One day, during the early pandemic quarantine, I was cleaning out a hutch when I found a tiny jewelry box. It contained trinkets of costume jewelry, but another object I took as a treasure. It was a tiny paper origami crane.
I never took LSD, but the flashback seemed psychedelic. There on her bed sat a nine-year-old girl in the process of folding a thousand origami cranes, a ritual of good luck she was determined to master.
I love objects that have stories hiding inside of them.
Flash forward more than 30 years. That little girl, my youngest daughter Lauren, is a math tutor at the downtown campus of St. Petersburg College. Her boss had given her the task of “doing something” with out-of-date textbooks.
The spirit of those origami cranes must have revisited her. A little online research led her to a group of women in England who were practicing the art of “book folding.”
In a recent interview, Lauren described her discovery of this little-known craft, which can ascend to the level of paper sculpture and art.
“As a daughter of an author, I grew up with appreciation for books and I suddenly felt bad about throwing the outdated Oceanography textbooks away. I wanted to find a way to give this book a new life.”
She quickly learned the intricate process, created with a pencil, a ruler, and a pair of scissors. And, of course, her hands. A computer scan of a visual image – say, a brown pelican in flight — creates a pattern, which Lauren follows scrupulously, with a few mistakes, such as inaccurate measuring, along the way. Twenty or more hours of work later, a book headed for the dustbin of history (your local landfill), becomes a work so creative, that the jaws of shoppers at local markets drop when they see it. I have seen it happen countless times.
Before long Lauren’s rescue project became a side gig called Dilly Dally’s Custom Art. Booklovers from all over the country now have standard or personalized images on their bookshelves or mantels, inspired by her slogan: “Put a Book in your Nook.”
Lauren’s husband Chaz Dykes, a skilled photographer and musician, is an important part of the process. He scans a custom image – say, a baby’s footprint – and turns it into a numerical pattern. He also reinforces the binding to strengthen the book in its new status as paper sculpture. Depending on the intricacy, a folded book can cost from $50 to $200.
Lauren has become something of a darling to local businesses in St. Petersburg, where her books display the logos of places such as Haslam’s, Tombolo Books, The Banyan coffee shop, and Book + Bottle.
It may feel like a conflict of interest for a dad – who is usually more objective in his writing – to focus this attention on his daughter. But I can help but share a special insight into the development of this creative woman.
It begins in childhood with her love of music, which would manifest itself eventually with a degree in performing arts and musical theater from the University of Tampa. How does a singer and dancer become a college math tutor? Music and math are both expressions of what is called “spatial reasoning,” the ability to see and recreate a repetitive pattern.
Guess what? That’s what book folding is all about too, a marriage of geometry and visual artistry that turns potential paper pulp into a sculpture. It should remind us that a book is not just something we hold in our hands or something we read. It is a multi-media, multi-dimensional creation that represents one of the most brilliant discoveries and technologies in human history, one that endures even in the digital age.
To see more of her work, check out her Facebook page: @dillydallyscustoms. •
By Roy peter Clark
