One thousand cranes will fly for peace.
Artist Althea Godfrey’s multi-colored origami cranes will come to light at the Bainbridge Commons for “Metaphors of Peace,” a celebration of peace expressed through the arts this Sunday.
“(It’s) a collection of storytellers, poets, essayists and even two choirs,” said Barbara Morrison, coordinator for the event that runs from 4-6 p.m. Dec. 15.
“I’m calling it a new adventure for the Interfaith Council.”
Featured performers will include poets Neil Baker, Kent Chadwick, Cheryl Latif, Marian McDonald and Godfrey. Musicians will include Dusty Collins and Marcus Lang on dulcimer and flute, with other instrumentalists from Grace Church, Unity Church choristers, and others.
The ecumenical gathering was conceived this year to mark the winter holiday season. The theme expressed the mission of the IFC, an alliance of Bainbridge and North Kitsap faith groups working together for peace and justice.
Godrey’s origami project predates the event. She began making the paper cranes in 1995, inspired by the story of Sidako Sasaki, a Japanese schoolgirl who folded 956 of the birds traditionally considered in Japan to bring good fortune.
The girl hoped that in so doing, she might be cured of the leukemia with which she had been stricken after exposure to radiation in the atomic blast at Hiroshima.
When Sasaki died at age 12, her classmates took up the practice and folded more cranes. Their story is recorded at the Hiroshima site, where every year people bring cranes to remember her.
“That story really moved me,” Godfrey said.
Transforming a piece of paper into a three-dimensional crane wasn’t easy to learn, she says. Over time, the exacting art has become her daily spiritual practice.
“I’m in love with each crane as I make it,” she said, “but actually I’m a very sloppy crane-maker. I’ve had to over and over come to grips with my human imperfection.”
She makes just a few a day. She could accumulate 1,000 in a year, but the small birds often fly from her hand as gifts for friends.
Godfrey would be well short of the mark for the upcoming event, if flocks of cranes didn’t travel in the other direction as well.
Threaded in long strands that hang from a wire frame, the cranes are not only crafted from different materials – they range from gold foil to newsprint – but bear the mark of the many hands that have constructed them. In a one-day marathon at the Bainbridge library in 1999, she collected 300.
When she makes her own paper, Godfrey often uses paper printed with news stories. Her cranes commemorates national disasters and local catastrophes.
For Godfrey, a Poulsbo resident who worked several years as a journalist on Bainbridge Island, making the cranes is cathartic.
“A lot of the time, when you cover news stories, you have to stay neutral,” she said. “You can’t allow yourself to collapse into the grief. But some of that went into the cranes.”
Joy is also represented, in cranes like the ones made from wrapping paper from family presents. And the general impression of the long strands of multicolored cranes is one of celebration.
“Some of the order is random, but I might decide I need a silver next to a gold chain, for example,” Godfrey said. “Then I need news stories for in between. News should never stand alone with art.”
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‘Hidden Prayers for Christy’
Fifty summers after Hiroshima’s bombing
I made paper cranes from the sturdy pages
of catalogs and advertising circulars.
I folded stacks of sheets and towels
into cranes with rainbow necks.
Exhortations to get ready for school
produced cranes in fashionable plumage
of denim and plaid.
A child’s bright comforter,
a muted teal carpet,
the dappled skins of endangered species
reduce to transitory shape: a square,
three successively smaller triangles,
a box, a diamond, a party hat.
I run my finger along the edge of a wing, bring the head above the belly:
a crane.
Corners sharp, edges aligned.
I made cranes from advertisements
for video games, pesticides, and guns.
Stories of the Balkans, cocaine deaths
and the Unabomber I folded
with the concentration of Sadako,
willing transformation.
The universe is dense with mystery
and paper’s value can be greater than its weight.
Peace could come with the twenty-three folds,
the changing shapes and the prayers
hidden inside paper cranes.
– Althea Godfrey
