Melissa Louie

About me

When I was a child, I attended a Japanese New Year festival, where a person was showing people how to fold cranes. I took my crane home and unfolded and refolded it dozens of times until I learned how to fold it on its own. From there I continued to explore, although only as a hobby.
It wasn't until I was in a tech career that I rediscovered a passion for origami when I decided to fold origami ornaments for my coworkers for the holidays -- a tradition I kept up for over 12 years, with a new model every year. Along the way I fell in love with geometric origami: first, modular origami via kusudamas; and more recently, tessellations. The geometric purity and the way complexity is borne out of simple units really tickles my brain the right way.
Tessellations in particular allowed me to start designing my own models. There always seem to be new ways to combine known twists, pleats, and bases to create a pleasing fold, and even altering something as simple as spacing can lead to surprising and fun new models. My favorite part of tessellations is how you have up to four views of a model - front side, backside, and backlit versions of both. I've been experimenting with ways to present multiple views, such as with suncatcher designs, floating, and backlit frames, and hope to continue finding new ways to display works.