About

Sylvie, also known as Vi, presents a “Genuine Showcase”, focusing on the works of Jun Maekawa and Hideo Komatsu who both are pillars of the “Genuine Origami” design philosophy which values the “flow” of the folding experience, every fold being precise and aligned, and producing models with more angular designs which are working to represent some character or “essential shape” of a subject being translated into a fold.

Sylvie started origami in June 2023 by joining the wonderful (and free) Chicago Area Origami Society and with Jun Maekawa’s book, Genuine Origami.

At Sylvie’s first CHAOS meeting, someone had brought in Maekawa’s book, and while it was lying out on a table, she started flipping through and saw a three-headed crane design that looked very intriguing. She was allowed to take pictures of the pages and ran home to try and fold it. Working off those photos and a youtube tutorial, she was able to successfully finish the model (the original is displayed in the showcase).

Then, after recognizing that that fold was too hard at the time, she got her own copy and worked her way through it model by model. After folding many more of Maekawa’s models, she realized how much she was enjoying this, and between her first and the next monthly CHAOS meeting, she folded so many more of Maekawa’s pieces. From this time, her favorites were the sheep, crane, squid, mouse, dolphin, and pyramid.

Later, after attending her first origami convention that August, Sylvie’s friend introduced her to the author Hideo Komatsu, another member of the Genuine Origami design school who calls Maekawa’s first published book, VIVA! ORIGAMI, his bible.

Sylvie’s personal favorite folds are all by Komatsu. Particularly, his Horse is her favorite model of all time; it is an absolute joy to fold, and she can feel the work and skill exuding from every fold and diagram.

To date, Komatsu’s wolf and hippo are the two most complicated folds Sylvie has achieved, while his fox and boar (along with Maekawa’s mouse and rabbit) are some of her personal favorite simpler models.

Overall, this showcase is meant to show off a large amount of Maekawa’s and Komatsu’s work, highlight Sylvie’s progression in the art form and some of her favorite folds ever, and show respect to the wonderful artists whose designs and efforts have sparked and fueled her passion for origami.

Many folds in the showcase are originals back when Sylvie first started. Some models have been refolded for precision as she has improved significantly since starting, and others refolded since she has given many of her works away over time (since origami is wonderful and beautiful to share).

Most models are folded with basic 2-color “Kami” paper, most smaller ones with 6in/15cm paper, and others with 10in/25cm paper.

Select complex folds (such as the purple Komatsu hippo, Maekawa pyramid, and Komatsu wolf) were done with stronger and larger kami since the amount of stress each model puts on the paper would tear apart smaller and weaker kami.