The last large-scale project that I mounted is this lizard. He is constructed from twenty pieces of 32" paper. His body is made from a link fold. Installing him took quite some time because of the wind. I kept having to chase down the pieces. He is also anchored into the ground with wire. He seems to be holding up pretty well, even with the high winds.
Hongla put together this really interesting piece. It's based on a napkin ring fold. I think she is planning on adding some additional models to the installation when she comes in next. Which I thin is today.
On June 14, the dragon died. His final resting place? The trash can outside of the origami tent. He put up a good battle but the wind got the better of him in the end.
The flight of cranes has extended quite a bit. Sometimes, a bird goes missing. Unfortunately, we had a limited quantity of 52" paper. So the flock is constantly changing. At this point, we have installed several pairs, made from 32" paper. I love walking through this area. The wind makes the birds swing back and forth. There is this really great movement to the pieces. I think it would be a more effective installation if the birds were all one color and one size. Like red. These would look great in red paper.
Last night was the artist reception for Carnivalesque at Digging Pitt Gallery. For those of you that couldn't make it, you missed a great party! Marci Ghering supplied us with these wonderful bags filled with tasty popcorn, as well as some other carnival nibbles. And a really cool piece of art. Above right is Miss Ghering, posing with her Patriot Clown chair. Isn't she magnificent?
The gallery was pretty crowded throughout the evening and the reception lasted a bit longer than usual. We had performermances by some local talent and a psychic. We even had a local child come in and entertain the crowd with her vocal stylings. Installation images and more images from the reception will go up on the Digging Pitt site early next week, so check in there for more details.
At left is Hongla's fishing bear. The bear was made from two sheets of 52" square paper and the boat from one 9' square piece of paper. She put a lot of time and detail into this scene. She added a fishing rod and about a half dozen fish. She mounted this display yesterday afternoon. I'll be checking on this and the other installations today when i get in to see if there are any missing pieces. I don't know what today will bring. During the weekend, there are four of us in the tent. I'll probably wait until Tuesday to start another large model. We won't have as many chillun around and not all of the origamists will be there at the same time.
So, on June 8, I folded a lion (left) and started folding a large scale horse. The horse is finished now and I hope to install it today. Two of the cranes that were installed in the footpath, both squirrels and the lion went missing overnight. Origami is an ephemeral artform and I know that these pieces are particularly vulnerable being out in the elements. And it really is impractical to re-stage these pieces every day. I hope that wherever these models are they have a good home. The papier mache' projects are looking pretty good, aren't they? On the right is the amazing chicken-lion, resplendent in its bright pink plumage. Pretty cool, Heather!
Taichi has been working at assembling flowers and cranes from wallpaper sample books. In the above right photo, you can see where he has placed some of the flowers. At left, he has hung additional pieces in a tree. He has to replace about 30% of the flowers each day, so the field is growing pretty slowly. We all fold small figure in between the larger projects, mainly because we have a limited supply of seamless paper.
Okay, so I didn't make a lion yesterday. The weather was still pretty bad, with rain all day, high winds and cold! that we decided it would be better to wait until the weather was a little nicer to make and install the larger origami figures. So, we made a flight of cranes (left) and suspended them in a covered walkway. Also, a flock of waterfowl (right) that are currently installed under a tree near the main stage. 
And a squirrel (below) that stands about two feet in height. I didn't work at the festival today (Monday) but will be there tomorrow. My schedule is posted here, so if you are in the neighborhood, stop by and say hello.
Before I left the festival last night, I swung by the moxie DaDa booth to say hello to Christine Whispell. They have a number of very nice works on display. If you are ever in the 'burgh, you should drop by and say hello.
First large figure for the project. This dragon took about 2 1/2 hours to fold and an hour to set up.
The papier mache artists are real troopers. In the face of adversity, they are still assembling their creatures. At left is Gene Fenton, maker of dinosaurs and other creatures that sort of look like dinosaurs. I caught him here in a brief moment of sunshine. The troops are getting really good at rescuing their pieces from sudden downpours. Did I mention that IT RAINED? Thunderstorm, really.
It's the first day of the arts festival. Following the venerable history of the festival, IT RAINED. It could have been worse. We could have had a torrential down pour. The Origami tent in the family center played host to a surprise visitor, Brent Burket, who posts at Heart As Arena. He showed up early in the day while we were setting up. This picture makes it look like it was lighter out then it was. My camera settings were a little off. Really, it was a dark and stormy day.
The Origami tent is next door to the papier mache' tent. While we remained only damp, the papier mache folks suffered from massive flooding, with the tent roof bulging under gallons of water. The plan is to build giant papier mache' animals and have the children paint them. Even with all of the flooding the artists got a really good start on a couple armatures and started wrapping them in gluey paper. After one heavy rain, all of them were soaked through to the skin. And it got pretty cold.
We didn't get so far as to assemble our first large-scale model in the origami tent. With the help of a group of volunteers, we trimmed additional paper and got a start on folding flowers. You can see the beginning of the field behind Brent in the picture above. The volunteers also helped to fold some cranes that we have suspended from the ceiling of the tent. Pictured at right is Taichi, who is helping out with this project for the festival.
While I was at the festival I took a few moments to look around at the art market to see if any of my friends had rented a booth. I did run into Suz Pisano, who makes accessories. She does really girl accessories, with lots of beads, feathers and other assorted bangles.
Along one aisle of the Artists Market are the booths of a few local galleries. Boxheart is one of them. They have several of Tracy Helgeson's paintings up. They are the ones on the left in the back. I wish this picture did them justice; the work positively glows with color. If you follow the link back to Tracy's blog, she posted yesterday about how much the humidity affects her painting schedule when she is preparing her underpaintings. And you will get a better idea of what her work looks like then you would with my pretty bad shots.
