Text:

Informant: “I’m used to doing this with gum wrappers mainly, that’s what we used to do in middle school. You take a rectangle and you first make it a square and then you fold it diagonally so it’s a triangle on each side. You do that twice. You bring one of the points of the outside to the middle and then you bring the other one to the other side. Instead of bringing it to the middle you bring it to the other side and the point in the middle of the triangle that you just made. Then you fold it up using the two points of the end of that trapezoid to bring it up into the middle. It looks sort of like a heart but not really. I was always taught you flip it around and make it look more heart like by rounding out the edges. It’s a heart. They look prettier when they’re made out of foil because they’re cute and tiny.”

Context:

The informant attended high school in America and learned how to make a handmade paper heart out of gum wrappers and paper. It’s a type of origami as there are many steps on how to properly form the paper to get the desired result. They were taught by their middle school friends and exchanged them with classmates.

Analysis:

Traditionally, children and teens make hearts out of gum wrappers. They fall under the material folklore as they’re a physical object and handmade. It can be made in class with resources that people often have on them. After they’re made, they’re typically traded amongst friends, acting as “gifts,” and multiple can be made. I think females are the primary producers of these fun, origami-like pieces that are traded with friends. This connects to my idea of it being a feminist approach because there’s an element of collaboration in making one for a friend and knowing that you will likely receive one. There’s also a process and method to making sure you’re following all the steps properly to produce the right result.