Robotogami and the Birthday Boy

It’s funny to me that when I ask my son what he’d like for a home cooked birthday dinner, we both know that the answer will be lasagna. But it is a little ritual we go through each time we have the opportunity to celebrate his birthday. Last night we had a late birthday celebration and the fine opportunity to relive Cole’s childhood Transformer days. I do believe that he may have owned every version of Transformer available. It was a passion. In fact I am quite enamored of those small vehicles that become either heroes or villains.

A couple of weeks ago we were at the art market hosted by Tornado Gallery each month. Their current exhibit was of sculpture by Dustin Wallace. He’s a draftsman, machinist by day and an artist by night. Dustin creates these incredible transformer like sculptures with movable parts that have all hand machined gears inside and water jet cut parts. Among these were these little flat copper “Robotogami” pieces. They come flat and are cut from a single sheet of metal with small hinge points so that you can fold them into a 3 dimensional sculpture posed to your own liking. Perfect gift for the transformer loving son.

Cole’s eyes sparkled as he bent the robot into shape, got out my jewelry pliers to refine the hands and other points to his liking. And in that moment we were transported back to his childhood days of endless construction of young dreams. I think it’s the holiday season coming up that is making me so nostalgic. But I do love these magic moments.