The Assignment: Design and create a place for an egg that 1) celebrates some quality of "eggness", and 2) is a clearly defined space for the egg to be. Our materials were limited to paper (no adhesives).
I started with research of eggs and made a couple of webs with what I found.
Then I found the Orphic Egg.
First Iteration: I liked the idea of the metaphor of the egg as nascent life and the serpent as the fire that fuels the birth of the divine self. I made the connection to an article I'd read about ayahuasca, a South American hallucinogen that causes the same visions of serpents, twisted ladders, and such in almost everyone who takes it. (See this article from The Walrus magazine.) There is an idea that the vision is the unifying energy in all living things, which to a molecular biologist, is DNA. So we have a union of opposites--mythology and science. I decided to use the Orphic (or Orpheus) Egg. The spiraling snake would be the place for the egg. Its body would be the twisted ladder of DNA.
Gravity and the limitation of using only paper to build a supporting, upwardly moving structure thwarted my scheme. I tried twisting paper and Origami but nothing worked. All I had to show for my first iteration were a few orange origami triangles. Dumb old physics!
Second Iteration: I talked with Suzanne and she helped me distill my idea down to one phrase: the unity of opposites. The egg symbolizes the unity of male/female; delicacy/strength; openness to the environment/shelter; beginning/end, and so on. Then I remembered one of my all time favorite math "tricks": the Mobius Strip. You can make one! It continued the idea by uniting the opposites of inside/outside. It's simple to make out of paper and its gorgeous curves are perfect for nestling an egg.
I used heavy white bond paper, and painted a 6" wooden egg with white gesso. Since white is the combination of all colors in the light spectrum it fit with the unifying of opposites idea.
This attempt was successful. I tried it with a few different kinds of paper and also tried glazing the papers with a white glue and water mixture. I also had to try a few different styles of tabs for closing the Mobius strip, and then had to practice a few times with the style I chose. I planned to set the egg on top of the closure and I wanted it to be as smooth and invisible as I could make it.
I really like the result. It's simple and sensuous. I think it makes the "unity of opposites" visible in its structure for those who want to ponder it. Otherwise it just looks neat and the egg has a definite place to be.
Lessons Learned: I started with a jumble of big, loosely connected ideas and images that weren't clearly focused or articulated. That led me to try an over-complicated design. What I learned is that I have to take that unwieldy, beginning mess of images and ideas and pare it down, and then pare it down again until I get to the essence. I had to be willing to let go of my favorite parts of the design if they did not work. When the idea became clear and simple, clear and simple design followed.
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