When the average Joe on the street hears “origami”, it’s more than likely he’ll conjure up the image of a paper boat or paper plane, maybe a cootie catcher if he’s in the right age range, or a jumping frog or flapping bird if he’s a not-so-average Joe. If he’s part of that growing majority who know that origami is so much more than playground games, he or she might probably think of rabbits, buffaloes, dragons, cranes, dollar bill models, and names like Lang, Montroll, Montoya, Voyer, Joisel, Albertino, Kamiya, Fuse and Kasahara.

 

But no one –I mean NO ONE– that has anything to do with origami –and no one in the world who has any sensibility for arts or human beings– cannot think of the centuries-old craft without associating it with one name: Akira Yoshizawa.

The widely-proclaimed father of modern origami peacefully passed away on to meet Buddha on March 14th, the day he turned 94 years old. He left behind a legacy for the art of origami of such dimensions that it will be ages before anyone can so much as come close to matching up.

As so many people in origami have commented before, a Yoshizawa model is a relatively simple model, involving no more folds than a traditional one. But while anyone can fold a Yoshizawa, very few can fold like Yoshizawa. For the master, it was not enough to accurately give the model all its corresponding points and perhaps accurate color patterns; the model had to seem alive. A puppy folded by those gifted hands only needed to wimper; an owl was expected to blink in any moment; and a sheep would almost produce real fleece. Fifty years of dedication to origami not only acheived this level of perfection but also produced perhaps in excess of 60,000 models (in 1989 Yoshizawa estimated he had designed some 50,000, and he never ceased to create, as far as I know). Not only this, he had the idea to lightly dampen the paper which he was going to use to be able to mold the paper into three-dimensionalty and make the model harden to an almost permanent state when it dried. And refusing to leave origami in the hands of a few, Yoshizawa also designed a set of symbols so non-Japanese readers could fold them too. This system of symbols, slightly modified by another exemplary folder, Samuel Randlett, in the ’60s, is still used today.

But perhaps Yoshizawa’s greatest gift to the world is his spiritual take on the art, the way he was convinced it was the path to inner and world peace. By accounts of those lucky enopugh to have met him — I am not among them– he was a small man with a gigantic spirit, who wanted nothing more than to see his art bring a smile and content to any one who gazed upon it or attempted to recreate it. The world is a bit emptier now that he is gone, but let us all be happy and thankful that we had him at all.

Rest in peace, Yoshizawa-sama.

Thanks for peeking into my Mind…