2024 Origami in the Garden at Mounts Botanical Garden (20 Larger-than-Life Sculptures Merging Art & Nature)NEW

Origami, meaning “folding paper” in Japanese, reflects the essence of creativity: making something out of (basically) nothing. Start with a simple square piece of paper. Apply the art of origami, folding the paper in a creative way to produce an elegant object-a soaring bird, gliding plane, galloping pony, floating boat, or an emerging butterfly.

ORIGAMI IN THE GARDEN, created by Santa Fe artists Jennifer and Kevin Box, is a monumental outdoor sculpture exhibition. Box takes origami to another level, transforming paper into museum quality metal sculpture through processes he has pioneered in teamwork with foundries, fabrication shops, and his studio staff. The exhibit features Box’s own compositions as well as collaborations with world-renowned origami artists Tim Armijo, Te Jui Fu, Beth Johnson, Michael G. LaFosse and Robert J. Lang. These remarkable artworks feel at home in the wondrous setting of botanical gardens, since paper originates in plant life and origami is made of paper.

“The natural and yet scientific setting of a botanical garden makes it the ideal environment for the exhibit that brings together art, science, and nature to entertain, educate, and inspire visitor’s senses while enjoying the great outdoors.

Botanical Gardens are the most beautiful living, outdoor museums in the world, and there is no better place for the exhibition of a sculptural art form like origami that originates from paper and the plants that form it.

Origami presents a simple metaphor: When we begin with a blank page, what we do with it is up to us and the possibilities are endless.”

Exhibition Dates
Jan 7 - May 12, 2024

Admission
FREE for Mounts members and RAP (reciprocal program) members; must present membership card.

$20 general admission; $18 seniors 65 years +, college students, and military with ID; $13 kids 6 - 17; free children under 6; Admissions is by credit/debit card ONLY; no cash.

For details and audio tours of each sculpture, visit our free Mobile Garden Guide on Bloomberg Connects:

Sponsorhip Opportunities
A portion of each sponsorship will support education programs for students in Palm Beach County’s Title 1 schools to receive free field trips to Mounts Botanical Garden. This includes free transportation, admission and program materials, as well as Garden beautification.

About the Process
Each piece is inspired by paper. Box works with origami artists Te Jui Fu, Beth Johnson, Michael G. LaFosse and Robert J. Lang in creating origami paper models, usually only using one uncut square piece of paper. Using the techniques of lost-wax casting and fabrication, the sculptures in this exhibit glorify the precision of origami in stately museum-quality metals. In the beginning, Box had to do every exhausting step of the process himself. Today, he still begins every piece with a blank page and manages it through the 35-step, 12+ week process of casting with the help of fine art foundry and fabrication teams. Pieces are cast in bronze, aluminum or stainless steel depending on the design requirements.

Lost Wax Casting
Kevin Box likes to joke that his cast sculptures are achieved through a “simple 35-step, 12-week process. On a good day. If everything goes right.”

By experimenting directly with paper and wax and working in a lost wax foundry for several years, Box developed a process specifically for paper that captures all its intimate details. The technique took Box two years of tireless experimentation in Austin, Texas to develop and seven years of further development with a foundry in Thailand to perfect the process where the original sculpture medium is paper.

Fabrication
As Kevin Box translated his early paper creations into metal sculpture, he was struck by the geometric quality of the crease marks in the folded sheets of paper. He could see that the clean lines, angles and flat planes could lend itself to fabrication. Cutting and welding sheet metal in replication of his paper sculpture would allow him to scale up to sizes not feasible with casting in bronze

Meet the Artists
KEVIN BOX graduated from the School of Visual Arts in New York City and now resides in Santa Fe, New Mexico. His background as an art foundry production manager enabled him to pioneer a unique process that transforms delicate paper into museum quality metals. In 2004 he was elected as the youngest member of the National Sculptors Guild and was recognized by Southwest Art Magazine as one of the top 21 artists under 31 in the southwest. Kevin and his wife Jennifer Box, created ORIGAMI IN THE GARDEN in 2013, the first exhibition opened at the Santa Fe Botanical Garden in 2014 and the exhibition has been inspiring Botanical Gardens throughout the United States ever since.

JENNIFER BOX received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from New York University in Dance Education and Nonprofit Administration. During her years as a dancer in New York City she performed, choreographed, and directed multiple performing arts shows. Today Jennifer translates such experiences to co-direct with Kevin in the production of this traveling fine arts show.

TE JUI FU graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art with degrees in Marketing, Graphic Design and Fine Art. Throughout his career he has been an art gallery curator, director, associate and owner. Te Jui Fu’s origami pieces are part of numerous museum collections around the country. His work has been featured in origami magazines, and he starred in the documentary Folding Largest Origami Dragon in the World which premiered in 2009.

ROBERT J. LANG is recognized as one of the foremost origami artists in the world. With a Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Caltech, he has worked at NASA/Jet PropulsionLaboratory, Spectra Diode Laboratories, and JDS Uniphase, authored or co-authored over 100 papers and 50 patents inlasers and optoelectronics. He is a full-time artist, lecturer and consultant on origami and its applications to engineering problems but keeps his toes in the world of lasers, mostrecently as the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics from 2007-2010. He received Caltech’s highesthonor, the Distinguished Alumni Award, in 2009 and was elected a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society in 2013. Roberts TED Talk “Flapping Birds and Space Telescopes” has been viewed over 2 million times.

MICHAEL G. LAFOSSE is best known as a paper maker and paper folding artist. He has been practicing the art of Origami for over 40 years, and has been teaching Origami for over 30. Michael is internationally regarded as one of the top origami masters in the world today. Born in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, he was fascinated by seashells and studied to become a biologist. This is evident in his works.

BETH JOHNSON has been folding paper for many years and began designing her own origami models in 2010. Beth offers private tutoring, group classes and workshops on Origami and her own folded paper techniques. Beth provides folding instructions for some of her designs on her website, making Origami more accessible to all.