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Reviews - Orikata page 31

13 Thoki Yenn Orikata - page 31

                       Reviews 
Quote from review in B.O. S. Magazine No. 1 13, August 1985.
ORIKATA by Thoki Yenn, B.O.S. booklet No, 13, 1985, A5 size, 30 pp,, 
£ 1,5o, black and white text plus 13 diagrammed folds. 
 
   Thanks to the publishers, those not fortunate enough to have seen the  
author in action at Oxford now have a chance to sample his unique style  
in print.  As he himself most aptly puts it on page 9 quoting Shakespeare:  
Thus will 1 fold them. How then does he fold them?  Answer, geometrically,  
with comic interventions by a mischievous little character called Kalmon.  
Join the Caravan and you will be taken along a route lined with pyramids,  
split cubes and skew tetrahedra.  These have mostly been folded from a  
silver rectangle and proportions of which have been exploited here in  
some new and  interesting ways, And all the while Kalmon comments  
with a variety of facial expressions ranging from sheer delight to utter  
bewilderment.  Lastly, on the back page, there are designs for Thoki Yenn  
currency notes value two and one thok-sand ideas. 
        Bold, clear and painstaking diagrams show how to form the shapes,  
all three dimensional, some involving interior creasing almost impossible  
to illustrate on a plane surface.  Yet in contrast there is the author's  
Napkin Box, taught at Birmingham last year and so beautifully simple that  
one wonders why it has been included until it's pointed out that two slotted  
form a cube, the text too includes much geometry along with details about 
the author background and acknowledgment to several noted folders for  
the way their work has inspired. 
      As regards 'the booklet's number - why so when BOS publications are  
now into the twenties. And isn't 13 supposed to be unlucky, especially for  
the female sex, because of its connection with the lunar calendar of  
13 months of 28 days.  Then again, didn't the demonic oki of Scandinavian  
mythology gatecrash a banquet of twelve other gods thus causing one 
(Balder) to perish?  True, all true, But Thoki Yenn, himself a Dane,  
was born on the 13th and, never a one to be influenced by superstition,  
deliberately chose that number after spotting it had never been used.   
May we happily conclude that 13 doubled rather than squared or cubed  
will be the number selected for his next opus.? 
                                                                                                            Litmus 
Quote from review of  
B.O.S. AUTUMN CONVENTION IN BIRMINGHAM 1985. 
 
After tea and more teaching sessions, at 5, 15 p.m., John Smith gave a  
talk, with the aid of his epidiascope, in which he traced developments in  
the way origami procedures had been represented by illustrators from  
1932 until the present day.  He took, as examples, the changes in  
treatment of the squash fold and inside reverse fold.  Early illustrations  
tended to be heavily labeled with letters, he said.  Attempts to show the  
formation of the pocket of paper in the squash fold came comparatively late.   
Not all developments were improvements.  John had prepared a radial chart  
by means of which one could compare the techniques of various illustrators. 
Top marks, according to John's chart, went to Cy Baltes and Thoki Yenn. 
                                                                                                 Eric Kenneway. 
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updated 13. JUNE 2000