Inspiration for Saving Origami

I can’t find the oldest surviving piece of origami. Not the instructions to make a model, but a piece that someone created which has survived. Now that paper is such an abundance that we are looking for ways to reduce it so we don’t drown in junkmail landfills, most people don’t cherish little scraps of folded paper and hand them down like works of art. But, then again, dozens of people have told me that they still cherish and keep models that I folded for them years ago.

When I make origami flowers with paper, I tell people that caring for them is pretty much the opposite of caring for a real flower. Don’t water it; it will turn to mush. Don’t put it in sunlight; it will fade and weaken.

I enjoy making origami models and leaving them places, even if I know they will be thrown away, or destroyed. I have an ancestor who enjoyed giving away four leaf clovers because he was amazing at finding them. These gifts would always die and be lost, but I still hear the story.

Sometimes, when I make something that I am really proud of, or I want to give someone a handmade gift that is more than some wadded paper, I find myself asking how to make the finished origami model more durable--longer lasting. While it might not be a work of high art, I would like some of my works to outlive me. And so I have spent innumerable hours trying to learn how to not only create origami, but also how to save it.