The skill of Origami is a tireless path that requires countless hours of persistence, patience, and perseverance. Saugat Rajbhandari has been dedicated to the art of Origami for the past seven years and has created beautiful models and pieces of art which he recently exhibited. We sat down with Saugat to know more about his passion for the art of Origami and what it means to him.

 

What was your first 3D origami piece? How long did it take to make?

My first piece was a model of a swan, which took me about one week to make. A total of 1600 pieces of paper was used, and it took 3 to 4 days to just fold those papers. It was a struggle at first, honestly, as it was tough figuring out better techniques to cut and fold the papers.

 

What is 3D origami for you?

As I was growing up, I was very impatient within myself and I couldn’t really concentrate well on things. Through origami, my patience started growing and my concentration level increased with it. Origami has now become like a form of meditation to me. For instance, whenever I get stressed or frustrated, it is the one thing that calms me down. Normally, every time I make something new, my entire intention behind it is to give it to friends and family as a gift, keeping in mind what they would like. I don’t personally own all of my models at the moment. So it has become my way of showing my appreciation and gratefulness towards others.

 

What inspired you to start doing 3D origami? For how long have you been doing it? Was it planned?

I was just scrolling through youtube one day when I found this 3D origami tutorial in my recommendations. I was inspired by the origami model made in that video and thought to myself that I should try making it too. It was tough at the beginning as constantly folding and cutting those pieces of paper would make me restless. There were times when I wanted to just quit, but I thankfully didn’t and pushed myself to finish the project. The end result turned out beautiful, which motivated me to do more of that. Soon enough I started posting my stuff on Facebook and Instagram as well and got very positive feedback out of it. I realized that this wasn’t a common hobby and most people didn’t do it. So I continued working on more projects and my interest eventually grew. 

It has now been about seven years since I started doing Origami. I believe I started out around the year 2012. Before, I used to complete about two projects in one to two months. But now, as I’m stepping in on making bigger models, I make sure I at least finish one big model in one year. It was definitely not planned. That 3D origami video came out of nowhere in my youtube recommendation, and now, here I am (laughs).

 

Which of your origami pieces earned most people's attention and appreciation?

It all started with the swan as it made people know that things like this can be made as well. I moved on to making more pieces like peacocks, angry birds, Winnie the Pooh, minions, and many more. Later, after the 2015 earthquake and the destruction of Dharahara, I decided to make a model of Dharahara, which, in fact, got a lot of appreciation and was noticed by a lot of people. 

Back then, when it came to origami, people naturally assumed that it was just a kids hobby as they watched me do it. So I tried to think of a new, innovative direction to take and decided to recreate the look of Deepika through origami, and later I did that of Padmawati as well. Then, as I moved on to making goddess models of Shrinkhala Khatiwada, Priya Sigdel, Ronali Amatya, and Manita Devkota, that got a whole lot of attention as, commonly, people didn’t know that making models of people as possible through this kind of 3D origami.

 

What are your favorite works?

During the starting phase, it was definitely the swan. And then, I was obsessed with the Dharahara piece that I’d made. Later, however, my favorite piece was that of Deepika, as that was what got me started into making models of actual people who inspired me. I also love the goddess collection after that.

Has this lockdown restricted your creative capabilities and perception when it comes to origami? Or has it grown? How much of an impact do you think does the outside circumstances and one’s mind state make when it comes to creating something new?

Since I have a full time job and as I am not involved into 3d Origami professionally, I have always had limited time to focus or get inspired for the models. So during this lockdown period, as I had a lot of free time, I got the chance to explore more of my creative side to look for inspiration and details for my origami. So, I would say because I had enough of “me time" during this lockdown, the creative capabilities have definitely grown. 

I believe that the outside circumstances and one's state of mind plays an important role when it comes to creating something new, as creativity is a state of flow - one has to be in a state of right creative mind to either wait for the inspiration to strike in or to hack through the creative zone. When it comes to creating, one needs to be mindful, focused and be able to avoid the interruptions, because only then what we produce is more pleasing and gratifying, to ourselves and our audience.

 

Are their new projects you’ve been working on or finished during this lockdown period?

To begin with I had done a few attempts of portraying "Radha Krishna" on paper time and again through drawings or doodles. However, during the lockdown period it was more of a risk to work on the 3d Origami Figurine of Radha Krishna (for Radhastami and Krishna Janmastami) as there are no such tutorials or diagrams available. So, as usual with the reference images, and a couple thousands of paper triangles I had assembled the 3d Origami Figurine of Radha Krishna standing 2'4" tall and 2'6" tall respectively in around 14 weeks of time period. Along with paper triangles, quilling was involved for the detailing of the costume, jewelry and other accessories of the two figurines. Apart from the two, I finished a quilled Lord Ganesh (also from paper) standing 1'3" tall during the period.