Origami: It’s more than folded paper.
Origami creations grace Botanical Garden
The Texas debut of “Origamiinthegarden2” at the San Antonio Botanical Garden could be seen as a bit of kismet or, perhaps, some extraordinarily good timing.
Sabina Carr, CEO of the garden, called Jennifer and Kevin Box, the artists behind the exhibit, when she knew she would be moving into that position just over 10 months ago to see if they had a show available that could open this fall and run into 2021.
“Another garden had just canceled on them a week before,” Carr said. “And I swooped in and got it. And then two other gardens called the next day — that’s how popular they are. But they’ve never been in Texas, so it’s the Texas debut. So it all just really worked so beautifully.”
The exhibit features more than 20 metal sculptures artfully
tucked into beds and just off pathways throughout the 38acre garden, which reopened May 3. Each of the works began
as all origami does: With a single piece of paper that is transformed into a thing of beauty. A handful of those models are on
display to give visitors a sense of process.
Works include brightly painted ponies galloping across a field, cranes, boats and a bison, as well as abstract works.
The Boxes collaborated with each other on some of the cranes, including one depicting a pair building a nest. They collaborate with other artists, too, including master origami artists such as Robert J. Lang.
Kevin Box described those
collaborations as “forming an origami band.”
“I realized that if you really want to have the best music, you get the best guitar player, the best drummer,” he said. “So I started to collaborate with other artists.”
One piece captures the process of making a paper airplane. An uncreased square is at the bottom; additional sheets rise from it, each showing off — one by one — the folds that have to be made to transform a simple piece of paper into something that can take flight.
To Kevin Box, the piece has a functional aspect as well as a metaphorical one.
“You could actually learn how to make a paper airplane just by studying the artwork,” he said. “For me as an artist, it depicts the creative process. You kind of have to have a goal, and you have to do the work. You have to take the steps. Whether you’re an entrepreneur making a business or you’re an artist painting or a composer composing or a writer writing, you start with a blank page. That is the ultimate challenge of the creative spirit. What are you going to do with nothing?”
The piece is augmented by little shrimp plants mimicking its shape planted
below it.
That kind of touch — plant life working in concert with the art — is intentional.
“I know that horticulture can play a co-starring role with these exhibits, and so I really gave the horticulture team the chance to be those costars,” Carr said. “And I said, ‘Jennifer has sited where they’ll go. Now it’s up to you to really make them dance.’ And they did that.”
Box has shown his work
in galleries and museums, but there is something special about exhibiting it in a natural setting, he said.
“I think one of the really inspiring things about collaborating with a garden like this is to see the plants that they found that might remind you of the origami itself,” he said. “There’s a really cool dynamic there.”