The National Geographic Museum is the latest stop in the world tour of China’s terra-cotta warriors. The silent, life-size sentries were built more than 2,000 years ago to protect the Emperor Qin Shi Huang’s throne in the afterlife. Their image projects the grandeur and mystery of ancient China—and clearly resonates in modern-day America. Advance ticket sales topped 90,000. But a visitor to the show won’t see all the terra-cotta warriors.

In China today, these stone soldiers have come to wear quite a few uniforms, and not what you would expect. In the warriors’ hometown of Xian, where I spent a year studying Mandarin, I saw statues recast with playful irreverence by the country’s youth, used as a marketing ploy to appeal to consumers, and displayed as a striking symbol of the “New China.” Clearly, the terra-cotta warriors prove you're never too old for a makeover.

This sometimes silly reinvention is actually part of a serious shift in China, as its leaders seek to shape a modern country capable of supporting 1.3 billion people without losing touch with the lessons of a 5,000-year-old history.

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.

A few years ago, artists Judith Selby Lang and Richard Lang began noticing strange rectangular plastic objects that had washed up on the beaches in Point Reyes, California. They asked around for more information. A teenager, incredulous at their ignorance, informed them that the plastic in question was a cheese spreader used in snack packs.

The artists have now collected over two tons of plastic beach trash. They transform the objects into sculptures, jewelry, and furniture. Their collection of cheese spreaders is shown above; it is part of an exhibit called “Disposable Truths,” hosted by the California College of the Arts and Stanford University.

—J.M. McCord

See more images of their work after the jump.