I hadn’t seen my longtime friend Michael LaFosse in too many years. So when I found out he and his partner Richard Alexander would be doing an origami series on July 15 at the Fuller Craft Museum – I thought this was my chance to see them. The Fuller is not too far up the road from Providence….it’s located in Brockton, MA.
The event was called Meet the Maker: it consisted of 3 events: 1 beginner’s workshop, slide show and talk, then the more advanced folder’s workshop. The folding duo was working and teaching non-stop, so we didn’t get to chat much, but it was so wonderful to meet them again and to experience the incredible origami creature collection they brought from the Origamido studio. Wilbur the piglet was even there. I hadn’t seen Wilbur since 1992, when we did an event together at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA. Wilbur hasn’t aged a bit!
Michael LaFosse is the master creator of sculptural paper creatures, and Richard Alexander is quite a folder in his own right. Richard is the master of championing Michael and the entire tradition of Origami. Check out all the books, kits and DVDs he has produced or they have collaborated on! At their studio, Origamido -which by the way, translates roughly to The Way of Paper Folding- in Haverhill, MA, folders are treated to expert instruction on how to create fine art origami, basic folding techniques, even paper-making. Algebraic and geometric equations are applied to the art of origami, as well as critical thinking skills, communication, and the culture and history of origami. This is not your average crane folding workshop.
The following slide show gives you a taste of the day spent at the Fuller Craft Museum: the origami creatures we saw, the Fuller’s exterior and inside during the workshop, and the museum’s beautiful surrounding scenery.
PLUS! a wonderful dragon folded by Nick Avery of Pembroke, MA.
[slideshow]
At the Meet the Maker lecture I met father and son origami enthusiasts: Mark and Nick Avery, who came to Paper Connection just yesterday. As soon as they returned home from Paper Connection, apparently, Nick- who is now 17 yrs old and just started seriously folding 9 months ago -was so psyched to try his newly purchased papers and so inspired by Michael Lafosse and other masters, he folded this wonderful dragon out of our red dragon pattern blockprinted lokta paper !
So proud to meet one of the next generation’s great folders.