I received an email from KEIKO Gallery in Boston, letting me know about an upcoming show for Nishimura Yuko (or Yuko Nishimura, in Western name styling.) The Exhibition is from May 5, 2007 to May 27, 2007; there is an opening reception on May 5th from 3PM to 6PM. If you’re in Boston or anywhere *near* Boston I most highly suggest you make an effort to see this show! Her artwork is absolutely stunning, and I never can see enough of it- I regret that I am unable to make the trip out to Boston just to see this, but I’d do it in a heartbeat if I could. Detailed information about the exhibition can be found here: http://keikogallery.com/nishimura_exhi.html Nishimura Yuko was awarded notable prizes for her innovative paper reliefs while still a student of architectural design at Nihon University in Tokyo. Using her skilled fingers as her tools, she transforms crisp, single white sheets of Japanese hand made paper into two dimensional panels and three dimensional objects that are filled with lyrical and rhythmic …

I’ve long been a fan of Yu-Chih Hsiao, who makes a seemingly endless array of fantastic designs. What appeals to me most is the broad array of concepts that he pulls together and uses. I don’t like comparing people to others, but his work reminds me of Thomas Heatherwick mixed together with a whole lot of kirigami goodness (and that’s a wonderful thing!) Take a minute to look through some of his designs – there’s all sorts of ideas and concepts there, definitely something that will spur the imagination. There’s a lot that can be said, but I’ll let the pictures do the talking instead. -Eric Beautiful stuff, isn’t it?

I am in love with The Institute for Figuring. If you’re at all interested in geometric art, tessellations, chaos, fractals, or really anything- you should become a member. It’s highly worthwhile. Crocheted Hyperbolic Plane, copyright IFF From their website: The Institute For Figuring is an educational organization dedicated to enhancing the public understanding of figures and figuring techniques. From the physics of snowflakes and the hyperbolic geometry of sea slugs, to the mathematics of paper folding and graphical models of the human mind, the Institute takes as its purview a complex ecology of figuring. It’s like someone took EVERYTHING out there that I find interesting, and wrapped it up into a non-profit with a cool website, publications, and speaking events! Fantastic stuff. To whet your appetite, there’s a rather good article on mathematical paper folding on their site currently: The Institute For Figuring // Online Exhibit: Mathematical Paper Folding Enjoy!

Been very quiet here as I wrangle some personal and professional monsters. More frequent posting will resume soon. Look for a good writeup on up-and-coming paper artist Jen Stark shortly! Reposting this short list- it was something I sent to the Origami Mailing List a week ago. Some nice things to admire, and/or be inspired by (or make yourself!) -Eric ———— Not all just origami, but also some paper art and folding architecture things too. The list has been rather quiet lately so here’s some things to look at. http://revistagalileu.globo.com/EditoraGlobo/componentes/article/edg_article_print/1,3916,516776-2680-1,00.html A nice article on the mathematics of origami, in Portuguese http://www.gailbarlow.com/sculptures1.html Wonderful paper sculptures (lots of sliceforms!) by Gail Barlow (thanks to J. Rutzky for the link) http://www.foldschool.com Free foldable cardboard furniture designs for kids http://www.orangevoid.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=27&Itemid=36 Fantastic tessellated membrane, mechanically controlled for architectural purposes (I dream about this sort of stuff, and here it is in real life!) http://community.livejournal.com/ru_pop_up/32317.html Some very nice tessellations on a russian paper architecture site- great curved pieces http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2006/11/how_to_use_furo.html great PDF from Japan on Furoshiki, cloth gift wrapping – with lots …

Ben Parker (brdparker on flickr) has posted a great collection of waterbomb tessellations recently- 132 photos, in all! Ben says this is all part of a tutorial/write-up on waterbomb based tessellations, which I am eagerly looking forward to reading. Quite a few of us on Flickr have been folding all sorts of waterbomb-esque tessellation things in the last few months, although the real breakthroughs with this sort of technique comes from the “flagstone” tessellations of Joel Cooper, who has been creating magnificent works of art in this style for years. It is only recently that others of us have been able to sort out some of the methods of this type of construction, and of course we all seem to have approached it from different ways. Many of the pieces posted here by Ben are not flagstone tessellations, following the intricate style popularized by Joel (great example here), but instead some interesting 3D pieces that remind me a lot of the work of Polly Verity and Ray Schamp. Also, I see a bit of Frank …