Today we’d like to introduce you to Madonna Yoder.

Madonna, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I’ve been folding origami since I was in elementary school, but the thing that got me interested in origami as a career was the Geometric Folding Algorithms course that I took in my final semester of undergrad. This course introduced me to origami research and my final project was on triangular grid mazes – a way to fold whatever walls on a triangle grid you want plus a floor, all from a single sheet of paper.
I ended up with a published paper and a poster presentation at a global origami conference from that project and talked my way into an internship writing computational origami code the next year.

In February 2020 I started Gathering Folds, with a focus on tessellations made from paper or fabric (with origami or Canadian smocking techniques, respectively).
At first I focused on making wall art, suncatchers, pillows, and scarves to sell directly but then transitioned the next summer to teaching origami tessellations online.
Now I have numerous courses, over 500 original origami tessellation designs, and students all over the world.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Has it been easy? Absolutely not. I started my business right before the pandemic after moving to a new city where I didn’t know anyone, without any product design or marketing experience.
I’ve had to figure out everything from sourcing supplies to filming and editing my videos to producing all of my own marketing materials, all while learning to be productive without burning out.
While my business is now reliably profitable, I’m still working on paying myself more than minimum wage and figuring out the best ways to market my offerings.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I create and teach origami tessellations, which are repeating patterns folded from a single sheet of paper. Within origami tessellations, I specialize in twist-based techniques where each pattern element is folded one at a time instead of preparing all the folds in the pattern and then collapsing everything into place at once.
I’m known for simplifying complex ideas and pointing out the infinite potential options available for folding a single sheet of paper.
My students will often comment on how prolific and thorough my work is, which is exemplified by the over 530 tessellation patterns I’ve designed in the last six years and hundreds of hours of video instruction since 2021.

We all have a different way of looking at and defining success. How do you define success?
For me, success is being able to continue teaching origami tessellations and to use the revenue generated from that teaching to write and present academic papers at conferences. Other markers of success include being invited to be the special guest at origami conventions (my first one is coming up in the fall!) and spreading the joy of folding origami tessellations far and wide.

Pricing:

• My free resources include Tessellation Foundations, Advent of Tess, and Summer of Twists, all of which can be found at training.gatheringfolds.com
• Basic Twists Bootcamp is my most accessible course, at $147
• Tessellation Starter Sequence is my most comprehensive course, with 50 lessons, and costs $1197

Contact Info:

• Website: https://training.gatheringfolds.com/
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/gatheringfolds
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/c/gatheringfolds

Image Credits
Madonna Yoder