Dear People in the Origami Community,
Hi! My name is Yuki Martin, and I am an art instructor and an origami
enthusiast based in in Portland, Oregon. Over the past few years I have
had a few opportunities to teach origami at prisons, which were all
meaningful, worthwhile visits. I wrote an article about my experience on
the Winter 2015 issue of The Paper ("Origami Behind Bars" by Yuki Martin)
in case anyone's interested in my story.
Most recently, I taught at a women's prison for the first time, and it was
a positive experience for all of us. It made me feel that I would like to
promote origami to more people in custody, who are marginalized. It seems
that practicing origami can benefit them in so many ways. So I am working
on another article for The Paper in order to encourage people in the
origami community to reach out to correctional facilities for donating
origami books and paper, or teaching origami.
That being said, I am wondering if anyone in the origami community has had
experience folding paper with inmates at correctional facilities, or any
other similar experience. Please e-mail me if you have. I have some
survey questions for you to answer. There is at least one other person
that I found on The Paper back in Summer 1996 - who visited a prison and
wrote about his experience. His name is Rob Hudson. I stumbled upon his
article from our local origami group POPS' archive collection of The
Paper. Rob: if you happen to be reading this, I would love to hear from
you!
I also welcome any comments or constructive criticism. Thank you so much
for reading this and I look forward to some replies!
Sincerely,
Yuki
