About

For most of my life I looked to those who had blazed the trail before me to find the answers.

At university there were the lectures and professors, at work there were the tenured and experienced employees, and even outside of work there were plenty of competitors, team mates and fellow enthusiasts to measure my own progress in any pursuit or endeavor I had the passion and energy to undertake.

The fact that I had to teach myself how to fold flower petals into origami models came as a complete surprise. Origami is an art form that has been around for at least about as long as paper has been around (when it was invented by the Chinese nearly 2,000 years ago), yet I searched in vain for even the smallest sliver of evidence that someone had walked the same steps before and created a path for other to follow.

For someone with a background and training in the sciences, dabbling in the 'arts' and challenging myself to understand the inextricable relationship between science and art was life-changing. As to the mystery of finding the first known documentation of flower petal folding, I'll leave that to more capable sleuths to find the answer.

And it is not the first time I dabbled with origami. No doubt you've heard of, read about or even practiced origami at some point.  It has been around for centuries and has been studied extensively as an art and a science - origami is not just known for its aesthetics, but also the wisdom it imparts on design, innovation, and even with improving our overall mental and even physical health.  

My first memory of paper folding was watching my grandmother make boxes out of the pages of wall calendars, not knowing that I would end up folding something very different in the future. I reacquainted myself with origami at primary school during a class activity for the book "Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes" that we read, but it would be quite some time before I got more serious with origami.  

Living in a world that has been heavily impacted by consumerism, and after changing career paths and going through some trivial life experiences, I sought out a special moment in space and time that could allow me to connect with nature, recalibrate mentally and physically, while preserving, and ultimately transforming, the beauty found in natural resources.  The idea of giving something a second life, or second use, was motivating as it was inspirational. 

I found that tiny oasis of serenity, almost accidently, when I started folding flower petals, without really knowing what it would lead to. I visited many florists around town, looking for information about flowers and to learn how to use flower petals to create origami.  Needless to say, the florists gave me more questions than answers, and so I began my journey in this very niche corner of the origami world.  

And it continues, not knowing if I will pick up the trails of someone who has taken a similar path, or if my path will converge with someone who is also searching for the beginning of the trail.