An ISU student has taken the art of origami to a new level.

Fumi Ikeshima, senior in art and design, recently completed a chair using only 35,000 tiny, interlocking paper triangles and some glue.

“I was never able to convince myself I could do it,” Ikeshima said of her idea to construct a chair out of paper, an idea she said she had in the back of her mind for about two years.

Ikeshima told her jewelry and metal-smithing professor, Joseph Muench, assistant professor of art and design, about her idea, and he said she should apply for a FOCUS grant in order to pursue it.

FOCUS grants are available to all ISU students. Applicants have to make a proposal describing their ideas and have those ideas approved. Each grant provides the students with up to $600 of whatever supplies are needed.

Once Ikeshima’s idea was approved and Muench became her faculty sponsor for the project, she went to work, buying $520 worth of green origami paper.

Then, the folding began – Ikeshima had approximately 90 friends from Japan and the United States assist her in this aspect of the project, which took her a month-and-a-half to complete.

Ikeshima said the design of the chair came about as she went along. Since she had never done anything of the sort before, she had to get a sense of how the paper would work in a structure during the creative process.

“I was just experimenting the whole time,” she said.

The origami method Ikeshima used is called 3-D origami, which she said is a very common folding technique and used for building structures – although Ikeshima knows of no one who has built a chair using the technique.

The chair is not merely decorative – it actually supports a person’s weight.

“After the four leg posts and the feet were done, I leaned on it first, then gradually put my whole weight on it, and that’s how I knew it was strong enough,” Ikeshima said. “The first time I sat on it, I e-mailed everyone I knew that I sat on paper.”

Ikeshima said she uses paper in a lot of her other artwork, which includes jewelry made mostly of metal. The origami art form, she said, has “endless” possibilities.

“It’s Japanese paper that I use,” Ikeshima said. “It’s amazing; it’s so versatile.”

Muench said he appreciates how hardworking and passionate Ikeshima is about her work.

“I anticipated that this was going to be a pretty amazing project and that she could pull it together,” he said.

Muench also said he has always been impressed and intrigued with the way Ikeshima incorporates origami into her pieces.

“She’s really good at it,” Muench said.

Muench said the perspective Ikeshima has as half-Japanese brings a unique element to the classroom, and he has found it interesting to learn from her about the origami art form, which many Japanese people learn at a very young age.

“I’m really glad she’s pushing [origami] to the level she is,” he said. “She is making it visible to us; it’s a beautiful art form.”