PRINTGoing the paper route
Origami artist finds meaning in her work
Joshua A. Bickel
Through studying Japanese art history, Sonya Nicholson learned that some patterns on the paper she uses to create paper cranes have meanings. She incorporates these patterns into other forms of art, including painting. She describes the paper as “eye candy while I’m working.”
May 29, 2008 | 12:00 a.m. CST
The basement studio of Columbia artist Sonya Nicholson is a tight and cluttered space. A table in the middle of the room serves as the folding station for her origami cranes. Bins separate the cranes by paper type. Even though the Japanese paper that Nicholson stores in her studio is imported, she brought the most important thing back from Tokyo more than 20 years ago — her inspiration.
The year Nicholson spent away from Columbia College to study at Sophia University in Tokyo had a significant impact on her artwork. “I became fascinated with the patterns, and I began using them in my paintings,” Nicholson says. “I figured out a way to fuse the decorative with (something) meaningful by folding cranes.”
These cranes make up one of Nicholson’s finished mobiles.
Origami peace cranes are prominent figures in Nicholson’s artwork. She folds Japanese paper with colorful and traditional patterns into cranes that make their way onto hanging artwork arrangements called mobiles. Nicholson also uses cranes in greeting cards. Her mobiles are made up of matching paper cranes that hang on a string attached to a stick of cane, which she grows in her front yard. Her larger pieces have many more cranes and a cane frame structure to hold them up.
Like the majority of full-time artists, Nicholson does other things to pay the bills. She paints in homes and businesses to meet the desires of her clientele. She also sells artwork at brick-and-mortar and online galleries.
Nicholson has been working at Bluestem Missouri Crafts in Columbia for about six years, but she has only been working a couple days a month since her crane business took off about a year ago.
“She is a meticulous craftsman, and everything is made very well,” says Mary Benjamin, a partner at Bluestem. “What impresses me is the selection of incredibly beautiful paper (Nicholson) uses. She has a variety of things, and they all sell well.”
Benjamin says the paper is hard to find, and locating it is practically an art in itself. Nicholson obtains her imported Japanese paper from online wholesalers.
One of Nicholson’s favorite pieces is a mobile called Evidence of Peace that was made a few years ago with the assistance of teenage students from the Columbia’s Art Related Experience (C.A.R.E.) Gallery. The mobile has 125 hanging paper cranes the teenagers folded under Nicholson’s instruction and hangs in the entrance of Peace Haven International in Columbia. The C.A.R.E. Gallery employs teenagers to work on community art projects.
Nicholson enjoyed the experience so much that she has since put to work some of the teenagers that helped with her project at C.A.R.E. At least once a week she has between two and four origami artists over to assist in her studio.
“I help fold and string cranes,” 19-year-old Simone Hughley says. She says they have a lot of fun on Saturday afternoons when she and others work and socialize in Nicholson’s studio. They chat about what’s going on in the news and in each other’s lives and enjoy a snack break every once in a while.
Hughley has been working with Nicholson for four years and says she learns a lot from her. “She is very particular about how she wants things,” Hughley says. She believes this helps the students develop as artists.
In many respects, Nicholson’s studio serves as both a crane factory and a classroom. “Now I’m mentoring by hiring,” Nicholson says. “That’s the ultimate satisfaction: to teach somebody to do something — to give them skills to help themselves.”
