In-between in Ipswich

Coming-of-age movie stars Ipswich and debuts there 

By Taryn Plumb / Globe Correspondent

August 12, 2012 

IPSWICH — There's just something about that time: The sort of twilight zone right after high school, and just before whatever comes next.

It's a transitional gray area when you start to shift from being a kid to a young adult; when one chapter is ending and another is about to begin; when feelings of sentimentality for what you're leaving intermingle with excitement and anxiety for the future.

It's a time we all remember, and one that Ipswich native Brendan Fay, 24, seeks to evoke in his debut — and what he says is his only film — “Weekend in Summer.” 

Inspired by and almost entirely filmed in Ipswich, starring a cast of locals, and made for roughly $1,200 (essentially the cost of equipment), it will premiere at the Ipswich Performing Arts Center on Wednesday.

“It's just sort of trying to capture that lovely moment in life between everything you've known in your hometown growing up — and all the comforts that are afforded by that — and all the unknown that's to come,” Fay said. The trio of main characters are “in this place where the world is theirs, and anything could happen."

The 90-minute film chronicles the adventures and the musings of three young men — Armand (played by Tyler Reid), Lucas (Chad Leonard), and Ernest (Adam Truitt) — over two days in the summer after their senior year of high school. Fay, who also has a role (as Jacob), describes it as a “coming-of-age narrative,” mixed with “elements of mystery and action.”

Although in every sense, Fay noted, it serves as an homage to Ipswich, it's set in a deliberately unnamed town. To emphasize that sense of “whereversville,” he avoided Ipswich's most obvious landmarks, instead sticking to “subtle, beautiful little spots” that he considers its gems. (Locals, though, will recognize some backdrops, such as Crane Beach, the Ipswich Ale Brewery, and the Ipswich Outboard Club.)

Ultimately, the project was a bit of a whim for Fay, a computer programmer by trade and a composer by passion — he continuously writes music for his instrumental band, The Old Man — who has since (and somewhat regrettably) moved away to Somerville.

He made a few short films while at MIT but has no formal training, although he called himself a huge admirer of movies, particularly of Sergio Leone's sweeping Westerns, as well as the unforgettable, moving soundtracks of Ennio Morricone.

But suddenly last June, he said, “I just decided I wanted to do this.”

So he sat down and wrote a 45-page script and eventually set to filming with a digital camera, his friends working for free as both cast and crew. Later, he also composed the movie's soundtrack.

Yet although it's something he felt compelled to do, he has no plans for another film. His focus, and his “reason for being here,” as he described it, is composing.

“What I've been telling people, and telling myself, is ‘This is it,’ ” he said of his filmmaking career.

Depending on the reaction on Wednesday night, he'll do additional screenings, he said, and may even submit the film to the Cape Ann Film Festival.

But there may be more of a future in it than he anticipates: The film is already generating a buzz around town, particularly with Ipswich being one of its main stars (although it’s been a Hollywood darling before, particularly the Crane Estate, which has been featured in “The Witches of Eastwick, “Flowers in the Attic,” and the more recent “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past.”)

“All of the people involved have lived in Ipswich their whole lives, so there are many friends and family of the cast and crew that are waiting in anticipation,” said Steven LeBel, who also grew up in town and has a cameo in the film.

“As the mother of two sons, I am eager to see Ipswich through the lens of a young man,” said Kerrie Bates, director of Ipswich Recreation, and executive director of the Ipswich Visitor Center. “Far from serving simply as a backdrop to adventure, Ipswich is so bold a place, that it becomes a character among friends.”

Sentimental feelings of a hometown shared by Fay.

“It’s a poetic reflection of my overall feeling about Ipswich,” he said of the film, noting the town’s diversity of scenery (woods, fields, farms, ponds, marshes, ocean), as well as its sense of community. “It’s such a wonderful place.”

“Weekend in Summer” will be screened at the Ipswich Performing Arts Center at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday. Admission is free, but parents are cautioned that the film has been “rated” PG-13. To view a trailer, or find out more about the film or Fay's music, visit oldmansmoking.com. 

© Copyright 2012 Globe Newspaper Company.

Payments in the cloud for "underserved" SMBs

Targeting the ‘messy middle'

MineralTree sees wide open middle market for payment technology

Boston Business Journal by Taryn Plumb, Special to the Journal

Friday, August 10, 2012

In the financial industry, they’re sometimes referred to as the “messy middle”: Small and midsize businesses that have outgrown simpler cash management and payment models, but that aren’t quite big enough to implement the more complex, high-end software used by larger companies.
All told, they represent a significant market — more than 2.5 million businesses in the U.S. — and many industry experts say they’re underserved.
Cambridge-based startup MineralTree has a goal to tap that need with its cloud-based, “bank-branded” payment technology. The company, headed by BC Krishna, former CEO of Burlington fraud detection software firm Memento, came out of stealth mode in early November, and has raised $7.8 million through two venture capital rounds.
“I wish I could answer why they have been ignored, but they have been,” president and CEO Krishna said of his target customers — companies with annual revenues between $500,000 and $50 million, and which generally top more than 50 payments a month. “There is a gap in the market for a secure payment platform.”
Through revenue-sharing partnerships with financial institutions, MineralTree offers its system to end-users through their banks, and its technology handles non-payroll payments, such as employee expenses, taxes, and vendor checks. Although the company doesn’t deal directly with its end-user, it works closely with its partner banks to market and sell the product, as well as to identify potential customers, Krishna said.
Since coming out of stealth mode a little over nine months ago, the company has announced two venture capital rounds: an initial, $1.5 million investment by Boston-based .406 Ventures last February, and another $6.3 million investment in June led by Fidelity Growth Partners India, along with .406 Ventures. The money has been used to develop its technology, to sign on partners and clients, and to scale the business, according to Krishna. Citing confidentiality reasons, he said he couldn’t disclose the number of customers MineralTree currently has.
The company’s main goal: To present a technology that is easy to install and easy to implement, he said.
But security is just as fundamental as simplicity.
As Krishna explained, small and midsize businesses are an “attractive market for fraudsters” because, unlike large corporations such as IBM or Walmart, “the controls are not as great.”
Maria Cirino, co-founder and managing director of .406 Ventures, agreed that “cyber crime is growing at an alarming rate.”
Those statistics and others influenced .406 Ventures to invest in the startup and its technology, which she described as “complete, elegant and simple.”
There does seem to be ample opportunity for MineralTree given the sheer size of the SMB market, according to Michael Krigsman, president and CEO of Brookline-based IT consulting firm Asuret.
Still, he stressed, the keys to success with small and medium businesses are simplicity, cost and trust.
Cost, particularly, is “always the challenge of serving the SMB market,” he said in an email interview, adding that, “the big question is whether SMBs see their bank as a trusted, reliable business services partner, as opposed to merely the place to hold cash and write checks.”
Likewise, he cautioned, “many companies have tried to crack the SMB code, and relatively few succeed. I am not convinced that SMB’s will seek these services from their bank, but a compelling and inexpensive offering can work wonders.”
Cirino, for her part, believes that MineralTree’s will.
“We think we can grow a big company here,” she said, calling Krishna a “seasoned” and “quintessential” entrepreneur.
Krishna similarly sees great opportunities.
Looking ahead, the goal is to eventually add receivables, he said — but for now, the focus is on building a “robust” payments system for domestic clients.
In the U.S. alone, he said, the market is $10 billion to $12 billion — meaning there’s plenty of room to grow.
But beyond that, “obviously, it’s a global problem, a worldwide opportunity,” he said. “We’re (just) scratching the surface of the market.”

Original article link here.

Mapping it out

Milford, Franklin map out walking routes

By Taryn Plumb |  Globe Correspondent

August 09, 2012

Tamir Kalifa for The Boston Globe

Maybe you’ve figured you don’t have the time. Or you haven’t known where to go. Or it’s just been easier to jump in the car and head out.
Well, if you live in Milford or Franklin, you no longer have an excuse not to get out and walk.
Through a collaboration between the two towns, the nonprofit WalkBoston organization, and the Hockomock Area YMCA, each community now has its own downtown walking map outlined with numerous routes, time markers, and various points of interest.
Milford’s map was released earlier this year, while Franklin’s is set to come out this month.
The goal of the maps — which were developed through grant money from the MetroWest Health Foundation — is to illustrate the options for recreational walks around each town, as well as to present functional routes that could be substituted for car trips when it comes to running errands, bringing the kids to school, or going to a doctor’s appointment.
“It’s really looking at how we can change behavior,” said Lauren Marciszyn, director of youth and community wellness at the Hockomock Area YMCA, which became involved through its ongoing Healthy Futures initiative, aimed at tackling childhood obesity. “It’s improving the health of the community by making the healthy choice the easy choice.”
Milford’s map, which is available on the town website and at several municipal offices and businesses, features 10 loops with a half-dozen highlighted points of interest, including Louisa Lake, the 1884 Memorial Hall, and the Irish Round Tower, a 74-foot memorial in St. Mary’s Cemetery. Different routes pass by the high school and the Milford Regional Medical Center, and incorporate the Upper Charles River Trail.
There’s also a “Little Engine That Could” walk — inspired by the classic book written by Milford native Mabel C. Bragg — traversing downtown historic sites, marked by a dozen sidewalk stamps in the shape of the iconic, self-esteem-filled engine.
Franklin’s map, meanwhile, will feature 20 to 25 interconnected routes weaving through two downtown historic districts, and past the town’s commuter rail station, the Franklin Public Library, Dean College, the Franklin Historical Museum, the DelCarte Conservation Area, and various other fields, parks, and baseball fields, according to town planner Beth Dahlstrom.
The map, once printed, will be available at town buildings and local businesses, and online, she said.
Routes on both maps range from a half-mile to 2 to 3 miles, and are broken into increments that can be completed in five minutes, according to Joe Cutrufo, program coordinator for WalkBoston. A similar map is also in the works in Northborough, and WalkBoston has created about two dozen similar maps in and around the Hub, Cutrufo said.
Milford and Franklin, particularly, “have walkable, dense, compact, very developed cores,” he said.
Marciszyn agreed that both communities have an advantage in their ample amount of sidewalks. “We want to make sure that wherever we’re telling people to walk, safety is a priority,” she said . “We’re trying to combine both physical health and functionality.”
But, as Cutrufo noted, because cars are often a necessity of living in the suburbs, “so much of this is about walking for health.”
Still, he added, the goal is to encourage people to at least replace some of their driving with trips on foot.
“Really the idea is to just get families walking,” said Ellen Freedman, who is involved with the initiative, and serves as project coordinator for the Greater Milford Health Access Coalition. “It generally promotes walking in the community.”
And as well as teaching about landmarks and distinctive historical points, the maps can also help to illustrate that some walking trips aren’t as long or as ominous as people might think.
“I hope that people will find new routes for walking that they didn’t know existed,” Dahlstrom said.
Ultimately, though, the maps aren’t the only thing the two communities are promoting to get people on their feet.
Franklin, for instance, is in the midst of a $7.25 million overhaul of its downtown; the work includes roadway, streetscape, landscape, sidewalk, crosswalk, and other pedestrian-aimed improvements, according to Dahlstrom.
Milford took part in the National Walk at Lunch Day on April 25, according to Freedman. The town is also challenging kids this summer through the Rethink Your Drink program, which asks them to pledge to have no more than two sugar-sweetened beverages a week (with prizes as an incentive).
Both towns, meanwhile, are participating in Mass in Motion, a program by the state’s Executive Office of Health and Human Services that helps cities and towns initiate efforts to get residents to eat healthier and be more active.
“Ultimately,” said Marciszyn, “it’s about how we can get the community to look at where they live as a place to be active, and to utilize walking as a mode of transportation.”

© 2012 The New York Times Company

Yoga, for guys only

A Y-chromosome twist on the yoga mat

Mike Houlihan (left), owner of Roots to Wings yoga studio in Newbury’s Byfield neighborhood, instructs Craig Grimes (center) and Jim Young, both of Byfield, during a class for men. (Lisa Poole for The Boston Globe)

By Taryn Plumb

Globe Correspondent / August 5, 2012

On a drizzly evening in a second-floor yoga studio, candles flicker in the dim light, incense drifts through the air, and mellowing music intermingles with chirps and peeps from crickets and sparrows outside.

On their mats, barefoot students move from one pose to another: leg lifts, supine twists, downward facing dogs, planks.

This could be any night in any exercise studio anywhere in America, but here, you won’t find stretchy yoga pants and sports bras, jealousy-inducing flexibility, or even anyone with double X chromosomes.

This is yoga — for guys only.

“I just find it incredibly enjoyable and fulfilling,” said 43-year-old Craig Grimes of Byfield, a general internist and new yoga devotee.

They call themselves the Turkey Squad — a group of men who have taken up yoga at Roots to Wings studio in Byfield under the tutelage of 48-year-old Mike Houlihan. They are admittedly inflexible (or at least they started out that way), and many are self-described “men’s men” who golf and play hockey and mountain-bike. But at least one night a week, they roll out their mats, twist their bodies into positions they thought only women could master, and try to seek inner calm in an increasingly hectic world.

“I kind of naysayed the whole thing — that it wasn’t really a workout — ‘Who needs to be flexible?’ ‘Who needs to relax? I don’t need to relax,’ ” said 44-year-old Tom Girard of Newbury. But since trying yoga for the first time in January, “I’m more connected with the way I feel and the way I move. It’s the most relaxing hour of the week.”

Believed to predate written history, yoga has been practiced for thousands of years almost exclusively by men in the eastern world — with women, in many cases, even excluded from doing it.

Yet here in the United States, the discipline has become dominated by women, with many men, as a result, shying away.

According to Yoga Journal, an industry publication, 15.8 million people in the United States practice yoga, but just under 28 percent of them are men.

“There’s a misperceived femininity,” said Grimes, who had never tried yoga until six months ago. “It’s just not something that most men think about. I never really thought about it, to be honest.”

Still, that is a mindset that is slowly shifting.

In February, for example, the New England Patriots and the New York Giants made news when each team prepared for Super Bowl XLVI with yoga techniques. Meanwhile, the popular book “Real Men Do Yoga,” by John Capouya, profiles 21 athletes, including Boston Celtics forward Kevin Garnett and NFL football veteran Shannon Sharpe, who have worked the centuries-old discipline into their regular routines.

Then there’s the popular, self-named yoga system developed by former professional wrestler Diamond Dallas Page, and the new “Broga,” a yoga practice particularly meant to assuage the male ego, now offered in Somerville and on Martha’s Vineyard.
Roots to Wings began offering its eight-week Turkey Squad classes in January — named, as Houlihan described it, for the guys who got benched or pulled aside by the coach in high school — and it now has more than 50 participants.
Houlihan stressed that it is not intended to be exclusionary, or a “guys club.” He simply wanted to create a class that focuses on the areas of a man’s body that tend to need more flexibility — the hamstrings, for example, or the back, hips, and neck and shoulders — and he figured that without women around, men would be more inclined to let their guard down and “break down their barriers.”

Grimes acknowledged that it would have been intimidating to walk into a studio full of “very flexible women.”

“I like coming with guys,” he said, “because we’re all equally inflexible.”

Whatever their abilities, though, Houlihan said he was confident the practice would resonate with men.

“I knew there were so many guys who could really benefit from yoga,” he said from a seat in his Byfield studio, situated kitty-corner to the Newbury Town Library. “I’m doing this to get a bunch of men in a room so they can soften. This is about allowing these guys to open up.”

That said, he was skeptical starting out.

His wife, Beth, has been doing yoga for years, and when she initially urged him to try it, his response was typical: “I’m not interested in doing yoga; it’s for girls.”

But in his early 40s, things changed. Working as a chief information officer, he was constantly on the road, high-strung, and had what he called a “hard edge.” Then he started having issues with high blood pressure and cholesterol, headaches, nausea, muscle pulls. Worst of all, he just felt older than he should have.

So he gave in and tried yoga.

Since then, he has lost about 40 pounds, changed his eating and sleeping habits, and expanded into the deeper aspects of yoga related to the inner self, as well as Chinese medicine. And two years ago, he left the corporate world to teach yoga full time through Root to Wings, which he runs with his wife.

“When I found yoga, the experience I had was so great I had to share it,” he said, calling the ancient practice a “tangible way to release the anxieties and stresses and sorrow.”

Which was palpable during a recent evening session, as the 10 men assembled in the studio exhaled, inhaled, and let out loud grunts and groans as they pushed through the routine.

They started the session laying flat on their mats, breathing deep, releasing tension.

Then came belt work — wrapping it around one foot, then the other, stretching to the ceiling, then to each side.

“It’s amazing how straight your legs are, compared to January,” Houlihan marveled as he navigated between their mats, the wood floor creaking slightly.

“Find your edge,” he urged, “when a little less stretch wouldn’t be enough, and any more stretch would really be uncomfortable.”

Various mat poses followed: lunging one leg while twisting and stretching the opposite arm to the ceiling; holding steady with bent elbows just a couple inches off the floor; standing with one leg curled in like a flamingo, both arms pointed to the ceiling.

After some final breathing exercises and meditation, the class disbanded, some stopping to chat and sip on Houlihan’s homemade tea (a mixture of dates, gogi berries, licorice bark, and other ingredients).

Girard, as he toweled off, said he is more flexible now, and feels a difference in his overall perseverance.

Grimes likewise said he has increased strength and a “tremendous sense of balance,” not to mention that he is much more limber than he has ever been.

His New Year’s resolution? To be flexible enough to touch his toes.

“Now I can. It seems so simple,” he said, “but it’s something in my life that I’ve never been able to do.”

Original article link here.

© Copyright 2012 Globe Newspaper Company.

Venture debt: The new trend in venture capital?

More venture-backed companies looking to venture debt to extend 'Cash runway'

 

Boston Business Journal by Taryn Plumb, Special to the Journal

Friday, July 27, 2012

Jan Haas of NXT Capital Venture Finance.

As a means to access capital without diluting equity or further burdening investors, more local venture-backed companies are turning to — or at least exploring — the option of venture debt.
“It’s a very practical and pragmatic use of debt,” said Gerald Michaud, president of Connecticut-based Horizon Technology Finance Corp., which has provided upwards of $850 million in venture loan commitments to more than 130 companies across the country since 2004. “It is becoming a more accepted tool in the toolbox of venture capitalists.”
How it works: instead of giving up equity, startups and growth companies receive relatively short-term loans to fund capital expenses and working capital.
It’s a concept that’s been around for decades, but is now starting to gain major traction, according to the industry, due to a softer market for mergers and acquisitions, a limited IPO appetite and reduced venture capital supply. Also, noted Michaud, it’s a quicker way to access capital without further diluting equity, but while still maintaining the flexibility of equity.
Among the local venture-backed companies that have recently received venture debt include Open Mile, Boston-based online freight brokerage service, which closed on a $3 million loan from NXT Capital Venture Finance in March, and digital commerce service company Optaros of Boston, which closed on a $2.5 million loan from Horizon the same month.
Loans are used to fund a variety of growth initiatives, according to Jan Haas, senior managing director of NXT Capital Venture Finance, which has six employees based in its Wakefield office. Those initiatives can include making acquisitions, providing liquidity to older investors or investing in sales and marketing, product development, equipment or facilities, Haas said. For early-stage companies, he said, it’s essentially a way to extend the “cash runway” to get over the milestones to success.
Ultimately, terms vary based on the company — but generally range from 24 to 48 months, according to Horizon and NXT. And the dollar amount of the investments cover just as wide a swath: anywhere from $1 million or $2 million to $20 million to $25 million per deal, the firms said. Interest rates, similarly, vary based on risk and valuation, fall between 9 and 13 percent, and often provide warrants to the lender, or the right to buy stock in the company at a certain price.
Horizon, which focuses on emerging technologies, cleantech industries, life sciences, and health care information and services, has provided $180 million in the form of 32 loans to companies throughout Massachusetts and New Hampshire to date.
NXT, which launched in October in Massachusetts with the merger of NXT Capital and Velocity Financial Group, has a goal to invest between $100 million and $200 million a year in later-stage companies in technology and life sciences, according to Haas.
“We’re investing based on our belief that companies have intrinsic value that supports our debt,” he said. “It’s largely predicated on who the investors are, who the entrepreneurs are, and do we believe in the market opportunity.”

Original story link here.

Al fresco, anyone?

Outdoor dining flourishes in Boston’s western suburbs 

By Taryn Plumb |  Globe Correspondent

July 19, 2012

It was a hot afternoon, but there was plenty of shade and a breeze as Claude French sat in front of Concord’s Colonial Inn for lunch.

The small granite table he shared with his wife, Doreen,  was scattered with the remains of their meal — a half-eaten salad, crumbs from a salmon burger, slices of corn bread, a few neglected fries, perspiring water glasses.

“It’s more open, rather than being confined inside,” French, a retiree from Bedford,  said of eating porch-side. “It’s more festive. It’s summer, you’re with other people, it’s something enjoyable.”

There’s just something about eating outside — the fresh air, the breeze, the smells, the sounds — that somehow makes meals that much more enjoyable, the food that much tastier.

But it’s not an experience that needs to be confined to your own backyard or side patio. Even in the swirling hurly-burly of Boston’s western suburbs, you can find many tucked-away oases for open-air eating.

“You forget the fact that you are sitting in MetroWest,” said Tom Peretzian,  the bar manager at Allora Ristorante in Marlborough, which has a deck overlooking Lake Williams  that can accommodate more than 100 diners.  “Everybody just enjoys being out there.”

Parisian, Mediterranean, Asian, or Italian settings, garden-like patios, wrap-around decks, simple sidewalk seating — pick your vibe.

Popular area choices include Spiga Ristorante Italiano  in Needham,  with a patio swathed in shrubbery and hidden away beyond the rush of Interstate 95’s hotels, businesses, and office parks, and the French restaurant Petit Robert Bistro  on the other side of the whooshing highway; the South American La Casa De Pedro  in Watertown,  with its coconut-laden palm tree and a waterfall nearby; Singh’s Cafe  in Wellesley,  with Hindu statues overlooking patrons; Bullfinchs in Sudbury;  il Casale in Belmont;  Tavolino in Westborough;  and Taberna de Haro in Brookline. 

“It is always nice to have the option to sit outside,” said Kathy Sidell,  owner of the Met Restaurant Group,  which operates the Met Bar and Grill in Natick, among other establishments.  The restaurant offers an 1,100-square-foot patio with clay pots, evergreens, and miniature Japanese maple trees, and can fit about 60 to 70 people.

“With the climate cold nine months out of the year, it’s good to take advantage of nice weather,” said Sidell. “We wanted to create a natural setting that felt like a garden.”

Other restaurateurs, meanwhile, take advantage of the natural scenery and energy of their surroundings.

The Fireplace in Brookline,  for instance, has a simple sidewalk patio with tables, umbrellas, and flowers facing looking out on Washington Square with its Victorian clock, boutiques, and businesses.

“You get the relaxing urban bustle that is more subdued than a New York sidewalk, but more lively than an enclosed terrace. It’s very much alive with pedestrians and shoppers,” said chef and owner Jim Solomon. “Washington Square is kind of known as the ‘Paris of Brookline,’ ” he said.

And offering outdoor dining helps keep keeps that reputation alive. “It creates a more lively streetscape,’’ he said, “and more foot traffic to support the local neighborhood shops.”

Meanwhile, in the more bucolic setting of Concord, the Colonial Inn accents its historical aspect. A half-covered porch with granite tables and wrought-iron chairs wraps around the front of the nearly 300-year-old  building, which features columns, dormers, black shutters, red doors, and taupe facade.

On a recent weekday afternoon, more than a dozen diners — including the Frenches — were gathered there despite the nearly 90-degree heat; they sat in the shade of umbrellas, watched the traffic rumbling by Monument Square,  and admired the surrounding rhododendrons, colorful boxed flowers, and oak trees.

“It’s such a beautiful location,” said Alexandra Lorenzano, the inn’s director of food and beverage, noting that people can “hide” on the porch but, at the same time, still be part of the action in the center of town. “We want people to feel like they’re in an oasis.”

The inn introduced the porch for dining just four years ago, she said, and it’s since grown to accommodate 70. 

“There was such a high demand for it,” she said, describing how guests and diners have always gathered on the porch to take in July Fourth events or parades, or to simply people-watch. “People just love to be outside.”

Solomon, at the Fireplace in Brookline, agreed it’s just that simple.

“After braving frequent cold winters, it’s just really nice to be able to sit out in shorts and enjoy a cool summer evening, or have brunch outside on a sunny day,” he said.

“Being a lifelong New Englander, I enjoy taking advantage of the nice weather whenever we have it.”

© 2012 The New York Times Company

An ancient art that still resonates

Michael LaFosse brings origami to Newbury 

By Taryn Plumb |  Globe Correspondent

July 12, 2012

For a little more than an hour, hand-held video games, cellphones, and tablet computers were forgotten, text messages and e-mails ignored, and a group spanning the age spectrum from 8 to 85 was enraptured by the simplest of human-made materials: paper.
They folded, they tucked, they creased, folded and tucked, and folded again.
And by the end? They came away with an assembly of colorful wreaths, miniature boats and animals, and even tiny pieces of apparel.
“I think this is my favorite activity so far in my life,” Byfield 10-year-old Sam Orender said of origami, after taking part in a recent workshop on the ancient practice led by Michael LaFosse at the Newbury Public Library.
It’s an art of contradiction — plain, simple paper transformed into sophisticated, artistic, and complex designs — that has entranced people for millenniums. And still today, with the seemingly never-ending digital onslaught, people (including the youngest generation who have grown up with gadgets like appendages) continue to be drawn to origami, often because of its pure and uncomplicated nature.
“I like how it’s just folding,” 8-year-old Tori Orender said after the Newbury library event, as she fiddled with one of her creations. “You don’t have to use other materials — all you have to use is paper.”
Although there is no statistical evidence, nimble-fingered masters like LaFosse indicate that the centuries-old craft is enjoying a renaissance. Believed to have evolved in China in the first century A.D. following the invention of paper, origami involves making a series of folds, typically with just one single piece of paper, without using any type of cutting, adhesives, or tape.
“Origami is really coming into its own, it’s entering its golden age,” said LaFosse, a biologist by training who runs the Haverhill-based Origamido Studio with Richard Alexander.
He pointed to the boom in adult and children’s manuals and books (he and Alexander have written roughly 70 themselves); online forums where enthusiasts can share images, diagrams, and videos; dozens of user groups across the country; and regular conventions, including one put on annually by OrigamiUSA in New York City and another this August in Columbus, Ohio. Perhaps most of all, there has been been more of an acceptance of origami in the art world, with exhibits at the Louvre in Paris, more private collectors, and the constant creation of new forms, figures, and designs.
“It’s just exploding,” said LaFosse. “Never before have we had so many people inventing origami at such a high level.”
That includes his own intricate and artful creations. The 55-year-old estimated that he has come up with between 5,000 and 6,000 designs in his roughly 50 years working at the craft. But, as he noted humbly, “only a fraction of them are really worthy.”
Some of his pieces include life-sized praying mantises; hummingbirds taking sips from flowers; soaring bats; swimming koi; blooming orchids; and an F-14 fighter jet that actually flies. One of his particular favorites is a miniature pig named Wilbur that, as he put it, “looks like he’s happily trotting along.”
Careful shaping and handmade paper give his works a feeling of texture and movement — as if they are real creatures, merely frozen in pose.
LaFosse started inventing designs, he said, when he was a child because he simply couldn’t find anything more than very basic diagrams in books. Later, he took inspiration from Akira Yoshizawa, considered the grandmaster of modern origami (he died in 2005, at age 94), and by age 16 he was making his own paper so he could get the “perfect skin” for each model.
Then in 1996, he and Alexander founded Origamido (translating to “the way of folded paper”), where the pair create designs, teach origami, and make their own paper, which is used by people all over the world. Their works have been exhibited at the Louvre, as well as the Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens in Florida, and locally at the Peabody Essex Museum.
Much like any art form, the pieces aren’t just dashed off with a few folds here and some tucks there. For example, it took LaFosse 50 hours with a 6-foot-square sheet of paper to create a miniature, textured, lifelike alligator. (Likewise, he treats his pieces like priceless works, handling them delicately and with latex gloves.)
Similarly, it is not just about sitting in the studio and contemplating — for Wilbur he studied, sketched, watched, and photographed real pigs, to ensure that he captured them just right. And for the Florida exhibit, he spent numerous hours in the Everglades studying endangered species.
Of course, the works created at the Newbury event in June were not quite so elaborate or time-intensive, but the art drew people in nonetheless. A group of about 50 children and adults arrived to find tables stacked with different colors and sizes of square paper. After LaFosse demonstrated, little nail-polished fingers and Band-Aid-covered elbows set to work, sparkly flip-flops tapping and shiny headband-covered heads bent in concentration.
Folding, unfolding, tucking, creating flaps, triangles, diamonds, and flipping sheets over and upside-down, they each created multicolored wreaths (highlighter pink, blue, reddish-orange) from eight pieces of Post-it sized paper; red, white, and blue sailboats that propped up on their own and floated across tables with heavy, puff-cheeked blows; penguins; and “Aloha” shirts.
A soft-spoken, patient teacher, LaFosse assuaged moments of frustration with comments like, “nobody makes these things well in the beginning,” and told the group that, to do origami at home, they do not have to buy fancy paper from the art store — they can use anything.
“You’re folding, and all of a sudden, you see this creation,” said Bonnie Durante of Byfield, who participated with her 13-year-old son, Michael, and 10-year old daughter, Bonnie Rose. “It’s nice to have them using their gross motor skills, creating something, as opposed to getting lost on the computer.”
LaFosse, for his part, noted that origami is a lifelong learning process that is “difficult, but rewarding,” and an “enjoyable challenge.”
Ultimately, it is so much more than folding paper, he said, it is engineering, technique, and skill. And it never ceases to captivate.
“As soon as you have them asking “How did they do that?,” he said, “you’ve got ‘em.”

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  Bill Greene/Globe Staff

  An origami pig by Michael LaFosse was on display at the Newbury Town Library.
  
  
  
  

  
  
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  Bill Greene/Globe Staff

  LaFosse teaches a children's program at the Newbury Town Library.

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Copyright 2012 The New York Times Company