I'm used to folding laundry and bills. But when I was working on "Fold Everything," a short article about innovative uses of origami, my fingers began itching to try the ancient art of paper folding.

After all, there are people creating not only fantastic paper animal sculptures but using the mathematical principles of origami to build foldable telescope lenses and heart stents and to better understand how proteins fold. Origami for art’s sake has also come a long way. The father of 20th century origami, Akira Yoshizawa (1911-2005), created more than 50,000 unique figures. The most modern folders have something Mr. Yoshizawa didn’t: mathematical principals and computer programs that help them transform flat into functional, or just plain phenomenal.

Ok, no one said there’d be math! But some of those pesky number principals are explored—in a painless way—in Between the Folds, a documentary that revved me up to try my hand. The film gets into the heads of modern origami masters—who are sculptors, scientists, mathematicians, and other sorts. These guys show just how boundless their seemingly limited medium can be. Engineer/artist Dr. Robert Lang designs everything from giant telescope lenses to a paper snake with more than 1,000 scales. Erik Demaine, a ponytailed MIT professor, even solves big mathematical problems by analyzing crease patterns in paper. Take a look-see.

Good stuff. So, though it’s been decades since I folded anything in a creative way, I figured I could certainly manage to come up with a simple, recognizable shape to perch in the palm of my hand.

No computer programs needed for this artist. For $10 at the local craft joint I got a pack of colored paper squares and a little booklet with instructions for a variety of origami figures. The book had no words, just pictures. The rules seemed clear. Dotted lines mean “fold here.” Arrows mean “fold this direction.” A curly cue arrow means “flip paper over.” It doesn’t get much more basic. The label on the box indicated the set was appropriate for ages 8 and up. I’m certainly in the “up” category. No sweat.

One artist in the film says "the process" is the point of origami. My process took an hour and included many crumpled sheets and two paper cuts. My results: a cup (more like a fries container) and a Samurai hat, each a little crooked but recognizable. I was going to attempt the crane—the classic origami animal—but all those dotted lines and arrows made me dizzy. Apparently, folding neatly and correctly isn’t my thing—which I should have known from the state of my linen closet. So I packed the rest of the paper back into the box, threw the instruction booklet on top, and gave the whole thing to my 6-year-old niece. With her more flexible mind, able to (dare I say) fold around new ideas, she’ll no doubt have a flock of cranes in no time.

Me, I’ll go back to folding (read: balling up) laundry and admiring the work of others who turn flat sheets into magical designs. And for those stiff-brained adults among you inspired by the film to start folding, here’s some advice: Skip the cup, go right to the hat. At least you can wear it to a party.

Oh, and I’d also recommend watching video demonstrations instead of trying to decipher a scribble of lines and arrows. Here’s a challenging one to try. If you succeed, you'll have made a swallow! —Jennifer S. Holland

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