(Roughly) Daily

Dollar surfer, opus 571, with Breaking Wave
Medium: One uncut U.S. dollar (each)
Composed: 2010
Folded: 2010
Size: 1.5″

Robert J. Lang parlayed his Cal Tech PhD into a career as a physicist and engineer, one in which he authored or co-authored over 80 publications and 50 patents.  But by 2001, Lang’s passion for the intersection of mathematics and the manipulation of paper won out, and he became a full time origami artist.

True to his path, his work combines aspects of the Western school of mathematical origami design with the Eastern emphasis upon line and form to yield models that are at once distinctive, elegant, and challenging to fold.  They have been shown in exhibitions in New York (Museum of Modern Art), Paris (Carrousel du Louvre), and Kaga, Japan (Nippon Museum Of Origami), among others.

Dr. Robert Lang folding an origami American flag, which includes 50 stars and 15 white and 13 red stripes, from a single uncut square.  (source)

The first Westerner ever invited to address the Nippon Origami Association’s annual meeting, he lectures widely on origami and its connections to mathematics, science, and technology, and teaches workshops on both artistic techniques and applications of folding in industrial design.

See a gallery of Lang’s current work (and click around for explanations of theory and technique); read profiles of him and his work in The New Yorker and in Smithsonian; and watch him in this Wired video.

Redpath Pteranodon, opus 506
Medium: One uncut square of St.-Armand paper
Composed: 2007
Folded: 2007
Size: 15″
Comments: This model was commissioned by the Redpath Museum of Natural History in Montreal, Quebec, for folding in life size (3 meter wingspan). The full size version is currently installed at the Museum.

As we rethink recycling, we might recall that it was on this date in 1786 that 12 delegates from 5 sates (New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Virginia) convened the Meeting of Commissioners to Remedy Defects of the Federal Government in Annapolis, Maryland (AKA, the Annapolis Convention) to discuss approached to improving on the Articles of Confederation.  The session was adjourned four days later for want of critical mass:  New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and North Carolina had appointed commissioners who failed to arrive in Annapolis in time to attend the meeting, while Connecticut, Maryland, South Carolina and Georgia had taken no action at all.

Still, the Annapolis attendees produced a report that led to the convening the following year of the Philadelphia Convention of 1787… better known as the Constitutional Convention.

Report from the Annapolis Convention (source)