Nyssa’s Morinaka stays busy with origami projects
By Larry Meyer
Argus Observer
Monday, September 22, 2008 10:27 AM PDT
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| Larry Meyer | Argus Observer
Cora Morinaka shows a peacock she made using the origami technique of making objects by folding paper. Other things she has made sit on the window sill behind her in her room at Nyssa Gardens. |
NYSSA —She hasn’t been back in Nyssa long, but Cora Morinaka, who lives at Nyssa Gardens assisted living facility, said she feels quite at home and is making flowers and other gifts for fellow residents, using the Japanese art form of origami, which she learned while living with her daughter in California.
Morinaka, 94, enjoys the craft because it keeps her busy, and she said she enjoys working with her fingers. She also weaves rugs by hand, using the handle of a toothbrush as her tool, which a neighbor taught her how to do, and also does quite a bit of crocheting.
She is also busy making flowers for her daughters, who pay in advance.
“I charge them,” she said. “It takes me about an hour to make a big one.”
Her creations are usually bouquets with about three flowers and butterflies “flying” around them, made by folding square sheets of paper.
“It has to be square. I make frogs out of real dollars,” she said. “And hearts without cutting any thing, just folding it.”
In the past she has made intricate swans, baskets and peacocks, which she has samples of in her room, but now keeps to simpler shapes.
“My hands are getting too tender,” she said, noting some edges of the folds on the figures are sharp. “My daughter still makes the swans.”
“It doesn’t matter how old you are. If you keep it in your mind, you are going to do it.”
It is important to keep doing origami to maintain the knowledge of how things are made, Morinaka said.
“If you are young you can pick it up again easily. It’s harder when you are older,” she said.
Morinaka said she can trace her roots back to the Northwest.
“I was born and raised in Idaho Falls,” Morinaka said.
She and her husband farmed.
“I used to drive horses,” she said, relating some of her experiences. The couple had three daughters and one son. They moved to Nyssa in 1950 and continue to farm. She said her husband died in 1984, and she then moved to California shortly after.
She came back to Nyssa earlier this year.
“I decided I could live in my home.” After three months, though, she decided it would be more comfortable to move into Nyssa Gardens.
“I’ve done a lot of traveling,” she said. While in California, she became involved with a group of veterans who were part of the famed World War II Japanese-American 442nd Regimental Combat Team, and she was invited to travel with them.
Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Mexico were some of her ports of call. “I went through the Panama Canal. I’ve gone to Canada twice.”
