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Our member Ginger Wankewycz was in the March 22, 2009 Plain Dealer! An article about her and her origami artwork was in the Art section! Below is the article:
Thomas Ondrey/The Plain Dealer
Ginger Wankewycz folds tiny slips of paper into origami cranes as
Cora, a Jack Russell terrier, watches. Wankewycz fashions the cranes
into earrings.Her fingers fly over a square of paper no bigger than an
inch and a half. In about 30 seconds at her dining room table, Ginger
Wankewycz has folded a delicate crane the size of a quarter.
She folds while watching television in her home in Cleveland's Old
Brooklyn neighborhood or while sitting in a doctor's waiting room --
anywhere her hands are idle. The Japanese art of origami has
captivated Wankewycz (pronounced Vonk-e-vich) since she was 8.
That's when her aunt gave her a book about the art of folding colorful
paper into animals and other shapes. Soon, she began fashioning her
homework into moths at St. Mary Byzantine Elementary School.
Now the craft makes money for Wankewycz, 30, who began making jewelry
out of her origami about three years ago. "I wanted to make things
people could actually use instead of having them sit in a china
closet," she says.
Thomas Ondrey / The Plain Dealer
A pair of Wankewycz's paper crane earringsShe sells crane earrings for
$18 to $42, depending on whether they are made of paper that she then
lacquers for durability or of paper-thin silver. She also makes crane
pendants, kimono earrings and pendants, and other origami shapes, such
as fish and flowers. She also frames cranes and kimonos, selling her
line of Ginger Folds & Fine Arts at Gingerfolds.com.
The artist, who majored in both studio art and psychology at
Baldwin-Wallace College, also sells her wares at area weekend and
summer craft shows. During the school year, she is a substitute
teacher for the Cleveland School District, but when she comes home,
there always is a pile of tiny cranes to add to.
As the ancient story goes, if you make a thousand cranes, a symbol of
peace, you get a wish.
"I probably make a thousand a month," said Wankewycz, who is shipping
cranes and kimonos by the dozen to the gift shop at the Canton Museum
of Art. The museum's exhibition "Kimono as Art: The Landscapes of
Itchiku Kubota" runs through Sunday, April 26.
A long list of shops and galleries, including the Pop Shop in
Lakewood, the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland and Artefino in
Cleveland, also sell the creations she makes from the gorgeous
imported papers she stores in her closets and basement by the drawerful.
"I go a little nuts," Wankewycz says.
If she has a sheet of paper in her hand, Wankewycz just has to fold
it. She turns the tips she leaves for servers into bow ties or
Christmas trees. Her crane earrings made their first appearance as
favors at her bridal shower. (She also folded hundreds of red and
white roses for her wedding bouquets, boutonnieres and table
arrangements.)
She carries her little squares of paper around in a grocery coupon
file so she can fold on the run. "People ask me what I'm doing," she
says. "I get that a lot."
She hasn't yet been to Japan -- but hopes to go "someday." Meanwhile,
she has tried crafting such other shapes as lilies, finches, doves and
dragonflies, but her best sellers are the most recognizable of origami
forms, Wankewycz says.
"People want cranes or kimonos all the time."
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