Memory Photos of V'Ann Cornelius (by Jan Polish)

This is the text of what I said at the Mingei gathering honoring V’Ann December 28^th.

Here’s my personal mental photo album of V’Ann Cornelius. The first mental picture … well, it must have been about 1988 or 1989. Michael Shall had finally ceded control of the convention, and there were a bunch of us trying to figure out how to do all the work that had been done by one man. In walks a quiet woman. How can I help, she says. She started out making copies and soon made herself essential. In those days we often had an annual saint – a member who came from nowhere and helped tremendously for a few days. Often, after the convention the disappeared back into the mist from which they’d come. But not V’Ann. Gradually she took on more and more responsibility, and soon found her calling in organizing and displaying our exhibition. Her artistic eye and calm demeanor made her perfect for the job, and each year the exhibition got better and better, and the displays more and more sophisticated.

Next memory photo: sitting in the mezzanine of the theater where Tommy the Rock Opera was playing, when Tomoko Fuse said, “we’re going to have an exhibition in Japan on origami in science, math and art. Why don’t you two come?” We looked at each other and said, “well, I’ll go if you do.”

Next photo is sitting up in bed in the middle of the night in Otsu, when jet lag had hit, talking and laughing and waiting for sleep.

Then there are a group of mental photos of V’Ann saying “OrigamiUSA should do …” something, and then doing it. Unlike some of our members, when V’Ann said “we should” she didn’t mean “someone else should.” So there she is establishing the first origami model database. And there she is with John, initiating and supporting our own web server. And writing a regional group handbook. And lots more ways she’d found to support the organization from a distance. Perhaps most important she made us New Yorkers realize that people outside New York could take on responsibility and get things done; that it wasn’t distance that mattered, but character.

Let’s turn the page and find a group of photos of me with V’Ann and Vicky Mihara Avery. The two of them saying: let’s have a West Coast convention. And the three of us (with lots of help) making it happen. From the first one in San Francisco where we learned a lot about Pacific Coast Origami Conferences to the last one in Vancouver, where we learned even more. The three of us in a car for three days making a whirlwind tour of potential sites for the 3^rd Origami Science and Math conference. The three of us in a suite working … well, lots of photos of us working, and lots of photos of us laughing.

And there’s V’Ann at the Mingei, taking the idea that Florence Temko and Martha Longenekker had nurtured for years of an origami exhibition, and making it happen, magnificently. And, since this is my mental photo album, there’s a picture of me, V’Ann and Vicky spending a weekend making larger and larger prototypes, and then a 9’ version, of the shadow columns that graced the entrance to the exhibit.

Over the years there were too many times to count that V’Ann said “we should” and then did it. And did it calmly, efficiently, and with lots of laughter, and lots of love. But most of all in my mental photo album there are lots of small pictures of me with V’Ann over the nearly 20 years I’ve known her: talking quietly, smiling, just being friends. Thank you, V’Ann.

Written by Jan Polish, posted on January 10, 2008.