Summary of CenterFold 2024

Me at CenterFold 2024, holding my Geometric Vase. Image by Kay Eng.

My model exhibition

Quentin Trollip, Dáša Ševerová, John Scully (event organizer), and me at CenterFold 2024. Image by Kay Eng.

It’s already been two weeks since CenterFold 2024. This origami convention took place in Columbus, Ohio, USA, on August 8th-11th, 2024. I was one of the special guests, along with Quentin Trollip and Dáša Ševerová. It was also the first origami convention I ever attended in the USA.

Long story short, I enjoyed it very much. I also had a lot of fun sightseeing in the USA on my way to and from the convention. The meeting was a few dozen people, so the atmosphere was very cosy, and there was ample time to meet and talk to everyone. I was surprised by the large number of parallel workshops planned. On one hand, it meant there was a lot to choose from, on the other some workshops had just a few participants. The upside of this: we could finish more advanced models, and quicker, than would be possible in a large group. Time was also planned out well, with more than enough space between workshops, and lots of time for free folding. The party on the evening of the first day was also great, thanks to John’s hospitality.

This being my first convention in the USA, I got to meet for the first time a number of people I had so far only interacted with online. Out of many, I must single out John Montroll whose book originally enticed me to folding paper.

I also learned about some interesting new papers. It turns out, O-Gami paper will no longer be produced, but we got the opportunity to buy some of the remaining sheets. I also learned about Birei, which is a remake of Tant. And, I got my hands on Skytone, which I knew by name, but never folded (thanks, Omer!).

One model of mine, Geometric Vase enjoyed huge popularity, and even though it was not in the official workshop schedule (being too recent), I taught it to at least three groups during free folding. A really great experience was seeing this design take on a life of its own, with people teaching it to others, and coming up with modifications such as a pentagonal version, and improvements such as Jim Weir’s simplified lock.

Despite spending most of the time teaching, I was able to pop in to some other workshops, including those by the other special guests. CenterFold 2024 was an intense but very fun time, and I’m very happy I was able to be there.