Thanks, chocoATBP!

Impassioned Fruit No. 7: Photos of an abandoned OA project

I haven't abandoned this blog completely, but as with the previous lull, I haven't heard the P-word much in my interviews. Also, given some forthcoming changes at work and how I've increasingly focused on one type of craft, I think I'll have to change some of my rules for future posts sometime soon.

In the meantime, I'll leave you with a little documentation of my last OA project, as well as the pertinent quotes from my most recent interview.

I guess this could serve as a sorta tutorial for anyone who wants to give OA a try. I find it really relaxing for some reason.

I usually sketch the general design that I want to make on scratch paper first. For this one, I wanted to see how many different windows I could come up with. To me, they give an otherwise plain, rectangular building some character.

After that, I make all the measurements and put the pattern on the paper. Until now, I'd been using mostly fliers and scratch paper, so I decided that I'd try regular bond paper for this project.

The next thing I do, of course, is to make all the cuts for the big shapes. This is a picture of the "right" side of the project after I'd done all the cuts but before I'd done all the folding. Sorry for the blurry take; I've fiddled with the contrast a bit so the lines are clearer.

Here, you can see a spot on the "wrong" side where I screwed up. Since no one sees this side, and it's not so obvious from a distant shot displayed on a computer screen, I sometimes cheat a little with a tiny piece of masking tape. Otherwise, I punish myself by starting over.

The fun part! I fold all the big shapes. At this point, the thing is kind of floppy, with the creases making obtuse angles, so ...

... I carefully close it and then flatten it under a book or something like that. I don't actually know how long it takes for it to become flat. Usually, I do this before work and then come back to it when I get home at the end of the day. Once it's good, though, when I open the form, everything's at nice right angles.

My last step is to make all the cutouts of the windows. I've found that cutting out windows before doing initial folds makes folding trickier, but maybe it would be better to use stronger paper. The cutouts are definitely the hardest part for me because my hand's not that steady yet, and I make a lot of mistakes.

Martin's colleague saw me working on my turtle card at breakfast one morning and said, "Ibang level iyan ng pagka-OC, a." That's actually untrue in my case, because if I were really OC, I'd be starting over more often than I usually do.

Anyway, this was the point in the project where I decided to scrap the project altogether. The type of bond paper I was using was just too rough and floppy for the final form to come out right, so I'll be starting over when I have time.

Oh, yes. Last Friday, July 8, I spoke with Leila Palma and Zoilo and Diane Andin of chocoATBP for this month's issue of BusinessWorld Entreprenews, published today. This is what Mr. And Mrs. Andin had to say about running their business on top of their day jobs:

"It's something they [clients] can see we enjoy doing ... Love mo talaga, e." - Zoilo Andin Jr.

"There has to be a bit of passion going." - Diane Andin

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I hadn't realized how long it had been since I'd updated this blog until I saw the Manila Met post. If you're interested in the rest of the popup stuff I've done so far, you can click here.

Thanks, Alamid Xpress Cafe!

Impassioned Fruit no. 6: origamic architecture - Manila Metropolitan Theater + exercises.

This was done after the launch of Alamid Xpress Cafe on February 8, at Recreational Outdoor eXchange in Bonifacio High Street. The family-owners of the business are outdoorsmen-and-women and hope that the cafe will become a hub for fellow adventurers. They produce various single-origin, fair trade coffees but specially offer kapeng alamid, also known as kape balos, kopi luwak, or civet coffee. Yeah, the cat poop coffee. It tastes great, by the way, and civets aren't cats, either.

I was really happy to attend the launch, mostly because one of their farms is near Mt. Matutum, which stands over my hometown.

Pertinent quote:

"Coffee is really a passion that we have, especially for the communities. When everybody's going global, international, what we're doing now is local, local, local." -- Vie Reyes, owner / cool matriarch

As for the origamic architecture, I stumbled upon it just the other day, and it immediately felt like the next step for me from simple box popups and modular origami. It'll also be a way for me to explore my interest in architecture, beyond staring open-mouthed at pretty buildings when I pass them.

I chose this particular pretty building, the Manila Metropolitan Theater, because it was the first one I thought to model, and I couldn't think of any building in the city that I liked more.

(Image source: Gary's The Triple eX)

In comparison, my model doesn't really measure up. It probably never will, and I'm okay with that.

As far as good OA is concerned, though, it's pretty shoddy. I got the measurements wrong--that's why the side borders are floppy; I kept folding them in the wrong places. I also wasn't sure how to get the two "tiaras" on top to pop out without completely detaching them from the back panel.

It was probably ridiculous of me to attempt such a grand building without actually doing some practice forms first. So, I did them afterward, just so I could see where I was going wrong. First, I tried some stairs:

Then, I tried a stacked and inset box thingy:

Then, I tried putting them together in what I guess is my first original OA form:

The lines on the wall are more mistakes; good thing I realized that before cutting through.

After that, I felt confident that I could try the Met again. This was what I managed before I left for work:

The tiaras are really going to be a problem. If I continue on this model by adding the top tiara, then the only things holding the theater to the back panel will be four little, half-centimeter-wide strips of paper (there is one at of each side spire in this picture. In photos of the Met, the spires sort of stick out of the wall, so that wouldn't be accurate, either). I'm thinking of switching to a portrait orientation to see if that might make it more stable and, well, nice to look at. That's another challenge. :)

Thanks, Theo + Philo!

Impassioned Fruit No. 5: daisy sonobe dodecahedron. This is a 90-piece modular origami that I've been putting off for a long time. The papers came from used notebooks.

I'm really proud of this one. I'd been into sonobe for a while and decided it was time to graduate to forms that required > 30 or so units. It took me a while to fold 90, and then I found it hard to figure out how to put them together. When I finally did, I realized I had one piece missing, so I had to hunt all over my room for the last unit. Even then, the pieces lay forgotten on one of Martin's shelves (I'd decided to assemble it in his house since there's no more room in my own place, and he lets me keep stuff like this at his) until this interview.

I interviewed Philo Chua of Theo + Philo Artisan Chocolates sometime in January for an article that still hasn't been published. Mr. Chua didn't actually use the P word or anything like it during the interview--apart from explaining that the company name meant "love and chocolate"--but I liked his story so much that I felt I had to do a project afterward. You can't do something like Mr. Chua did without having a little passion, after all.

I guess this is also a small way to promote his terrific chocolates until the article finally gets published--I hope this will be early in March. In the meantime, try to buy from Theo + Philo. The green mango chocolate is my favorite.

Thanks, PBSP!

Impassioned Fruit No. 4: pop-up city, made with different papers (including the press release of a hotel I wrote for the other year) and some watercolor pencils. More photos of it here.

Lately, I've been fascinated by buildings and models. I'm wondering if there's a way for me to study architecture and learn to build scale models without having to go through college all over again. I'm reluctant to enrol in a full course because it would be mostly just for fun. Guess that's something for me to look into this year.

This was done last weekend, nearly two weeks after I interviewed Rafael Lopa, executive director, and Klaas Oreel, chief executive adviser of Philippine Business for Social Progress, at around 1200 in the PLDT building, Makati.

PBSP celebrated its 40th anniversary last week. I'm really glad that there are organizations like it here and wouldn't mind working for one someday.

Pertinent quote:

"We feel good that we're able to do so much work for our people. ... It's not a job, as far as we're concerned. It's something we feel very passionate about." -- Rafael Lopa