Faye E Goldman

Origami Artist
Ardmore, PA, USA

I have been doing origami since elementary school. I was drawn to modular origami by its structure and mathematical properties. This is the medium in which I generally work. More recently, I found the Snapology technique by H. Strobl, which allows great creativity with very few rules using only strips of material. I like to use beautiful ribbon which seems to add another dimension to my work. Snapology has allowed me to dig deeply into mathematical shapes. It has provided insights into mathematical concepts and ideas. I wrote, 'Geometric Origami', published by Thunder Bay Press. It is the first book completely dedicated to the Snapology technique. The bottom line is that I make these wonderful works because they look really cool.

Carbon 84
Carbon 84
10 x 18 x 9 cm
polypropylene ribbon

Fullerenes are buckyballs (polyhedra made of pentagons and hexagons with every vertex of degree three) with carbon atoms at each vertex. It had been commonly thought among the scientists who studied Fullerenes that the molecules would be more stable if there were no touching pentagons. These were referred to as Isolated Pentagon Fullerines (IPF) In 2006 a strange egg-shaped fullerene was discovered. It had 84 carbon atoms so it is known as a C84. The wider end resembles a soccer ball (Truncated Icosahedron). At the other end are two adjacent pentagons! I was intrigued by this structure and made one. Then I replaced each hexagon with six triangles. The end with the touching pentagons can have two orientations perpendicular to each other.