Arnold Tubis
Arnold Tubis was a retired physics professor who spent four decades at Purdue University before finding in origami a second life's work every bit as rigorous and rewarding as the first. He had been folding since the early 1960s, and what began as an avocation grew into something remarkable: nine books, more than 50 articles and papers, and models exhibited across the USA, Japan, Europe, and Israel.
Arnold served as co-coordinator of the Greater San Diego Origami Group for many years, and his presence shaped the group profoundly. His box design appears on this very site — a quiet reminder that he is woven into everything we do here.
Visit his origami archiveFlorence Temko
Florence Temko was one of the most prolific and beloved authors in the world of origami and paper crafts. Over the course of her career she wrote more than 60 books — works that introduced origami to generations of children and adults who had never before thought to pick up a square of paper.
Florence co-founded this group in the early 1990s, bringing her spirit of generosity and accessibility to the local community. We miss her. We fold in her name.
V'Ann Cornelius
V'Ann Cornelius saw origami as what it has always truly been: art. Her vision helped bring paper folding out of living rooms and into the halls of museums, where it deserved to be seen.
She co-curated Origami Masterworks, one of the first major museum-based origami exhibitions anywhere in the world, held at the Mingei International Museum in Balboa Park. She co-founded this group with Florence, sharing her conviction that origami could be both high art and a communal joy.