Lets Make Origami

Wednesday, January 16, 6:30pm-8pm Sellwood-Moreland Library
Saturday, January 26, 3-4:30pm Albina Library
Tuesday, February 5, 4-5:30pm Hollywood Library
Wednesday, February 13, 4:30-6pm Troutdale Library
Tuesday, February, 19, 5:30-7pm Northwest Library

All classes are free.  First come first served, except for the Troutdale Library class, which requires registration  (from here).

Tanabata, which is translated as the Japanese Star Festival, is one of my favorite holiday celebrations.  It derives from a romantic legend about two lovers in the sky, who are allowed to meet only once a year.

For the past six years I have celebrated Tanabata with the children of Willowbrook, where I work every summer.  We always have the campers write wishes and make origami ornaments to hung on bamboo for Tanabata.  One year we even did a skit about the legend of Tanabata.

Here are some wishes that our campers made this year.

"Be good at math" (left), "Beautiful planet" (right)

"Good health" (left), "I want a dog" (center), "Peace at home (right)

Here is my Tanabata wish this summer...

"I wish the event at Japanese Garden will go well"

It seemed that my wish had come true.  The event was full of people and fun.  I received some positive feedback.

my demo table

lotus flowers, lily pads and frog that I folded and displayed.

People seemed to be more interested in the lights that I put inside of the lotus flowers than anything that I folded.  They may be hard to notice in the photo above, but they are glowing LED lights that are battery operated, called Fairy Berries, available on Amazon.com

lotus flowers with fairy berries look like these in dark.

The guitar music by Toshi Onizuka was also very beautiful.   Thanks to his music I was able to stay calm and in good mood during the event.  I will definitely need to purchase his CDs.

I got to browse around the garden for a little while, before and after the event.

Traditional kusudama in display, not made by me.

I wore a vintage floral skirt I found at Lodekka. Some of the flowers on the skirt are star shaped, Isn't it appropriate?

koi in the pond

iris flowers were still blooming

I would like to express my gratitude towards all the staff, volunteers and visitors at the event in the Japanese Garden, as well my helper (aka my significant other).  It was a wonderful event thanks to all of you!

I will be working at the Japanese Garden as a part of their Tanabata, Japanese Star Festival event from 1 to 3pm on Saturday, July 7th!  This time, I won't be teaching origami, but instead I will be demonstrating my origami work.  I plan to fold several models that are appropriate for the occasion, including some ornaments for Tanabata as well as flora and fauna of the season.  The garden will also have live music by a local guitarist Toshi Onizuka, storytelling by Michiko Kornhauser, and origami instructions by PSU student volunteers.  I am excited to be a part of this event!

This is Thomas Schroyer, aka Tommy Twimble.  He is a vaudeville performer.  Strange things happen sometimes in Thomas' presence, either on or off stage.  When I took this photo, during a hike, he was almost kidnapped by a Bigfoot.

I've known Thomas as a friend for over a decade.  As long as I've known him he has always been incredibly creative and unconventional.  Besides being Twimble I've known him as a musician, a puppeteer, an iron sculptor, etc etc...  But Thomas as Twimble is my favorite of all.  He is like a clown, but without annoying pranks and creepy colorful makeups of a typical clown.  I love his sense of humor!  Thomas creates everything from music, props, and plots for his shows.  Here is a little peek of what his shows are like on Youtube:


Thomas performs as Tommy Twimble at theaters, night venues, libraries, schools, festivals, and at other special events.  Check out his website: http://tommytwimble.com/ for upcoming shows or show requests.

I would like to start featuring some of the Portland artists that I have gotten to know over the years, as a series on this blog.

First off, Cindy Lommasson is a Chinese brush and ink painting (aka sumi-e) artist and instructor. Cindy and I first met just over a year ago when we had a group art show together at Collin's Gallery. We appreciated and talked about each other's work. We both teach our art classes at Multnomah County Library locations and beyond.

Here are some of her paintings that I especially love (posting here on my blog per her permission).

I've taken three sumi-e lessons from her so far, and I'm really starting to get hooked on this profound form of art. Sumi-e is somewhat similar to Japanese calligraphy (aka shodo), which I had learned in my childhood, but to me, sumi-e is much more enjoyable because it's less rigid and more colorful than shodo.  I get into a sort of meditative state whenever I am doing sumi-e, just like when I do origami.  It's a very therapeutic feel, I love it!

Most recently, I took Cindy's sumi-e class on roses in colors at a library. As always, I enjoyed her class. She is so calm, patient, informative and inspiring.

Here is Cindy demonstrating the stroke for thorns.


Right now roses are perfect object to paint in Portland. I loved playing with different colors to paint the roses.
In the coming months Cindy has more classes on roses at various locations of Multnomah County Library. For more information on her paintings and classes, check out her website at: http://www.cindylommasson.com/

Last weekend I had a trip to Oceanside with my family and a couple of our good friends. Not to be confused with Oceanside, California, Oceanside, Oregon is a tiny coastal town near Tillamook, about 1.5 hours drive from Portland. The town is filled with vacation homes and rentals, and we stayed at one of them. The house was comfortable, dog-friendly, and had ocean view. Highly recommended, if you love to relax in laid-back, quiet beaches. (The house is this one, in case you are wondering.)

Under the beautiful weather we enjoyed strolling down to the beach at low tide for tide pooling, watching paragliders, eating lots of good food and hanging out on the deck.

My dog LOVES running on beach, as you can see. The woman who is hunching back like a grandma is me, beach combing.

There happened to be a paragliding event going on.

My friend found a plastic bottle on the beach. From the bottle cap (AQUARIUS) I identified that it's from Japan.

Barnicles on a rock wall look like reptile skin. It grosses me out. I'm not sure why because I'm not afraid of reptiles.

I painted a sand dollar with pearlescent watercolors. The mussel on the left is unpainted. Have you ever thought that there is a face on a crab shell? I've always thought that. So when I found this crab shell, I enhanced his face with a permanent marker.

A tiny clam shell that I folded out of a silver foil origami paper. The model diagram is from here.

I am excited to announce two brand-new library programs that I am offering in May.  One is about Japanese Children's Day, offered at 5 branches.  The other one is spring themed origami program, offered at just one branch.

Mini carp streamer

Mini samurai helmet worn by my dog

"Japanese Children's Day"
May 5th is "Children's Day" in Japan, a special day that is all about celebrating children!  Find out how this Japanese national holiday is observed by making fun paper crafts.  Artist Yuki Martin will show you how to create all sorts of fun projects including a mini origami carp streamer and a wearable paper samurai helmet.

Wednesday, May 2, 4:00 pm - 5:30 pm Rockwood Library
Saturday, May 5, 10:30 am - 12:00 pm Sellwood-Moreland Library
Saturday, May 5, 2:00 pm - 3:30 pm Gresham Library
Saturday, May 12, 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm Holgate Library
Saturday, May 19, 3:00 pm - 4:30 pm Kenton Library

All of the above classes are first come, first served.  Appropriate for K-5 and Families.

May 14th was a big day at the Oregon Zoo, where thousands of people gathered to celebrate the elephant Packy's 50th birthday!  I felt honored to be a part of such a great event.  It was a very busy day especially given the beautiful spring weather, but thanks to the zoo event staff and volunteers as well as my two former student helpers, I had a wonderful day.

Our booth was set near the birthday cakes (one for Packy's another one for zoo visitors).  The birthday cake for Packy was so funny looking, with whole carrots, celery and bananas as toppings!  It was huge, but I heard Packy chowed it down in less than a minute, so he must have enjoyed it.

A banner with birthday wishes for Packy

My booth

Zoo visitors folding elephants

Honorable Birthday Elephant, Packy

The event was fun and full of families, elephants (not the real ones), and green (for St. Patrick's Day)! They even had green popcorn and green cotton candies for snack.

These are the artworks I made for display at OHS.

Hindi Goddess Ganesha made in origami

White elephant holding white lotus flower. The elephant model is from Yasutomo Animal Print Origami package. The model creator is unknown.

In honor of Packy.

I wanted to create some art pieces that express how elephants are highly regarded both in Hindu and in Buddhism for different reasons. I also created something to honor the birthday elephant, Packy!

My table set up...

This is a box that I always use to hold my business cards. It was a gift from a group of students that I used to teach. Coincidentally, it has a beautiful design of elephants on it!

"Elephant Book Corner" had an elephant print chair and a basket full of elephant books. I had to have a photo taken with my elephant skirt!

While I was at OHS, I ran into some people that I know, including an event coordinator at the Oregon Zoo. She invited me to work at the official celebration of Packy's birthday at the zoo! I will be teaching more people how to make origami elephants, yey! I will be at the Oregon Zoo from 10am to 4pm, on Saturday, April 14. You can read more about the event here.