The Perfect Glider

It could be a full blown career as a professional artist or simply a clever workaround when using that complicated spreadsheet your boss sent over on Friday afternoon. Creativity is a natural human behaviour, whether we like it or not everyone has a creative flair, the key is self-acknowledgement.

Personally, arts & crafts have been a huge part of my life ever since I found inspiration from a coffee table my great grandfather made, although this was later debunked by my uncle. Even after that, I was already way too invested. Still under the impression creativity was in my blood or maybe my stubbornness not to admit it might not be after all. I actively make things.

Fifteen years on, I now have a three year old son and another in the pipeline. Still making things, painting, making furniture, writing and designing detailed plans on ‘SketchUp’ for my dream home (I will build one day!). My enthusiasm for creativity is often brought to the fore while playing with my son, between tantrums and toilet training that is.

Last summer we ‘collaborated’ on some paper maché sculptures. Ripping up hundreds of old payslips from a coffee shop I worked at for at least 5 years after graduation (a by-product of going to art school perhaps). He helped slop all the velvety mix onto the structures I’d made. Sitting back with a coffee I watched him paint them, the evening sun lowering overhead. An image fondly burnt into memory. Hey! This isn't the craft I wanted to tell you about though.

The craft project which really stuck with me since childhood and something I'm passing on to my children, is how to make The Perfect Glider. A paper plane made with a complex origami structure, introduced to me while in junior school.

In the summer months, we used to make paper planes and throw them off the sandstone quarry my school was built on. (The same quarry that the ‘Quarry Men’ derived their name from, a band which later evolved into ‘The Beatles’). We all stood watching our planes soar with promise for quite an impressive three or four seconds until they dipped and crashed into the gardens below. The record was 5 seconds of flight, which I proudly held, until one day.

A classmate calmly walked up to the take off spot, holding an unusual looking craft. He gently threw it with no force, just an elegant flick of the wrist and it was off. Gliding for well over twenty seconds into the horizon, towards a tower block, which was always our de facto target. Nobody could believe their eyes. My classmate coveted its secret construction all summer until one day, after months of persuasion, negotiation and trading some pogs, he shared the secret blueprint with me.

By using one crisp, flat and untampered rectangle piece of paper, a sharp pair of scissors* and a series of precise and calculated folds with one small particular square cut, I (and hopefully one day, my children) are able to create a paper plane which can soar high and far, reaching the treetops and beyond. When I make The Perfect Glider for the upteenth time, demonstrating it to my son and watching it fly across our garden, over our fence and into our neighbors, neighbors, neighbors garden, the memories flood back to on top of the quarry, innocent and free, just as my son is now. If I'm certain of one thing, creating is vital for happiness.

*As this story is rooted in nostalgia, I thought I should mention the scissors I used to make ‘The Perfect Glider’. When growing up I always picked up my mother's pair of orange handled ones from the kitchen drawer. It was only recently when out shopping I spotted the same pair of scissors I knew so well as a child, they were in fact Fiskars! I bought a pair, naturally.