Folded From the Ash
An origami koi for a home rebuilt after fire
The ask
My younger brother and his wife lost their house in Altadena in the January fire last year. They move back into the rebuilt one this winter, on the same lot. I want something for its first bare wall that understands what they went through. Around $6,000.
The gift
An origami koi by Robert J. Lang, the former laser physicist who has consulted on folding space telescopes. He folds it from one uncut square of Origamido paper made with ash from his Altadena studio, which burned in the same fire. It is the paper of his refolded wall of koi, Vertical Pond III. It comes mounted to swim up their wall, with a card closed by a blind-embossed seal.
Why it's extraordinary
The artist lost his home, his studio and hundreds of finished pieces in that fire, his koi among them. Papermakers mixed ash from where the koi had been stored into new sheets, and he began folding again in the same town.
The moment
It goes up before the furniture arrives, the first thing on the first bare wall of the rebuilt house, swimming upward.
A curator replies within one business day.
