Folding or Unfolding? Paper or steel?
Origami-inspired sculpture stirs big questions — and good fun
I’m writing this from my great-grandmother’s summer painting studio on the granite coast of Cape Ann, MA. Tucked into a cliff at water’s edge, the Studio has captivated me since I was a girl visiting Bay View, as we call it, with my grandmother, the youngest child of Blanche Ames, an artist, feminist, beloved wife, mother, grand- and great-grandmother. Her enduring presence in my family shaped my own perspectives on art, home, family, and womanhood.
I came here planning to write about “Crane Unfolding,” a sculpture by Kevin Box, and found the Studio filled with books about birding, binoculars in a worn leather case on the table, and a faded print of a heron, remarkably similar to a crane, hanging on the wall built from Annisquam river stones. As my rental car bumped along the track, a live heron rose from the pond. My time here, alone in a season of my own raw-edged unfolding and folding, is no mistake.
I love paper. Not just works of art on paper, as I’ve mentioned before, but paper itself, from kraft to tissue to hand-made sheets; stationery, books, and paper crafts. I also love folding. Aligning corners and smoothing layers just right offers such soothing satisfaction. It only follows that I love origami, too.
Visiting an art gallery in Park City, Utah, many years ago, I was immediately delighted by Kevin Box’s painted, cast steel sculpture, “Crane Unfolding.”
The gallery had several of Box’s small-scale sculptures of paper cast in metal — a bison, a crumpled dress, a clever portrayal of rock-paper-scissors — but I was most captivated by the elegant lift of the crane, impressed by the challenge to give permanence to the ephemeral without sacrificing a sense of lightness and play. The painted finish captured the effect of light and shadow on paper folds, such that the sculpture glowed. It turned with a bare touch, smooth and silent, unfurling a penciled message around the base:
The crane is a symbol of truth, peace, beauty and long life … This crane reveals the meaning of its life … As it unfolds into a star…
I’ve featured the Box Studio’s photo of “Crane Unfolding” here because the sculpture is most visible against a dark ground. The base of my “Crane Unfolding” sculpture is also inscribed 24/100 KBox 2004.
We were visiting the gallery in 2010. “Crane Unfolding” was the artist’s first origami-inspired sculpture, commencing a unique and vibrant journey that continues today.
The son of an archivist, Kevin Box started out as a papermaker, printmaker, and graphic designer before shifting to cast metal sculpture, inspired to interpret paper arts in a more lasting medium. Taking a job in a foundry, Box spent years learning the ancient craft of lost-wax bronze casting, an extraordinary process demonstrated in this brief video produced by the Victoria and Albert Museum:
Box spent years tackling the challenge not just of casting paper in molten metal but of finding designs and developing finishes to simulate the distinctive shadows created by the folds and texture of paper:
Paper was invented in China and probably introduced to Japan by Buddhist monks during the 6th century. Both regions developed traditions of paper folding, called zhezhi in China and origami in Japan.
Like most new technologies, paper was expensive. For centuries, these arts were reserved for religious purposes, such as burning folded paper in Chinese funerals or including origami butterflies in Shinto wedding ceremonies. The folded crane design, or orizuru, probably comes from Japan, where the folding tradition was typically inspired by nature (as opposed to objects, such as hats or boats, in China).
Cranes, large, long-legged, long-necked birds of many species, share ancient significance as a symbol of longevity in both China and Japan. The crane was considered divine, traveling between heaven and earth, carrying human souls on its back. If this gets you wondering about storks delivering babies, check out this fascinating little article on Birdspot.
As paper became cheaper and its use more widespread, folding it into elaborate shapes became an entertainment for the wealthy and eventually, a game for children. Its worldwide esteem took off in the early 20th century, as artists incorporated folding techniques into their work, and professional origamists became a thing. Akira Yoshizawa, grandmaster of the art form, standardized the folding steps that make origami accessible to the rest of us:
The rules for origami have varied over time, but the basics require a square sheet of paper, no cuts, no glue, and no marking — simply folding with your own two hands.
Long ago, I learned to fold an origami crane, but it’s been a long while. To enter the spirit of this story, I gave it a try. The paper I had in the Studio wasn’t optimal. My crane came out a bit cattywampus, but it was fun just the same.
We didn’t know it then, but the sculptures we saw in the Park City gallery were conceived as maquettes, preliminary models for the large-scale works Kevin Box dreamed of producing. His dream came true when Origami in the Garden, an exhibition featuring Box’s compositions and collaborations with world-renowned origami artists Robert J. Lang, Te Jui Fu, Beth Johnson, and Michael G. LaFosse, took flight in 2014 at the Santa Fe Botanical Garden.
Today, an ever more colorful and monumental Origami in the Garden exhibition is at the Atlanta Botanical Garden, the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley in Winchester, VA, and then back in Santa Fe for the Turquoise Trail Studio Tour of Kevin and Jennifer Box’s 3-acre sculpture garden and studio during the last two weekends in September 2022.
Box’s monumental outdoor sculptures consistently attract glowing reviews on numerous travel websites. In the photos alone, the impact of the bright Box sculptures against both the starkly vivid southwest and the lush, shadowy green of the southeast is spectacular.
I haven’t seen Origami in the Garden, but we did see several of Box’s outdoor works at Kay Contemporary Art in Santa Fe this past spring. They were striking, at once playful and commanding, but I’m still partial to the smaller sculptures. Rising like a snowy phoenix from its revolving star base, “Crane Unfolding” lifts my heart. Its magic is quiet and intimate, an alchemy of whimsy and elegance, delicacy and durability, in an ancient form intended for child’s play and holy devotion alike. Nonetheless, I appreciate the monumental transformations and how they integrate into natural environments.
As Box shares on his website, it took years of trial and error to develop his technique. Such innovation inevitably entails revisiting to make improvements. Leonardo da Vinci’s frescoes offer a catastrophic example of this creative conundrum. Fortunately, the Box Studio is navigating it with success.
After a few years, I noticed a tiny spot of progressive flaking in the paint finish of my “Crane Unfolding,” revealing raw metal on a corner. I contacted the Box Studio to inquire about restoration, and Jennifer, Kevin’s wife and collaborator, immediately put a plan in action. A sturdy box containing a mold fashioned from foam and paper fiber arrived on my doorstep, into which my sculpture fit as snugly as a hand into a bespoke glove. Off it went to Santa Fe for repair, soon to be returned to me, tucked safely in its box mold. The restored finish on my “Crane Unfolding” remains perfect to this day.
While I’m grateful and relieved about this, I do love how my “Crane Unfolding,” a sculpture dramatizing a creative process, was itself enmeshed in the artist’s own evolving process. Albeit from a remove, I got to participate in it, too.
Embracing such trial and error seems increasingly rare. My son was fortunate to experience it in his high school studio art program. It offered a place apart from academics and athletics to experiment and stretch himself without fear of getting it wrong. The art project that didn’t turn out well didn’t invite the high-stakes consequences of failing to ace the test or score the goal. Art allowed learning and achievement to emerge from trial and error, practice, and play. Countless kids surprised themselves — and their parents — with truly terrific work.
At that time, “Crane Unfolding” stood on a table where Jackson occasionally did his homework. Faced with a drawing assignment, I suspect he looked up, saw the sculpture, and got to work. Clearly, he started at the bottom of the page and worked up, drawing until the paper ran out. Thinking about this actually makes my hand twitch. Why didn’t he start at the top — the crane! — and work down? Which actually begs a question posed by the sculpture itself:
Do you see the crane as folding (ascending) or unfolding (descending)?
Certainly, the title conveys Box’s intent: the crane is unfolding to reveal the star-creased sheet of paper at the base. Yet it is natural to perceive a bird as rising, as if to fly. Another idea is to view the sculpture as unfolding and re-folding, following along the creases, in continuous motion.
If we see the movement as rising, it’s fitting that Jackson began at the base and only made it up to the “third step.” At 17, he had yet to become a fully formed crane. By the same token, my instinct to start at the top, the crane, and descend through unfolding, suits my middle-aged perspective. Who among us hasn’t questioned the crane they became, or wished to have folded better or differently?
Such unfolding tends to happen of its own accord, whether we’re ready or not, and any folding anew — with creased and softening paper — faces a ticking clock. I’ve been called to significant unfolding and re-folding in recent years. It’s been exhilarating, often exhausting, and profoundly humbling. Mostly, I am grateful. I feel exquisitely alive, and wonder if anything other than ongoing transformation wouldn’t feel stale or dead to me.
Our lives are not one crane or another. They’re the folding and unfolding, the tricky aligning of corners and creases, feeling lost in the steps, where direction and meaning are as ambiguous as the “Crane Unfolding” title suggests. Folding soothes us, offering a sense of purpose and control to make uncertainty and suffering more bearable — and sometimes, beauty more apparent. Still, the energy and meaning reside in the play, the process, not in the outcome.
Yes, you’re thinking, we know! It’s about the journey, not the destination. Art is not a miracle of new truth. Like the origami crane is formed from the sheet of paper, art is born of — and often conceals — the essence of who we are and what we’re living for, for better or worse. Opening our eyes to the art all around us simply helps us discern these truths more gradually, pleasurably, as if learning through play.
This description of “Crane Unfolding” appears on the artist’s website:
This sculpture was the first origami-inspired work by Kevin Box. To him, the folded crane is a representation of what we see on the surface of life, while the unfolded crane is a representation of what is hidden beneath the surface. It is said that true beauty is on the inside and that there is more to life than meets the eye.
To this point, Box also creates sculptures of an unfolded, creased sheet of paper, often hung on the wall like a three dimensional painting, or a portrait. To be sure, this tidy metaphor is only part of it. Box experiences its meaning across the full arc of conceiving, collaborating, and constructing sculptures. As an artist, he rides at the front, on the edge, and creates to share what he finds, beautifully.
For me, “Crane Unfolding” is like a memento mori, not dark and cautionary but full of light and longing, drawing me into the living mystery of folding and unfolding with a spirit of play. Even at its most uncomfortable, I am quieted by its visual reminder that whatever direction I’m going is okay. It will always lead me back to the place where I truly began.
