Origami with Lexus Cars?

Yes! Toby’s Garden Festival 2025…

May started with a sparkle - rather like the bubbles that flowed throughout the two day festival, the glorious sun reflecting on the Lexus cars, and of course the colourful flowers on display (and our attire!) that were as bright as the smiles of all that visited.

I had the pleasure of showing my origami artwork in collaboration with Lexus at Powderham Castle, and the delight of sharing the history and heritage of Japanese craftsmanship celebrated in Toyota’s ‘Takumi’ philosophy. A concept that embodies the highest level of skill, dedication, and artistry in craft. This can be found in the Lexus cars that were on display, and I was honoured to be selected to demonstrate this through paper engineering.

I displayed Origami - folding paper, Kirigami - cutting paper, and Kusudama - a modular ‘ball’ of flowers.

In total across the two days we folded an impressive 264 cherry blossom flowers, that’s 132 people who participated in a demo to take/make and wear a beautiful handmade creation of patterned petals with pink cherry blossom centre.

What a wonderful way to celebrate the season and garden festival with the lovely visitors of all ages. There was many a ‘wow’ as their flower unfolded in a magical transformation from folding-cutting-revealing and of course lots of delight in the wearing!

Here’s the event in photos and film, and a lovely quote kindly sent to me via email:

‘I really loved your origami at Toby’s Garden Fest and enjoyed making the flower with you… I also love your message of peace that travels with your beautiful art work. Your stall was an unexpected delight. Thank you.’

Taking this moment to reflect on the two-day festival which was truly a feast for the eyes in plants and design, arts and crafts, food and drink, with fabulous organisers, staff, and stand holders throughout the entire event. If you haven’t been I certainly recommend it, and if you have - what a gem to have found. I hope to see you again in the future…

Castle Courtyard opening in the early morning to start the festival.

Do please get in touch if you took part and you visit North Devon - I’ll be opening a studio soon, or if you’d like to know when I’m next at an event/exhibition/workshop to join my mailing list just email me or keep an eye out for my socials online.

Thank you for reading,

Caroline