Memories of V'Ann, submitted by Arnold Tubis, Carlsbad, CA

I first knew V'Ann during the 1980's and 1990's only through the mail
as a corresponding member of FOLD, a privately circulated origami
interest magazine. I did not have the privilege of meeting her in
person until 2000, when Charlotte and I moved to the San Diego area. I
am greatly indebted to V'Ann for immediately getting me involved in
many activities of the San Diego Origami Group and Origami USA.

In my first meetings with her, I was immediately struck by
her quiet enthusiasm and energy and her creative ingenuity in
practical origami design, including in particular her vehicles for
effective origami display, now known throughout the world. I was also
impressed with her ingenious design of isosceles triangular boxes (she
called them "pie boxes") from arbitrary rectangular strips, and we had
a lot of fun generalizing her design to arbitrary apex angles. This
was the first of my many joint folding adventures with V'Ann.

I have had the pleasure of working with V'Ann on planning
committees for the 2003 (San Diego) and 2005 (Phoenix) PCOC's and
4OSME (Pasadena), and numerous origami workshops for K-12 students and
teachers. I marveled at her quiet and always dignified proficiency in
handling all aspects of conference organization facilities,
budget, program, and registration. For as long as I can remember, she
has been the "registrar" for Origami USA events including the
Vancouver PCOC in November.

In workshops, she displayed a natural ability to adjust
the presentation to the level of her audience. She gave extremely
clear folding instructions in a variety of formats by
demonstrating folds, passing out folding instructions, directing the
folding in silence, and most importantly, challenging her audience
members to work out generalizations of the models using reasoning
appropriate to their backgrounds. On more than one occasion she gently
reprimanded me for helping students too much and therefore not
allowing them to discover with their own minds and hands the way out
of their folding difficulties.

I had the opportunity of witnessing the final stages of
V'Ann's long and ultimately successful struggle to mount, in 2003, a
world class exhibition of origami at the Mingei International in
Balboa Park, San Diego. As has been mentioned by many persons in
memorial tributes, the landmark origami exhibit at Mingei
International has spawned a host of similar museum expositions
throughout the world.

In the past year, V'Ann and I, along with Galen Pickett of
California State University, Long Beach, have been involved with the
organization, Dramatic Results, in establishing a 12-week program in
origami-mathematics for fifth and sixth grade students in the Long
Beach School District. In spite of her declining health, V'Ann
organized several very successful teacher training programs prior to
the launch of the program, which has now been run twice. Preliminary
evaluations of pre- and post-testing results indicate the great
potential of origami as a tool in early mathematics education. Under
the dynamic leadership of Christi Wilkins, Dramatic Results is now
planning to extend the program to 24 weeks and is vigorously seeking
both foundation and US government agency support. The nationwide
expansion of programs such as this would be a great testimony to the
many years of effort that V'Ann spent giving workshops in school
classrooms and libraries.

On the day before she passed away, I visited V'Ann, whose
home is only a ten-minute drive from mine. She was surrounded by John,
her mother, her sister, her children, and other members of her family,
many of whom had spent Christmas with her. Although she was very thin
and frail, and had difficulty in speaking, any initial surprise that I
may have had upon seeing her condition quickly evaporated when I
experienced her gentle smile, remarkable lucidity, and interest in
what was being said.

The origami world today thrives on the works of its
extremely talented creators. However, the recent elevated status of
origami as a genuine art form owes a great debt to V'Ann who for many
years tenaciously pursued her dreams of origami as medium worthy of
display in world class museums. Hopefully, her visions of the
widespread adoption of origami as a vital tool in early mathematics
education will soon be similarly realized.