critically thinking / folding 📚 

There have been some deep and thoughtful analysis about origami. One of the most eloquently written article on the topic is by John Smith about origami profiles. As he elegantly explains: 

Recent attempts to define Origami have prompted me to reconsider the problem as one in which the individual’s view of Origami itself constitutes a definition. By showing the individual’s view as a graphic profile one can see how such common ground there is amongst folders. This seems a more fruitful approach than trying to supply an authoritative definition.

The term ‘pure’ is not meant as a judgement but simply to express the restriction of material and techniques to the minimum from which variations are most easily shown. In its most limited form only the technique of folding should appear – without this we should have no Origami.  

Here are some of my thoughts on things I have learnt through origami, and thought about a little bit more, that I think is applicable to other types of arts and crafts.

There are also some helpful tips compiled by teachers and educators who want to further their knowledge and skills through teaching.

On time and the environment

There is often a misconception about the amount of time you have to spend on creative activities to get the benefit. To improve in something requires the repetition of an activity over time, the integration of the activity into your conscious and subconscious subconscious mind, and the strengthening of your muscle and cognitive memory. Here frequency and regularity is a much more sustainable process compared to infrequent and high intensity experiences.

In terms of time, there is also a distinction between the preparation time, the actual time it takes to carry out the activity, and finally the recovery time required physically as well as mentally.

When we engage in an activity, our perception of time is often altered by the way we feel about what we are doing, however, the effect isn't always as we might expect. Our experience of time is influenced by our point of reference (i.e. the change our environment like the sun and moon light, but usually our clocks), but once we stop focusing on an objective measure of time, we can experience it in a different way. Have you ever had times when you felt like something fun only lasted a short time (when you are on vacation), or maybe something boring just continues on endlessly (like waiting in a queue)? It is possible to experience something enjoyable that feels much longer than it actually is? Most people would describe the meditative experience achieved when you are being mindful or in the flow state as something similar. It could be because we have removed our reference of time and replaced it with something that is subjective, so it can be as long or as short as you want it to be.

There is also a common misconception about the type of environment you need to be able to focus on the activities. While it is true that origami doesn't require a lot of materials or equipment at any given time, there is still an optimal set of conditions (subject to individual preferences) that will help to achieve the best outcomes. Nevertheless, mastering the mind is often more difficult than mastering the conditions, because our mental state is much more fluid compared to the physical surroundings.

Doing meditation or yoga can be easier in a quiet studio or out in nature. But when you have mastered your mind and your your craft, you will find yourself able to adapt to the conditions to perform at your peak. When we start to learn or practice something new, it is ideal to do this in an optimal environment, as this allows you to focus solely on gaining the knowledge and skills required to build a solid foundation at the early stages. As you progress through higher levels of proficiency, you'll begin to rely less on the materials and equipment, as you begin to trust your mind, body and the techniques you have developed.

Next time you see someone practice meditation in a noisy and crowded space, or watch someone create beautiful calligraphy using basic pen and paper, perhaps you are witnessing a person who has mastered their art and are not influenced by their environment the same way that we are. 

The medium + technique

We often associate a particular category or style of art with the physical qualities of the medium through which the artist works. These materials determine the type of techniques required to manipulate its properties. This is how we can easily distinguish a glass blower from an origamist.  

Many people (including orgamists) have this notion of ‘pure origami’ that is practised by folding a single square piece of paper without cutting or glueing. However, this is a relatively modern concept which does not appear in any of the early literature about origami that we have knowledge of.  And if you think about the process of paper making, it involves the binding of pulp together and the cutting of larger sheets of paper into smaller sheets. So the paper that is used in origami simply has to be something that can be folded, like a sheet of nori or flower petals. We’ll talk about making origami without paper, hands or vision somewhere else.

If we open our mind to the possibilities of different mediums and techniques, we can greatly broaden our experience and understanding of the art form that we practise. For example, Leaf Beast by the artist Baku Maeda shows what's possible when we use dried leaves (that many would consider too brittle to fold) and make minimal cuts (that many would not consider to be origami) to create his interesting creatures. 

I have also tried to make a flapping bird origami model from soft fabrics that don't hold creases very well, and I was able to use an iron to keep the creases in place, and sewed the fabric onto another piece of fabric in such as way that if you moved the fabric then the bird will move. In fact, here's an interesting experiment that involves making the flapping bird model from different types of paper found around the house.

And what about the techniques involved in folding? Does it have to be done by hand? What kind of tools are allowed? If we want to make art accessible to a wider audience, we need to look beyond such a narrow definition of the medium and the techniques, and we’ll discover that you can fold something as small as proteins and as large as satellites! 

The body (and its senses)

Most forms of art involve our tactile and visual senses, and because we are so dependent on these, it is hard to appreciate how some of the senses relate to each other in a creative or artistic sense. People who experience synesthesia can appreciate this better than most, but it is not difficult to experience a heightened appreciation if you take the time to switch off the dominant senses.

• Tactile: origami paper is commonly sold in standard sizes of 75 × 75 mm (about 3 × 3 inches), 6-inch squares and 10-inch squares. When you make things on different scale and go beyond these sizes, you start to utilize different body parts and muscle groups; something different also happens when you perform folds using your non-dominant hand (for those who are not ambidextrous); how about when you use assistive technology to manipulate things without using your hands (like voice control for devices or eye movements for playing games).

• Visual: for a lot of people it can be an unnerving experience to work with materials using your hands without visual input and feedback, but this is when many of the other senses kick in. Think about what happens during a blackout at night and you are fumbling around in the dark to look for your torch or mobile phone. All of a sudden you become much more aware of what your body comes into contact with, and also what you hear. If you have ever tried folding origami behind your back (maybe as a party trick) or under a table you might know the sensation; compare this to when you close your eyes or put on a blindfold.

• Auditory: it is not often that you hold the paper close to your ears and listen to the sound generated by the folding of the material (but you should try with your eyes closed some time), so we might use a simpler analogy in another type of art. Musical instruments create a very strong connection between physical movements and sound, but instruments like theremin that is controlled or played without physical contact removes that restriction; mimicking sound effects that we hear in movies rather than capturing the sound directly is also an interesting thing to consider about the disconnect that we often have between what we perceive and how we process the information, such as the sounds of weapons firing in space that physically doesn't exist

• Olfactory: the sense of smell has an interesting connection to our memory, and it is a shame that we don't get the opportunity to experience this in many of the art that we practice, because often it is intrinsic to the materials that we use; folding origami using different types of flowers can certainly give you this experience.

• Gustatory: we often talk about the sense of taste in the context of cooking, but we should also remind ourselves that the culinary arts involve all the other senses too; there a lot of types of edible art (like the origami nori we mentioned earlier) that invites us to add the sense of taste to our creations as well.

The mind

After talking so much about the physical elements like the medium and the body, we are left with probably the most important aspect, which is the mind. Because believe it or not, even without the medium and the body at your disposal, there are things you can create with your mind that can be just as beautiful.

• Emotional: it doesn't actually take physical stimulation to evoke emotional aspects of the mind, you only need to be able to visualize or make indirect connections to that part of your brain; think about the feeling that you get from hearing a piece of music, or even the memory that the sound triggers.

• Social: being in an environment where people are being creative and soaking up the energy from other artists and creators, or feeling completely focused on what you are doing without realizing that there are other people around you; you can be alone without feeling lonely, or feel lonely even when you are in the middle of a crowd

• Cognitive: when you are very familiar with the medium, techniques and in tune with the senses that are stimulated in the process of creation, you are able to visualize what you are doing without any physical stimuli; think about how you can recognize a piece of music from the specific set of movement that produces a certain melody without having to hear it.

The emotions

Delving deeper into the connection between the mind and the body, we come to an interesting subject relating to our emotions. We know the effect that emotions can have on our physical performance, and that physical activities (and the outcome of those activities) can induce a range of feelings. You can explore the vast landscape of emotions in the Atlas of Emotions, and here are some thoughts on the types of emotions that we normally associate with creative activities:

• Fear: often associated with danger or threat to our safety and well-being that leads to feelings of terror or anxiety, this primal emotion is very powerful and expressive when channelled into creative activities. Many creative activities involve some elements of uncertainty and the unknown, so it is important to recognize how this emotion can be inhibitive to people wanting to try new things or take risks. However, when you overcome a particular fear through gradual and measured steps, it provides a positive experience that allows you to expand your horizons, and allows you to travel further in your creative journey. In origami, there are sometimes unavoidable trepidations about tackling something really complex or foreign. But there is always comfort in knowing that complex models and folds usually consist of simpler things that you can break down methodically, and once you have attempted something new, it ceases to be unfamiliar.

• Disgust: often a sign of something that is potentially harmful to us, this feeling translates into a dislike or reluctance that we associate with an idea or action. People talk about the concept of something being physically or socially toxic, yet it is also important to recognize that toxicity is relative to the dosage that is administered to an individual. This means that whether something is medicine or poison (i.e. when we talk about drugs) often depends on the dosage, and that poison in the eyes of one person could very well be medicine in the eyes of another. Similar to our experience of fear, there is caution that needs to be exercised when it comes to disgust, without it stopping us from being able to exercise our creativity. When you realise that the concepts and techniques involved in origami extend beyond simply the folding of paper with your hands, you'll be able to see how any creative activity can help improve your mental health and well-being.

• Anger: to most people the feelings of anger ranges between a simmering annoyance and an eruption of overwhelming fury, and an undeniable source of energy that flows through your entire body.  Being aware of the emotions and finding the appropriate moments and channels to release or vent them allows you to direct some of the remaining energy towards something creative. When you become very familiar with an origami model, it provides a very direct and controlled way to focus that energy onto an object and away from your mind.

• Sadness: it is not uncommon to experience the mixture of disappointment and despair that comes with the feeling of sadness. Often it is a matter of perspective and expectations, because disappointment comes with expectations that are not met, and despair comes with the perspective that hope is absent or lost. We can instead measure our progress towards a long term goal, and take our short term losses with the view that it is not just the outcome that we need to give weight to, but that the process is also a critical part of the experience. A common reason for people to stop doing origami is due to the disappointment of not being able to complete something, but we should think about origami not as a set of instructions, but more like a puzzle (same as Wordle or Sudoku). The main benefit comes from the process of stimulating your mind rather than being able to solve the puzzle. 

• Enjoyment: peace and happiness that we often focus on and prioritise compared to the other emotions. In origami it is commonly associated with the completion of a model after struggling through the various steps, or finally understanding the instructions that you have been staring at and folding for some time. This relates to how we interpret the relationship between happiness and contentment. But just as we have seen how each of these primary emotions vary in intensity and characteristics, there are also negative aspects of enjoying something to excess. Also, we don't necessarily want our joy to come at the expense of someone else's misery, nor do we want it to become a feeling that takes a strong hold on us, so it is important to participate and contribute to not only our own enjoyment but also to share in the feeling or pay it forward.

We often think about addiction in association with physical substances or visible behaviours, but much of the underlying drivers are related to the feedback loops and cognitive patterns of our mind. And some of the most powerful drivers and levers of the mind are our emotions. Individually, each of the primary emotions are capable of motivating us to do creative things, but it is only when all the emotions are well balanced that we can be at our most creative and productive. Achieving a balance doesn't mean giving the same weighting of time and energy to each emotion, but understanding how they contribute to an overall picture of good mental health and well-being.

Additional observations

Some art forms typically have a very specific type of meaning, such as the trimming of the bonsai trees, the repairing of vessels in kintsugi, creating a balanced rock stack or making sand art in the open or at the beach. However, this perception is usually due to the focus on a particular part of the art rather than the entire process. Taken as a whole, you'll find and be able to appreciate the entire range of knowledge, skill and experience involved.

Some art forms are more dependent on a particular sense, like music requiring your hearing, sculpture requiring your sense of touch, or cooking requiring your sense of smell and taste. However, when you start experimenting with switching or focusing on other senses, you will begin to appreciate how the different senses complement your experiences and bring you new insights. For example, a well-trained musician recognizes the sounds produced by the movements associated with an instrument the same way a person who has lost their hearing can pick up words by reading lips. Feel the Music is a program designed to teach deaf children how to discover music on their own terms. Sculpturing in the digital world requires slightly different movements compared to the physical world, and it opens up the possibility of creating objects for people without the use of their hands. Cooking without a sense of smell and taste requires an understanding of the visual and tactile cues of the ingredients as you combine them physically and chemically. 

Techniques used in different art forms are often applied differently when trying to hone specific skills. For example, to improve dexterity in origami you can fold the same model of increasing smaller size; in calligraphy this is done by writing characters or words in increasingly larger size. However, there are also techniques common to all forms of art such as mental imagery and visualization that can be used to guide our movements or vision for the artwork to be produced.

Techniques used in particular art forms are more suited to honing specific types of skills because of how they are commonly practised. Something that can be controlled more precisely using a particular type of medium or technique might prove to be more challenging in others. For example, the use of origami to develop visualisation skills is based on the basic origami models being of simple and straight creases; the variability in how the glaze turns out in pottery is an exercise in preparation and letting go. Also, in the different styles of painting we can see how the different mediums and techniques allow us to exercise as much or as little control we want over the way the colours, lines and shapes behave.