A Billion Molecular Scissors
Part 1: Introduction
Okay, so I've been thinking about wet-folding a lot.
Wet-folding, if you don't know, is a process invented by Yoshizawa (seriously, everything in origami was invented by that guy) to allow for more advanced folding techniques. Wet-folding revolves around applying small amounts of water to paper to soften it and make it more receptive to curves and multiple thick layers. Wet-folded models can be more finely detailed, more elegant, and are generally more aesthetically pleasing than non-wet-folded models. I wet-folded the Blue Shark, as well as most of the other models on this blog.
Wet-folding--especially with the particular paper I used, Canson Mi-Teintes--is an alien experience. It's really hard to explain just how strange it feels. When dry, the paper is stiff and unyielding, less "origami paper" and more "overpriced posterboard." When wet, the paper is supple and workable. The folding process feels like a strange kind of paper massage. The texture has been compared to fine leather, and I can definitely see (and feel) the resemblance. Then it dries and turns into posterboard again. This particular transformation was so jarring to me, in fact, that it drew me to a strange and uncomfortable conclusion.
We all know the rules of origami--no cuts, no glue, no more than one piece of paper. But after this model, I found myself wondering: Does wet-folding break the rules?
Part 2: The Debate
Sure, we don't cut or tape pieces of paper together during wet-folding. But selectively altering the thickness of the paper at will? That feels pretty suspect, if you ask me.
See, wet-folding doesn't just work with any paper. The key ingredient for being able to wet-fold is something called sizing: an adhesive added into a sheet of paper during the manufacturing process. Sizing agents bind the fibers of the paper together, which has several useful properties like being able to retain ink and other liquids. (Canson Mi-Teintes in particular is meant for watercolor painting.)
(Image source: https://www.paperslurry.com/2016/03/10/sizing-and-paper-watch-this-to-learn/)
When dampening the paper, the water dissolves the sizing agent; afterwards, the paper dries and hardens in place. My point, then, is that wet-folding uses glue. So it doesn't just seem suspect: it actively breaks the code of origami purism!Then again, the code only says we can't glue together different sheets of paper. Glue in only one sheet is okay, I guess? And it was added to the paper during manufacturing, so technically, we're not adding anything to the paper--every process in wet-folding is purely metamorphic and, therefore, keeping in spirit with origami purism.
But this isn't entirely the case either. Papers for wet-folding can be internally sized, but a lot of papers aren't. When folders want to wet-fold those other kinds of paper (for example, a thinner paper for a highly complex model), an external sizing agent has to be added to the surface before wet-folding (called "surface-sizing," for obvious reasons). So wet-folding does, in fact, introduce extra substances to the paper.
Of course, the things prohibited in origami (scissors, glue, and so on) are all large, visible, tactile. Methylcellulose (a frequent sizing agent) isn't. It's this weird, slippery fluid that absorbs into a sheet of paper and vanishes, leaving behind nothing but a slightly weirder sheet of paper. MC is chemical; scissors are physical. Cutting intricate slits into a piece of paper for a Senbazuru Orikata fundamentally and irreversibly changes the shape of the paper. Sizing doesn't.
But what is the difference between chemical and physical manipulations of paper, if not simply scale? The difference between cutting the paper (with scissors) and weakening/hardening it (with water and sizing) is like the difference between one giant pair of scissors and one billion pairs of molecule-sized scissors. Something changes when wet-folding a piece of paper, something on an invisible but fundamental level--the structure of the paper fibers themselves.
There aren't a ton of chemists in the origami scene, even among the technical folders. Robert Lang is a physicist, Peter Engel is an architect, and Jason Ku is a mechanical engineer, to name a few. Maybe that's why other folders don't see sizing the way I do. When you look at how their molecules are arranged, a wet, sized piece of paper and an dry, unsized piece are two entirely different pieces of paper, as distant and irreconcilable as an uncut square and one cut into a thousand smaller squares.
Part 3: The Big Question
I want this essay to get to one question: How and why do we choose the rules and restrictions of an art form?
It's not like we need to wet-fold in order to produce complex and beautiful shapes, after all. Tissue foil, and other foil-based composites, have been used to a similar effect. They're simple to make, and I've even made a few models on this blog out of them.
A lot of origami artists don't like foil. Common complaints include that the shine is unnatural, or that the mechanics of folding paper with metal in it are too cumbersome. The folding process is easier, in other words, if you use wet-folding. But the exact same thing could be said about cutting and gluing! For whatever reason, we've decided the big scissors aren't okay, but the molecule-sized scissors are... too small to count as scissors. Or something like that.
I've been writing this essay for the better part of a week, and I truly have no answer. I paid enough attention in English class to know that you're not really supposed to end a paragraph in a question. But writing convention has hit the cold, hard wall of being absolutely clueless about a major philosophical debate. So, for the time being, this paragraph, and this question, is closed.
Part 4: Where do we go from here?
I've been folding for the better part of twelve years, wet-folding for the last four. It's a great technique, really. Would I use it again? I have some big projects planned that wouldn't be possible without wet-folding, so yes. Would I wet-fold a piece of Canson Mi-Teintes paper again? Almost certainly not. I'm still uncomfortable about this one. It's a shame; the paper has a really nice texture and it comes in fifty different colors. It's available at my local art supply store, and it's considerably cheaper than the other stuff I get sometimes.
To be rather blunt, I'm simply not a good enough artist to make origami look good without wet-folding. So I'm sticking with it for the time being. Much of the origami community also wet-folds regularly, so am I insulting them a little bit? Yeah. Sorry about that.
It feels weird rejecting a technique invented by Yoshizawa himself. But I don't think the origami community is one to use tools simply because they're there. We know how to exemplify subtlety, show restraint. Origami is fundamentally a minimalist art; when we take things away, what's left only becomes greater. Maybe this essay will make someone think that way about wet-folding.
Until then, thanks for reading, and come back for the next one!
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