The Art of Origami

Tiana Hayes

Origami is the art of making an object from folding paper. This object can be both three-dimensional and two-dimensional. The word origami comes from the Japanese word oru “to fold” and kami “paper”. Over the years origami has evolve from different types, uses, styles.

History

People aren’t very sure where Origami first came from. Some people think that it came from China first because that’s where paper was invented. But really it could have started wherever there was paper. In Japan it was a prominent art form, as well as in Europe from as early as 1490. Origami had gone through many different styles. In Japan, they had liked to leave it up to the imagination when it came to this folding art. While in Europe, they liked things to be more measured and aligned. And in history, origami didn’t allow anything but folding. Now some creations allow cutting and or gluing to help stabilize the final design. Not only that but there use to be a type of paper that was made for origami called ‘origami paper’, but now people use all different types of paper and other materials to do origami.

Different types of Origami

There are many different types of origami these days that help create different and unique pieces of work. Here is just to name a few.

Traditional Origami: The art of folding paper to make objects
Action Origami: A model that can interact and or do something. This includes origami that can fly, need inflating, or uses energy from a person at certain locations to move.
Golden Venture Folding: This is a folded straight forward triangular unit. This type of origami creates a 3D sculpture that include hundreds of pieces linked together.
Fabric Folding: This can be done with napkins, quilts, towels, garments and more. You normally can find this kind of folding in restaurants and hotels.
Wet Folding: This is done by spraying water on the paper. Help makes the paper easier to manipulate. Is normally done when making animal structures because they have lots of curves and edges that the paper can have a hard time getting.
Modular Folding: This is when you create a bunch of small pieces and then combine them together by folding them.