ORIGAMI: PAPER CREATIONS COME TO LIFE

‘THE ORIGAMI GUY': A penguin goes for a walk in the hands of Ramsay Cowlishaw. (Staff photo/CHRIS BAXTER).

- JEFF PETERSEN

- Staff Writer

LA GRANDE

A rose, a sand dollar, a salmon, even the horrible three-horned-face Triceratops.

All can be created with the art of origami.

Learn how to make simple paper into elaborate art Tuesday, World Origami Day, when "The Origami Guy" comes to the Cook Memorial Library from noon until 5 p.m.

Ramsay Cowlishaw, known throughout Oregon as "The Origami Guy," will teach the class. The La Grande artist has taken it on his shoulders as a mission to spread to gospel of origami.

Why?

At Tuesday's class, Cowlishaw will be teaching some very simple models. People have a chance to come to fold something that they've never folded before.

"I will have a few things on displays — a chess board out of a single piece of paper, black on one side and white on the other — and paper airplanes for showing and maybe for throwing," Cowlishaw says. "I'll probably also have one of my crane displays. Origami cranes are probably the most well-known pieces of origami."

Cowlishaw intends to soon start a local origami club that meets monthly.

His favorite origami projects include making butterflies, dragons and masks.

Other origami artists are into folding modular pieces that form larger geometric structures.

Origami has many passionate followers, with its own national and worldwide societies.

One of Cowlishaw's missions is to try to get origami better exposed.

"You become a better person if you can fold something," he says. "There is a great sense of accomplishment. Long-term benefits include greater spatial awareness, better hand-eye coordination and memory for patterns."

Cowlishaw, 38, began folding origami at age 7.

A performing arts major in college, he has traveled across the United States attending conventions and seminars on the art. Those included a private session with the late dairy farmer turned grandmaster of origami from Japan, Akira Yoshizawa.

When he's not doing origami, he can be found working as a mobile deejay doing karaoke shows at various venues.