Full report coming soon...
Showing posts with label senbazuru. Show all posts
Showing posts with label senbazuru. Show all posts
Saturday, 9 October 2010
Sunday, 12 September 2010
...999...1000!
I've finished my cranes. A few of us gathered in the pub whilst I folded the final ten, and they're all done. Whilst I was doing the last hundred, I thought a lot about how much has changed since I started, and everything that I've done since I folded my first crane for this project.
My cranes have been to and been folded at, and during:
Foldageddons Light Night budget meetings Leeds Pride a new dr (who) Unity Day various pubs Brighton Chorley Manchester trivial pursuit partiesTabby's naming party beer train a general election testspace Nuneaton Hiroshima/Nagasaki memorial the last ashes to ashes various club nights Manchester Pride secret tearoom my birthday party other people's birthday parties over the rainbow house sale a (very minor) house fire michael mcintyre ilovewestleeds festival the world cup Sheffield lots of motorways and lots of other things!
thank you to everyone who has supported me so far, and a special thank you to my husband Rob, who cut 1000 pieces of paper into squares for me to fold!
There's still lots more to come before October, so stay tuned!
My cranes have been to and been folded at, and during:
Foldageddons Light Night budget meetings Leeds Pride a new dr (who) Unity Day various pubs Brighton Chorley Manchester trivial pursuit partiesTabby's naming party beer train a general election testspace Nuneaton Hiroshima/Nagasaki memorial the last ashes to ashes various club nights Manchester Pride secret tearoom my birthday party other people's birthday parties over the rainbow house sale a (very minor) house fire michael mcintyre ilovewestleeds festival the world cup Sheffield lots of motorways and lots of other things!
thank you to everyone who has supported me so far, and a special thank you to my husband Rob, who cut 1000 pieces of paper into squares for me to fold!
There's still lots more to come before October, so stay tuned!
Tuesday, 7 September 2010
Final furlong
Have a quick look at the Totalizer in the right hand sidebar. At the time of writing this, it is at 940. By Friday the total will be 1000. One. Thousand. Cranes.
I've got it all planned out, twenty a day until Friday, when I'll do ten through the day, then I'm going to go to Nation of Shopkeepers pub to fold the last ten in the company of friends, then I'll have a big drink to celebrate.
If you're in Leeds, and you'd like to see the final ten being made, or you just want to come for a drink, then please feel free to drop in. I'll be there from half past four.
It feels weird being on the home straight. There's still LOADS to do for Light Night, but this part of it is almost over. It doesn't seem very long ago that I fudged the totalizer because 8 cranes didn't even show up on it, and now it's almost full. I have bags everywhere with cranes in, and I've got used to always carrying some paper just in case I have five minutes. My fingers won't know what to do!
I've got it all planned out, twenty a day until Friday, when I'll do ten through the day, then I'm going to go to Nation of Shopkeepers pub to fold the last ten in the company of friends, then I'll have a big drink to celebrate.
If you're in Leeds, and you'd like to see the final ten being made, or you just want to come for a drink, then please feel free to drop in. I'll be there from half past four.
It feels weird being on the home straight. There's still LOADS to do for Light Night, but this part of it is almost over. It doesn't seem very long ago that I fudged the totalizer because 8 cranes didn't even show up on it, and now it's almost full. I have bags everywhere with cranes in, and I've got used to always carrying some paper just in case I have five minutes. My fingers won't know what to do!
Tuesday, 27 July 2010
FIVE HUNDRED!!
That's right. As of Saturday night, I've folded 500 cranes. That's halfway there. Okay, we won't focus on the amount I've got left to do. I'll post a picture of them all at some point, sat in their little bags, waiting to be illuminated.
FIVE HUNDRED CRANES!!
It seems like forever since I started, although this blog tells me it wasn't all that long ago. A thousand seemed like such a massive number, but now 500 seems like an even bigger number as the deadline looms. I know I'll do it though. After all, I'm already halfway there.
Friday, 14 May 2010
Two hundred!
Last night, I folded my two hundredth (is that even a word?) crane for my project.
This currently puts me at having to fold 7.33 a day to make my target (I'm hoping to have them all done by September, so I have wriggle room and time to wire them all up). However, I'm hoping to get a bit ahead then I'm not obsessively folding all the time like a crazy person. Plus, I'm going to stop folding other stuff, because that's a bit silly really when I've so much to do, even though I really love sonobe units.
It's funny, but when I hit 100, it still felt like there was a really long way to go, but all of a sudden, getting to 200 feels like a real achievement and 800 seems totally doable. Ask me again nearer the time and I'll probably growl at you whilst my hands make foldy gestures because they've taken the paper away from me in case I hurt myself...but for now, it's totally doable.
This currently puts me at having to fold 7.33 a day to make my target (I'm hoping to have them all done by September, so I have wriggle room and time to wire them all up). However, I'm hoping to get a bit ahead then I'm not obsessively folding all the time like a crazy person. Plus, I'm going to stop folding other stuff, because that's a bit silly really when I've so much to do, even though I really love sonobe units.
It's funny, but when I hit 100, it still felt like there was a really long way to go, but all of a sudden, getting to 200 feels like a real achievement and 800 seems totally doable. Ask me again nearer the time and I'll probably growl at you whilst my hands make foldy gestures because they've taken the paper away from me in case I hurt myself...but for now, it's totally doable.
Thursday, 29 April 2010
You might have noticed...
...something rather exciting on my blog. No? You haven't? Then you haven't been paying attention.
Look. (This arrow is supposed to point to the totalizer. Look at the totalizer.)
---------------------------->
Look. (This arrow is supposed to point to the totalizer. Look at the totalizer.)
I have made one hundred cranes. That's right people, 10% of my cranes are now folded, packed into bags and ready to go!
Alright, admittedly as my mum said, 10% of 1000 still means there's a long way to go, but let's not be all "glass half empty" about it. 10% is still a fair percentage.
So yay! One hundred cranes!
Wednesday, 24 February 2010
Crane vs. Crane
How could I get my cranes to glow? The answer was obvious. Ask John.
John works in my office, and is a PhD in physics-ey stuff. Not particularly in electronics, but he’s a pretty good person to go to if you want to ask about how anything works. Plus, he watches the Discovery Channel a lot, and that’s good enough for me.
We came up with a couple of ideas, which were much better than my rather over-excited “tie them all to fairy lights!” suggestion. Next up were discussions on the actual cranes – we had to know what we’d be lighting before we could decide on how to do it.
Last time I made 1000 cranes I’d used everything from scrapbooking card to takeaway menus. There were even pages from books and stickers in there. This time round, I wanted plain white (the installation is supposed to represent peace and hope, so all pure white reinforced that), and something that was easy to fold (folding card over and over is hard on the hands, and this time, I had a deadline). It also had to be fairly cheap and easy to obtain, and as the cranes would be strung up, weight had to be a factor.
I narrowed it down to two main options for the paper to make the cranes out of:
- Printer paper. The pros of this are that it’s cheap, plentiful, and easy to fold with. Cons are that it doesn’t come in squares, so I’d have to make larger cranes (I’d originally been planning cranes made from 6”x6” paper, which is the standard size of the origami paper I usually use) to square it off easily, or I’d be stuck fiddling with it for a while making sure I was cutting out a perfect square. It’s also fairly thick, so I wasn’t sure if the light would shine through it enough.
- Origami paper. Standard origami paper is pretty easy to come by around here. It’s lightweight, thin (so light shines through easily), and obviously by its very nature easy to fold. It also comes in a standard square, so I could fold straight out of the packet. However, it’s much more expensive than printer paper (around £1 for a 100 sheet pack) and it comes in lots of colours, so even if I fold it “inside out” (so the white on the back of the paper is on the outside, and the colour on the inside) the colour will still glow through if it is lit from inside, and there will be some colours in a pack I can’t use (brown and black, and possibly other darker colours, as they’d swallow up the light inside), which again would make it more expensive.
After lots of test runs of making cranes of different sizes and different colours, and shoving a handy Christmas light into it to assess light distribution, I decided that the printer paper was a better choice all round, as the larger cranes didn’t detract from the effect so I could square it off easily, and I preferred the all-white as it was a clearer connotation (can you have a clear connotation?) of the peace message I was trying to put across. The Christmas light didn’t shine through brilliantly, but it was a small yellow old-style bulb rather than the LEDs we’d been looking at, so I wasn’t too worried about it.
I’d just made my first prototype light-up crane!
John works in my office, and is a PhD in physics-ey stuff. Not particularly in electronics, but he’s a pretty good person to go to if you want to ask about how anything works. Plus, he watches the Discovery Channel a lot, and that’s good enough for me.
We came up with a couple of ideas, which were much better than my rather over-excited “tie them all to fairy lights!” suggestion. Next up were discussions on the actual cranes – we had to know what we’d be lighting before we could decide on how to do it.
Last time I made 1000 cranes I’d used everything from scrapbooking card to takeaway menus. There were even pages from books and stickers in there. This time round, I wanted plain white (the installation is supposed to represent peace and hope, so all pure white reinforced that), and something that was easy to fold (folding card over and over is hard on the hands, and this time, I had a deadline). It also had to be fairly cheap and easy to obtain, and as the cranes would be strung up, weight had to be a factor.
I narrowed it down to two main options for the paper to make the cranes out of:
- Printer paper. The pros of this are that it’s cheap, plentiful, and easy to fold with. Cons are that it doesn’t come in squares, so I’d have to make larger cranes (I’d originally been planning cranes made from 6”x6” paper, which is the standard size of the origami paper I usually use) to square it off easily, or I’d be stuck fiddling with it for a while making sure I was cutting out a perfect square. It’s also fairly thick, so I wasn’t sure if the light would shine through it enough.
- Origami paper. Standard origami paper is pretty easy to come by around here. It’s lightweight, thin (so light shines through easily), and obviously by its very nature easy to fold. It also comes in a standard square, so I could fold straight out of the packet. However, it’s much more expensive than printer paper (around £1 for a 100 sheet pack) and it comes in lots of colours, so even if I fold it “inside out” (so the white on the back of the paper is on the outside, and the colour on the inside) the colour will still glow through if it is lit from inside, and there will be some colours in a pack I can’t use (brown and black, and possibly other darker colours, as they’d swallow up the light inside), which again would make it more expensive.
After lots of test runs of making cranes of different sizes and different colours, and shoving a handy Christmas light into it to assess light distribution, I decided that the printer paper was a better choice all round, as the larger cranes didn’t detract from the effect so I could square it off easily, and I preferred the all-white as it was a clearer connotation (can you have a clear connotation?) of the peace message I was trying to put across. The Christmas light didn’t shine through brilliantly, but it was a small yellow old-style bulb rather than the LEDs we’d been looking at, so I wasn’t too worried about it.
I’d just made my first prototype light-up crane!
Monday, 22 February 2010
From a tiny acorn...
So I had the seed of an idea, but how would I make it special enough for Light Night? 1000 cranes, though impressive, is barely an installation.
First I thought about stringing them up in trees individually, so it looked like a flock of paper birds had landed in Leeds. Unfortunately, paper birds outdoors in October is pretty much guaranteeing that you'll end up with wet paper falling on people's heads. The idea of having paper birds overhead like a flock appealed to me though, so I thought about having a ceiling festooned with them, rather than the traditional strings. Plus, it would look more exciting.
I like what the senbazuru stands for, and I liked the idea of people walking amongst a symbol of peace and hope. I decided that the cranes should be white, to make it appear more peaceful. If only I could get them to glow with a "holy light"...
I really should stop thinking. It only leads to trouble.
First I thought about stringing them up in trees individually, so it looked like a flock of paper birds had landed in Leeds. Unfortunately, paper birds outdoors in October is pretty much guaranteeing that you'll end up with wet paper falling on people's heads. The idea of having paper birds overhead like a flock appealed to me though, so I thought about having a ceiling festooned with them, rather than the traditional strings. Plus, it would look more exciting.
I like what the senbazuru stands for, and I liked the idea of people walking amongst a symbol of peace and hope. I decided that the cranes should be white, to make it appear more peaceful. If only I could get them to glow with a "holy light"...
I really should stop thinking. It only leads to trouble.
The Senbazuru
The senbazuru, as lifted straight from Wikipedia:
"Thousand Origami Cranes (千羽鶴, Senbazuru or Zenbazuru) is a group of one thousand origami paper cranes held together by strings.
An ancient Japanese legend promises that anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes will be granted a wish by a crane, such as long life or recovery from illness or injury...
The Thousand Origami Cranes has become a symbol of world peace through the story of Sadako Sasaki, a Japanese girl who tried to stave off her death from leukemia as a result of radiation from the atomic bombing of Hiroshima during World War II by making one thousand origami cranes, having folded only 644 before her death, and that her friends completed and buried them all with her."
In 2008 I folded 1000 cranes, which took around 3 months to do. It looks like this:
The crane isn't a particularly hard model to fold, and I'm by no means the best origami person ever, but I do get a lot of people asking me about my origami (particularly as it is something I tend to do on the train/bus to keep me busy during journeys) and a lot of people are surprised when I tell them about the senbazuru, because they can't imagine 1000 cranes all together at once.
Only recently I'd been talking to my husband about getting rid of them, because they take up a lot of room and we'd just moved house. I'd been talking about making another, out of smaller paper; but what if I made another, especially for Light Night?
"Thousand Origami Cranes (千羽鶴, Senbazuru or Zenbazuru) is a group of one thousand origami paper cranes held together by strings.
An ancient Japanese legend promises that anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes will be granted a wish by a crane, such as long life or recovery from illness or injury...
The Thousand Origami Cranes has become a symbol of world peace through the story of Sadako Sasaki, a Japanese girl who tried to stave off her death from leukemia as a result of radiation from the atomic bombing of Hiroshima during World War II by making one thousand origami cranes, having folded only 644 before her death, and that her friends completed and buried them all with her."
In 2008 I folded 1000 cranes, which took around 3 months to do. It looks like this:
The crane isn't a particularly hard model to fold, and I'm by no means the best origami person ever, but I do get a lot of people asking me about my origami (particularly as it is something I tend to do on the train/bus to keep me busy during journeys) and a lot of people are surprised when I tell them about the senbazuru, because they can't imagine 1000 cranes all together at once.
Only recently I'd been talking to my husband about getting rid of them, because they take up a lot of room and we'd just moved house. I'd been talking about making another, out of smaller paper; but what if I made another, especially for Light Night?
My life as an artist
I started thinking about what I actually could do in terms of art or performance, and what people would want to see at Light Night.
I do have experience of theatre, but backstage work, so acting was out.
I look like a hippo on acid when i try to dance, so that was out.
I can't draw, so that type of artwork was out.
I've got a qualification in photography, but it was only a short Open University course, and I'm no David Bailey.
In fact, the only thing I've ever completed which I would say is crafty is my senbazuru...
I do have experience of theatre, but backstage work, so acting was out.
I look like a hippo on acid when i try to dance, so that was out.
I can't draw, so that type of artwork was out.
I've got a qualification in photography, but it was only a short Open University course, and I'm no David Bailey.
In fact, the only thing I've ever completed which I would say is crafty is my senbazuru...
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