I have been lucky to combine careers in science and art to help create parks and advertise their threatened species. During my first career as a painter and printmaker I fell in love with paper. Then in 1976 my roommate from college, Robert Perkins, encouraged me to have an adventure of a lifetime. We canoed from Great Slave Lake in the Northwest Territories of Canada to the headwaters of the Back River, and then down it to near the Arctic Ocean, a journey of approximately 850 miles. Upon seeing white wolves that followed our progress through unspoiled wilderness, I became inspired to do something to preserve nature.
Within a year I was in Peru studying spectacled bears and other endangered critters for the New York Zoological Society. These studies lasted for 25 years until my shoulders gave out from cutting trail in cloud forests. I returned to something I had done as a hobby since 1959, when my step-father Robert Olney gave me a book on origami. With encouragement from Jeremy Shafer, Robert Lang, and Joseph Wu, I discovered that designing my own origami art was very similar to doing science, but was more effective at advertising the fragile status of the endangered species I had studied. The years I spent observing wildlife became a rich library of images to inspire my paper sculpture. In addition to creating art, I am most rewarded by teaching origami in a local hospital for children, and lately, curating exhibits of origami from my peers. Although I can’t cut trail like I used to, origami has given me many more peaks to climb.
Townley Paton made this video with me in 2007
Curator
2016-2017 – “Origami Universe“, Chi Mei Museum, Tainan, Taiwan ROC
2016 – “Origami Living World” National Museum of History, Taipei, Taiwan
Selected Group and One Man Shows (*)
2019- Storrier Stearns Japanese Garden’s En Gallery, Pasadena, California
2019 – “Vision+Light: Processing Perception”, Worth Ryder Art Gallery, Berkeley, California
2019 – “Lotusland in Origami”, Ganna Walska Lotusland, Santa Barbara, California
2019 – “Desires and Destinations”, Edge of the Frame Gallery, San Francisco, California
2018 – “Into the Fold, the Art and Science of Origami”, Science Museum Oklahoma
2017 – “L’Origami sous tous ses plis”, Villa Bagatelle, Quebec City, Canada
2015 – “Folding Paper”, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah; Boise Art Museum, Boise, Idaho
2014 – “Surface to Structure: Folded Forms”, The Cooper Union, New York
2014- “Movement in Paper: The Evolving Form of Origami”, San Francisco, California
2013- “La Magia del Papel”, Centro de Historias, Zaragoza, Spain
2013- “Folding Paper”, Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, Wausau, Wisconsin; Crocker Museum, Sacramento, California
2013- “Crease, New Trends in Origami”, Sandusky Cultural Center, Sandusky, Ohio
2012- “Honoring Eric Joisel”, Angouleme, France
2012- “Folding Paper”, Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles, California; Thorne_Sagendorph Art Gallery, Keene, New Hamshire
2011- McConnel Arts Center, Worthington, Ohio; Fava Gallery, Oberlin, Ohio
* 2011- Donaldson Gallery, Farmington, Connecticut
2010- “Still Folding”, Sandusky Cultural Center, Sandusky, Ohio
2009- Bellevue Arts Fair, Bellevue, Washington, USA
2009- “Going Origami”, Bolinas Museum, Bolinas, California
2009- “Exporigami”, Centro Historico, Zaragoza, Spain
* 2009- National Taiwan University and Chiang Kai Shek Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan
2008- “Bay Area Origami Masters”, Xerox PARC, Palo Alto, California
2008- “Poetry in Paper“, Galerija Grada Krapine, Krapina, Croatia
2008- “Transforming Kami”, National Japanese American Historical Society,
SF Public Library, San Francisco
2007- “Treasures of Origami Art“, Tikotin Museum of Japanese Art, Haifa, Israel
2007- “Paper Transformed”, Mingei International Museum, Escondido, California
2007- “Four Masters of Origami,” K Gallery, Alameda, California
2007 “Origami Masters“, Pendulum Gallery, Vancouver, Canada
* 2006- “Pulp Fiction”, Waveny Gallery, New Canaan, Connecticut
Invited Guest (conventions, workshops, contests)
2017- 29th Origami Deutschland Convention, Bonn, Germany
2015- 26th MFPP Convention, La Rochelle, France
2015- 33rd CDO Convention, Tabiano Bagni, Italy
2014- 1st OASIS Convention, Ein Gedi, Israel
2014- 4th Congress of Zoology, Cartagena, Colombia
2013- 4th KOA Convention, Seoul, South Korea
2013- Transformations, Exploratorium, San Francisco, California
2012- Centerfold Convention, Columbus, Ohio
2011- Boyaca International Convention, Tunja, Colombia
2011- Prescott Visiting Artist, Miss Porter’s School, Farmington, Connecticut
2010- Papiroflex Convention, Zaragoza, Spain
2009- New Year contest, Vietnamese Origami Group
2009- Justicia de Ukumari contest, Cali, Colombia
2008- OORAA Convention, Lyon, France
2006- Matsuri Festival workshop, Phoenix, Arizona, USA
Origami in Plays
2009-10 “Animals out of Paper”, New York and San Francisco Playhouses
2008- “Secret Life of Paper”, Vancouver, Canada
Permanent Collections
Origami USA, New York, USA
Mingei International Museum, Escondido, California
Tikotin Museum, Haifa, Israel
Galerija Grada Krapine, Krapina, Croatia
Origami House, Tokyo, Japan
Educational Museum Origami Zaragoza, Zaragoza, Spain
Origami House, Colonia de Sacramento, Uruguay
Books on Origami
Peyton. B. 2022. Advanced Origami Hats and Gifts. Nicolas Terry (Publ.) 154 pp.
Peyton. B. 2012. Eco-Origami. Nicolas Terry (Publ.) 192 pp.
Articles and Videos
My teaching at Oakland’s Children’s Hospital
Article in the CAL Alumni Magazine