclear bombing) or World Peace Day (September 15). 

I'd like to urge you, if there is a child in the house, to 
tell him/her about Sadako, and if he/she is interested, 
he/she could start folding 1,000 cranes for Sadako. (In 
Japan, they make cranes very small and make like bead 
curtains or necklaces out of them, so the 1,000 cranes are
not too much to handle). It's a nice way to tell our kids
about the tragic of war.

 

We are not sure who invented origami. It's probably Chinese,
who had invented paper earlier. But there were evidences 
that, it was the Japanese who had sophisticated origami forms
as early as 1200 years ago. The tale of 1,000 cranes was also 
as old.

In the old time, it was not for fun because paper was rare.
Important documents such as a diploma or a certificate 
accompanying a value gift item would be folded in a certain 
way to make sure it's the original copy. Then, it has become 
a tradition to fold important documents or gift wrappers 
ceremonially. Though it has already become more like a 
recreational activity, people had invented different ways to 
fold their paper until it has become an art today. It is
that Akira Yoshizawa, in the 1930s. had developed as many 
as 50,000 of models.

In the west, The Spanish "school" of origami, the 'Unamuno', 
was founded by Miguel Unamuno, 1864-1936. It is still in 
existence in Spain and South America. And since Robert 
Harbin published his book "Paper Magic" in 1956, tens of 
thousands of designs have appeared from many artists in 
many books.

There is more to origami than just the art of folding paper. 
There is a philosophy which surrounds origami. When most 
people will just cut a piece of paper to the shape they feel
like, some will take the time to find the way to fold it to
the desired shape. That is meditated, patient, creative, and
artistic.

 Rubb-Origami: The Art of Creating Rubber Band Sculptures: Volume One: How to Make Your Very Own Rubber Rubberband Man