A Monumental Task

 I have been spending an inordinate amount of time trying various types of origami.  I have been fascinated with folded paper ever since my first project in Sculptue I at U of M.  Over the years it has surfaced several times,but I think this is the most obsessed I have ever been.  This kind of paper folding is called tesselations, which results in a flat design.  There's no way to describe how I have labored over this, the very first project in the book I bought.  Hours and hours pass as I puzzle over the instructions.  My understanding of how this design comes to be is still very tenuous.  Every repeat of this square was a struggle.  Even now I am sure that the next one will be only slightly easier than the last.  Each one has been manipulated so many times that the once sturdy typing paper I used is as soft as a tissue.

Early on, when I was still trying to do just one square, I tried different sizes and paper.  One is a photograph and the other two are from a piece of painted watercolor paper.  As I work, I entertain various ideas of how to use other media with this to make a new kind of artwork.  So far my ideas are vague, but I know whatever I do with it (if I do anything) will involve at least some kind of representational subject matter.  I have never been very satisfied with complete abstraction............always feeling the need to explain what I have done with realistic images.  I love abstraction, but I can't seem to find the process satisfying.  It has to be that I don't understand it well enough.  I guess I am too grounded, too possessive of my own work.  I am not comfortable with others iinhaling my work and making it theirs.