Thus spake "Seth" <[email protected]> on 3/26/16 3:28 PM:
><snip> >I'm thinking about what kind of protection finished origami sculptures >need >and looking to the o-list for opinions about that. >Can origamis just sit on a shelf uncovered for indefinite periods of >time? >Can they/should they be safely stored away in boxes instead? Do they need >to be covered by glass/acrylic at all times... I've found that many origami figures will, if left standing, will slowly sag over time. Animals standing on their 4 nearly-vertical legs are particularly susceptible to this, as they will slowly tilt to one side or the other, and then once they're a little bit off balance, the tilting accelerates due to the unbalanced forces, and eventually, not only do they fall over, but they are permanently unbalanced due to the slow creep. I suspect that cycling of humidity accelerates the process. To mitigate this behavior, I use two approaches. One is that I try to store origami that I want a long-term life of in boxes that cradle the artwork in such a way that it is supported uniformly, ideally cradled. The technique I learned from MoMA is to build a foamcore box (13 mm foamcore and hot-melt glue), then cut custom foam rubber inserts for the artwork so that it is gently cradled and supported. The box also serves as a shipping box when it goes to/from a gallery. I've been doing this since about 2008 and have had pretty good luck with it as an artwork protection technique. While I strive to eventually build foamcore boxes for everything that goes into the exhibition collection, each box takes a while to build (typically about half an hour), so I do have a lot of work sitting on shelves waiting for me to get up the gumption to build the box (or I'm dithering on whether it's good enough to go into the long-term collection). I've had things whose shapes are less susceptible to sagging sitting on shelves for several years with no ill effects beyond a little dust, which I brush off with a feather duster or blow off with compressed air. Another approach to deal with sagging is the professional artist's dirty little secret: wire and glue. For some display artworks, I will glue wires inside the folds, striving to tuck them far enough inside that they're not visible. The wire then takes the strains of gravity that would have been borne by the paper, and prevents long-term sagging. The glue also provides some structural stiffening. I know some other origami artists have used one or the other or both. Sensei Yoshizawa used glue (wheat starch, I believe) to stiffen and strengthen many of his works, and he's probably got the longest track record for professional art display; many of his works were folded in the the 1950s and 1960s and are still on display today and are in good shape. More recently, Maitre Joisel used both wire and glue in many of his artworks (as well as heavy-duty paints and varnishes, which can also stiffen and strengthen), and those seem to be holding up very well even after 10+ years. HTH, Robert
