James R Ford has an obsession. Except it’s just 1000, so maybe it’s a healthy collection. Over the course of a year, Ford’s folded 1000 paper cranes, all different colors and patterns. Collected together and displayed on some super nice black wood shelving.

Ford lets you know how to fold:

Marcel Duchamp, who in 1923 declared that he was no longer a practicing artist and instead both played and studied chess for the rest of his life to the near exclusion of all other activity, so in 2007 Ford decided to dedicate his time to making Origami Cranes instead of creating any new work. He became obsessed by the paper folding process and intrigued by this ancient art – legend has it that if a person makes a thousand cranes they will be granted a wish by the Japanese Gods.

Hoping to have his own wish granted, Ford began folding cranes in earnest and, at the same time, made studies of these folded objects and patterned papers. Much like Duchamp who claimed to have abandoned art for playing chess, but secretly worked on his last major piece Etant donnés for 20 years, so was Ford, unbeknownst to himself, developing a new body of work.

Duchamp Played Chess; I Made Cranes was first shown at FERREIRA PROJECTS in April 2008. Ford accompanied the exhibition with his own limited edition Origami paper design, including instructions for a classic Origami crane. [Click here to download].

Once you’ve gone deep enough into madness, do you get brilliance? If you have a big enough collection of one thing, (especially a beautiful thing,) does it become greater than the sum of its parts?

Made by: [James Robert Ford]