My 2018 - This is my Hobby: Making miniature origami from flower petals

My 2018 - A @blocktrades sponsored contest.

This is another terrific initiative by @anomadsoul:
https://steemit.com/contest/@anomadsoul/contest-my-2018-this-is-my-hobby-or-100-sbd-in-prizes

I guess if this was titled "Making origami" you probably would have already stopped reading...

And even if it was called "Making miniature origami" you might only take a glance and see if there are any pictures.

But this is a short story about making miniature origami from flower petals, and if you want to see pictures here are some from my previous post (but this is not about the pictures):

• https://steemit.com/art/@plushzilla/orchid-petal-origami-crane
• https://steemit.com/art/@plushzilla/orchid-petal-origami-butterfly-series
• https://steemit.com/hobbyhub/@plushzilla/entry-for-the-hobby-hub-challenge-miniature-origami-using-flower-petals

Most of us are born with the skills to be an origamist (yes, that's the word for it), and even if you weren't born with two working hands it hasn't stopped some people from doing some pretty incredible things (just look up Mahdi Gilbert - the magician with no hands!). I've also been told by a music teacher that people with less than ten fingers could play better than me because they practice a lot harder (ouch!).

My interest with origami has taken me from a career as an IT consultant to dabbling in the arts and now exploring art as a therapy for mental health and well-being, but today I want to tell you a little bit more about what is it that I do as a hobby.

Unfortunately this was not one of those things that you suddenly fall in love with one day, and I am not passionate about it the same way people want to tell others about what they are doing. To this day I have not made a video or posted on Instagram about it, but I do want to find other people who have done this before. If I can't then I will know that this is something that I came up with, but if I do then someone obviously share a very unusual hobby with me and is possibly my 'hobby soulmate'.

As the first few lines from this post suggested, one day you start making origami, and the next day you try to make them small, and before you know it you are making miniature origami out of different types of paper until one day you figured that you would give flower petals a go. In fact I was asked to try and make origami from sheets of silver by a friend who was a jewelry designer and I thought it was too hard (little did I know how difficult flower petals would be compared to sheets of metal).

It took me about six months to figure out how to make miniature origami from flower petals. But if you could the time for me to be able to make miniature origami then I would probably add another six months to that at least. And because each origami model and type of flower has its unique characteristics, I'd say that to make another type of origami model using a different type of flower might be a whole new exercise in itself. Which means that I am always learning more about this every time I try something even a little bit different.

I think the fact that everything I do is by hand (except cutting the flower petals into squares with a scalpel) and knowing that there is an impermanence to the material that I use, which means that it has a transient nature (the flower petal loses its colour and structural integrity, albeit rather slowly if you keep it out of direct light and away from moisture). The process of drying the flower petals, pressing them over a period of 1-2 weeks, then finally making them into origami models without knowing if it is really going to work or not - all of it feels like a miniaturized version of the cycles that we go through in life... it is cathartic and reflective, and I do like a bit of introspection every now and then.

Of course, you can't be making origami from flower petals unless you are in a relatively calm and serene environment so that there are no physical or mental distractions. Even just the practical fact that it is easy to lose miniature origami models means that the slightest breath can blow away a model that you have been working on for an hour. But I practice making miniature origami models out of normal paper to hone my dexterity and tactile senses whenever I get a chance. It could be on a short plane trip, a sleepless night or at the dinner table with some friends that want some after dinner entertainment.

In a way I have learnt to integrate this hobby into certain aspects of my daily life. It is not as regular as a routine but certainly something that occurs frequently enough as it is beneficial and of value.

Does anyone else do this? I would certainly hope so. I have told @ivan-g about it and perhaps after his thousand crane project this might be something that he considers tackling? But I think this is not a hobby that you can do casually with the tv or radio on in the background (at least not when working with flower petals). You do need a high level of concentration but perhaps you can block out everything because you are so focused on it - if that's the case then I still need to work on that a bit more.

And I don't know what people mean by mindfulness, although I am pretty sure that when I am making them there is not much room for anything else other than what I am doing at that very moment. You can feel time slowing down and it never ceases to amaze me how much time elapses between the start and end of a session.

Luckily this is the kind of hobby that is cheap and demands only your time and attention. If you were ever crazy or bored enough to try it there are no expensive purchases or specialized equipment. But you do have to face questions from people about your mental state on some occasions.

Now I don't know if I am an expert at this, especially when I don't have anyone to compare notes with at the moment. Everything I have done is self-taught and purely experimental, and I don't think I could be bothered to write a book or make a video about it because that would ruin the experience for me. I can definitely say that I haven't mastered this art by a long way, because I think the probability of turning a flower petal into a miniature origami model is somewhere in the less than 20% range. If anyone knows how to improve this I'd certainly be happy with some tips and advice. I am a snob because I refuse to use anything else other than my hands to fold the model, and perhaps the day I become less stubborn then I would be able to fold them smaller or neater but I don't see that happening anytime soon.

Could I turn this hobby into a job? Perhaps, and I have been looking into how creative arts can be used to improve our mental health and well-being. I know that there are plenty of people that have developed mindfulness workshops and perhaps when I have figured it out a bit more I could do the same.