Allderdice senior's love of origami leads to a how-to book on the subject

At age 3, Scott Wasserman Stern became fascinated by origami. A pre-school teacher introduced the class to the Japanese art of paper-folding, and the little boy couldn't get enough.

"She taught me my first action model, a simple camera that doesn't really look like a camera, but when you pull both sides it clicks," said Scott, now a senior at Pittsburgh Allderdice High School. "That was very satisfying for a kid."

But not, perhaps, as satisfying as publishing a hard-cover origami book while still a minor. That would be "Outside the Box Origami: A New Generation of Extraordinary Folds," just released by Tuttle Publishing, which specializes in Asian-themed art, food and design books. It is now in bookstores and online, priced at $19.95.

The volume contains 20 designs that Scott developed from age 14 to 17. Tuttle's website describes them as "original, whimsical paperfolds ranging from the simple to the complex ... a mix of single-sheet and modular origami models accompanied by photos and easy-to-follow diagrams."

PG VIDEO: ORIGAMI IS HIS GAME PG VIDEO: ORIGAMI IS HIS GAME

The creations range from simple, with 13 folds, to complicated, with 100. The last model in the book is the most challenging, and gives the book its name. It's a single-sheet model of two hands reaching out of a box, folding a piece of origami paper.

After school one day last week, Scott, now 18, took a bus to the Post-Gazette offices to demonstrate his craft. Dropping his heavy backpack on the floor and fishing out a stack of origami paper, which he is seldom without, he sat down at a table and began to fold, squeeze, poke and pinch his forms into shape.

How does a teenager manage to publish such a book, and without an agent?

The process began when Scott's mother noticed his interest and started taking him at age 4 to the Origami Club of Pittsburgh, which meets the third Saturday of every month at the Squirrel Hill Library. At 6, he developed his first original design, a star of David.

"It was pure serendipity," he said. "I was doing this random thing and there it was. It was exciting, but you're 6 years old. What do you do with it?"

He continued pursuing his interest, helped along by the club and a growing collection of origami books from family and friends, and at 14 began inventing new models in earnest -- geometric shapes, a sitting dog, an elephant, a ghost, a flower with stem and grass. His room became a jumble of three-dimensional paper shapes, and friends were putting in requests for their favorite creations.

His father began pushing him to put a book together, so he started making diagrams on a computer with the help of his identical twin, Eric.

The brothers have more in common than their genes. They're both on the Allderdice crew team, mock trial and the school paper. Both work at Rita's Italian Ice in Squirrel Hill, often during the same shift, which can be a bit disorienting for uninitiated customers when each is standing in the two windows. And both have been accepted to Yale University for the fall semester.

"We have a competitive family," Scott said. "My brother and I are always competing in school and extracurriculars, we volunteer at the same places, and now it looks like we'll be going to the same college, even though we had hoped to go to separate ones. So it's nice to have something that no one else does."

Scott spent two years putting his work together in between classes, sports and other activities. Then he perused his bookshelf for the most likely publishers and contacted them directly.

"Tuttle was the first one to write back," he said. "They wanted a full word count, the number of illustrations, how many would go on a page. They sent me a contract, which they said was their first for a minor, so my parents would have to sign off."

For the next year and half, he refined his designs and diagrams, and hired Pittsburgh photographer David Cooper to shoot the color images. Next came a visit to the publishers in Vermont, followed by an 11-month wait for the book release.

It was worth the wait, Scott says. He's especially looking forward to April 27, when he'll join other local authors at a book-signing event at 6 p.m. at the Barnes & Noble at the Waterfront, Homestead.

He is hoping to publish more origami books, and his contract gives Tuttle the right of first refusal for the next two.

"I've created a few more models, like Atlas holding up the Earth," he said, but he hasn't developed any unifying themes, like water creatures or 10-fold designs, which origami books tend to showcase.

"That's something I'm going to have to work on," he said.

First published on April 10, 2011 at 12:00 am