Best of Annual Collections 1981-1995

Introduction by Tony Cheng, President OrigamiUSA Within these pages, you will find the history of the development of origami and OrigamiUSA in diagrams. These are the highlights of the first fifteen years of our Origami Collections. From the early days of hand sketched diagrams to computer assisted diagrams, from world famous creators to talented amateurs, from simple models to super complex ones, you will find this book to be an exciting and fun compendium.

It has been 25 years since a group of dedicated folders got together to hold the first “convention.” Since then we have grown to over 600 attendees and have outgrown several venues; first the American Museum of Natural History, then I.S. 44, and now the Fashion Institute of Technology. In order to celebrate our twenty-five years of sharing, we have brought together the “Best of” diagrams published through the years.

It all began simply enough. Michael Shall wanted convention goers to be able to take home diagrams of the models which were taught. The first efforts varied from small stapled booklets to copies of diagrams in a duotang folder. Although called the Convention Program, it did not reflect all the classes that were taught, even at those early gatherings. In the l980’s, the convention experience included madly flipping through the Program to see what classes had published diagrams. More often than not, the Program was simply a collection of whatever diagrams people had sent in during the year, many of which were not published anywhere else.

Starting in 1990, the book was re-christened “The Annual Collection” to accurately describe the contents. The diagrams no longer had anything to do with the classes taught at Convention. The book was still included with the price of Convention (what a bargain!) and grew to a point where we had to limit the number of pages. After all, we were starting to get complaints that the book was too heavy! Another name change later, to “The Origami Collection,” the book is no longer included with Convention but makes its debut there.

Look at the Historic Credits section. Marvel at the names in our history. Hundreds of dedicated volunteers have put in thousands of hours to prepare our books for publication. Some of us remember after-midnight runs to the 24 hour copy store in order to meet our deadline with the printer. All those hours by all those volunteers have resulted in a superb library of origami diagrams.

Reacquaint yourself with some of the classic models. Find yourself a new favorite. Most importantly, pick up a piece of paper and start folding!!!