The paper is from an outdated Atlas that an elder in my community gave me. She was a schoolteacher during her working life and the wife of a prominent Bay Area artist. She called regularly and asked me to visit her. While going through things she would pull out paper ephemera she thought I could use in my art. Despite my being a real estate agent and Notary Public, she regarded me as an artist.

She remained independent until her passing just this past week. I planned on visiting and showing her this picture. Then her son texted saying she passed peacefully.

As far as using the pages of an Atlas as origami paper, these thoughts were sparked:

It’s interesting to cut the squares out of large pages of an Atlas and then fold them. It’s as if I am travelling the world while exploring and discovering hundreds of cities, regions, mountain ranges, deserts, and bodies of water. The names given to them reflect 1,000’s of cultures and languages.

Each square shows two sides of disparate parts of the world. Each square has its own ticket to somewhere.

Origami already proves the square holds infinite possibility. One Atlas is an attempt to illustrate and map the infinite spectrum of human curiosity and movement therefore makes the perfect folding medium.

– Terry Donohue