My Norfolk Life: 'By day I work in IT - at night I'm an origami expert'

An IT risk manager, in his spare time, Russell Wood loves swapping one kind of paperwork for another, creating beautiful structures using the ancient art of origami.

Russell Wood's origami heron. (Image: Archant 2022)

“While I do like to test myself with something technical, my favourite things to make are models that represent something, or capture a feeling,” said Russell, who lives in Norwich.

“I prefer the art to the mathematics of a model. I like origami that tells a story and makes you feel something.”

The origami padlock, for example, was made for Russell’s wife Anisa: the couple visited the love locks on the Pont Neuf bridge in Paris where couples seal their love with signed locks.

Now considered to be vandalism that causes metal fatigue, Russell created his own recyclable lock for Anisa, a symbol of love that wouldn’t raise eyebrows or sink bridges.

Some of Russell Wood's origami creations. (Image: Archant 2022)

For as long as there has been paper, there has been paper folding and craftspeople who can create the most incredible structures from simple sheets of paper,

One which has left the most recognisable paper trail across the world is origami, the art of paper-folding which can trace its roots to Japan, China and Europe.

Most of us have created origami without realising it, Russell says: paper planes and paper fortune tellers are both forms of the craft: origami can be as simple as a few folds or as complicated as Satoshi Kamiya’s (the undisputed King of Origami) dragon.

The Ryu Jin Chinese dragon was made from a 2m square piece of paper which created an incredible beast just 30cm long, covered in scales created by folding and pleats.

“The word comes from the Japanese for folding, ‘ori’ and paper, ‘kami’,” explains Russell, who has been entranced by paper folding since he was eight-years-old.

“It’s a transformative art form: you start with a single piece of paper and when you finish you still have a single piece of paper, but it is entirely different. It’s a kind of magic.”

The flapping bird origami which was the first origami Russell Wood learned to make. (Image: Archant 2022)

Given a Rupert the Bear Annual as a child, Russell was transfixed by a diagram that showed readers how to create a flapping bird from paper (Rupert annuals often contained origami patterns, from kangaroos to paper caps, frogs to water lilies).

“I thought how much I’d love to make it, but it looked too hard, so I asked my Dad and he created it for me and handed me this perfect little piece of magic,” he said.

The temptation to take the precious things we have apart to see how they work was too hard to resist and Russell soon found himself holding… just a piece of paper.

“I was mortified. The magic had disappeared. I hid it under my bed,” he said.

His father, headteacher of the former Cookley and Walpole Primary School, brought home a copy of Origami 1: The Art of Paper Folding by Robert Harbin, and Russell was transfixed.

The flapping bird origami which was the first origami Russell Wood learned to make. (Image: Archant 2022)

He made every design in the book, made his own flapping bird, and fell in love with the ancient art.

“People at school would ask me to make them frogs at school so many times that I got sick of making them! You’d push the frog’s back and it would jump,” he laughed.

Russell joined the British Origami Society and watched as the art grew and grew as people began to create ever-more elaborate designs, often using computers to plot their creations.

“One of the big debates is how far do you take technique, where is the sweet spot between technique and art? Personally, I favour art over technique, artists like Giang Dinh who uses thicker paper to suggest movement using the bare minimum in terms of technique,” he said.

“His work is beautifully simple and he understands what paper can do, how it can make you feel. You have to hold paper in your hands, let it rest in front of you and see where it takes you.”

After school and university, where origami made way for more standard student hobbies, Russell picked up his hobby again in his late 20s.

“I used to catch the train from Suffolk into London for work and during the 2.5 hour round trip I would make origami swans and rats,” he said.

“I would put them behind the little lap tray so that people would find them, I hoped they would smile.”

Russell comes from across the border in Halesworth but moved to Norwich six years ago and now lives within sight of Carrow Road football club with Anisa.

He has even used origami in work training sessions.

“Origami does encourage you to slow down, think things through, be in the moment and learn self-awareness, such as when to put the paper down and walk away,” says Russell.

When asked if he has ever torn a design to shreds or scrunched it up in fury, forfeiting any Zen-like qualities of paper folding, he is quick to answer: “Oh absolutely. One of my most successful designs is a paper snowball which I can aim at the recycling bin.”

Russell Wood with his book and some of the creations inthe book and how to make them. (Image: Archant 2022)

Now, in addition to the 150 plus origami books Russell has on the shelves, he has written his own, Origami Made Simple, which was given a boost during lockdown as people looked for simple pastimes.

The book includes 40 models to make which progress in difficulty with each chapter, starting at 10 steps or less and up to 25: 10 are Russell’s original designs.

Russell Wood with a box of his origami creations he has made over the years. (Image: Archant 2022)

Two more books are being written and Russell is also involved with origami societies and attends events in-person and online, and has his own YouTube channel, Origami Expressions.

At home, Russell has very little origami on display, but some treasured designs are in a box which, when it fills, he will give away to people before replenishing with new designs.

Russell Wood's favourite origami piece called The Last Waltz from designs by Neal Elias (Image: Archant 2022)

“For me, most of the fun is in the making, but there are some pieces it’s hard to part with,” he said, listing two Neal Elias designs, The Matador and The Last Waltz as favourites.

“I love the drama and the grace of these designs and it shows that you don’t need to be hugely complex in order to make a really big impact,” said Russell.

Origami is, of course, about more than ‘just’ folding: there are mountain and valley folds, inside and outside reverse folds, rabbit ear folds, squash folds, pleats, crimps, petal folds, swivel folds…and then there are the bases: kite, square, water bomb, bird, fish, frog…

Russell Wood's simple origami penguin creation from his book. (Image: Archant 2022)

“But however hard designs are, they all start with a first fold,” said Russell, “and I would love to think that a child would pick up my book and, like I did, fall in love with origami and want to learn more.”

Russell plans to visit Japan one day, to make a special pilgrimage. He tells me a story about the Japanese legend of senbazuru.

“It says that anyone who folds 1,000 origami cranes will have a wish granted,” he explains. The delicate cranes are often given as good luck tokens to bestow long life or healing and were popularised by Sadako Sasaki, a young Japanese girl.

Sadako was a survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Just two-years-old when the bomb dropped, it destroyed her family’s house but she, her four-year-old brother Masahiro and her parents survived.

When she was 12, Sadako was diagnosed with leukaemia as a result of exposure to radiation and was hospitalised in February 1955 and given no longer than a year to live.

Her father told her about the legend of the origami cranes and she began to fold her own, using whatever paper she could find.

She died on October 25 1955 having made more than 1,000 cranes. A memorial was unveiled to her in 1958 in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park showing her with a golden crane.

“The cranes have become an international symbol of peace and one day, I will visit Japan and the Peace Park and I will leave a crane of my own there,” said Russell.

“It goes back to origami that makes you feel something. I think when I leave that crane it will be incredibly emotional. One sheet of paper but it has such power. It’s a lovely thing.”

· Find lots more information, tutorials and patterns on Russell’s website origamiexpressions.com.