Origami’s New Bent

No matter how long you study one of origami artist Chris K. Palmer’s silk “Shadowfolds,” its mystery never completely unfolds.

Hexagons, squares and triangles intertwine, spiral and twist into ever more complex variations with indescribable grace.

You may spend hours meditating on these designs and still have no clue where Palmer started, how he painstakingly manipulated the silk into the three-dimensional, infinitely symmetrical shapes called tessellations or plotted the pattern’s journey so it ventures ingeniously from one path to the next.

Even Palmer appears in awe of the aesthetic and technical leaps he has made after intensive trial and error.

His work, a synthesis of Japanese and Moorish traditions, is unique, said Michael G. LaFosse, a Massachusetts-based origami artist and author who has included Palmer’s paper work in his recent book, “Origamido: Masterworks of Paper Folding” (Rockport, $35). “His incredible investigation into the bigger potential of folding in fabric [and paper] is definitely pioneering,” LaFosse said.

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The ancient art of origami enjoys enormous popularity, evidenced by hundreds of related Web sites, passionate online debate and scores of clubs and books that demonstrate astonishing advances in origami design. Publications are dedicated to folding biblical figures, Celtic knots, dollar bills and dinosaurs.

“Origami mathematics” is a nascent but burgeoning field. Merrimack College in Massachusetts offers a course on the mathematics of paper folding. And a computer program written by California scientist Robert Lang “can take any stick figure and calculate a pattern of creases that will produce that figure,” according to the online magazine published by the Exploratorium in San Francisco. Anyone adroit enough to follow the program’s prescribed creases can turn a piece of paper into a lobster or other complicated creature.

A native of Alamo, Calif., and avid skateboarder who lives in Glen Burnie, Md., Palmer, 33, is quietly self-possessed, as enigmatic as his Shadowfolds.

Even as a child Palmer was an avid “folder” who enjoyed origami. Later, he earned a fine arts degree from UC Santa Cruz but never had his heart in figurative art. During a subsequent trip to Granada, Spain, he was transfixed by the Alhambra, the famous medieval Moorish castle, and its thousands of glazed mosaic tilings.

Since 1991, Palmer found that his fascination with pattern dovetailed with the work of the Japanese “flat-fold” master, Shuzo Fujimoto. The older man used origami techniques to create intricate geometric designs with paper, using no cutting, gluing or drawing. Inspired by Fujimoto, and aided by friend and fellow folder Jeremy Shafer of Berkeley, Palmer devised his own method of flat-folding polygons with congruent sides and angles.

In 1994, he visited Fujimoto, who gave Palmer his blessing to continue his work. The older man was “kind of fatherly in a nice way I needed,” Palmer said.

Upon his return, Palmer began folding cloth. Suddenly, there were “so many possibilities.” The same patterns he had studied in wood, ceramic tiles, metal, plaster, paint and tapestry emerged in Palmer’s simple swathes of silk. His manipulations bloomed into sculptural flowers, stars and other bewildering geometric constructions.

He felt liberated by fabric; it didn’t rip or grow more unwieldy with size like paper.

Palmer, who by day designs game puzzles on a Web site of Maryland-based Kadon Enterprises, uses a computer-assisted design program to scale his work. While he is protective of his work--unwilling to divulge his techniques--he is adamant about crediting his mentor, Fujimoto. “I really, generally think I’m watering his garden,” he said.

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Recently, Palmer worked with New York fashion designer David Rodriguez, who has incorporated several of Palmer’s origami patterns into his line. They met after an intern of Rodriguez’s spotted Palmer’s work at an origami convention a couple of years ago at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology.

Palmer’s other textile pieces, formed from sheer, ivory-hued silk using no cutting or piecing, are as peaceful as they are astounding. When illuminated from behind, lighter and darker design elements emerge to reveal a piece’s inner structure. When illuminated from the front, the layers within become invisible.

Shot through with low winter light, Palmer’s work has an understated spiritual quality. At some point, Palmer hopes to be able to mass-produce yardage of Shadowfolds. But he’s in no hurry. After all, as he said repeatedly, his work is done “all for the glory of God.”