Paper - The Spirit of Matter - Orbach and Galkin, 1997
- Dec 5, 2025
- 8 min read
Medium Characteristics
Paper is one of the most useful and common materials in the world. It is made of pulverized cellulose fibers mixed with water and dried in thin layers. Some paper is made of cotton; some has color and adhesives added. Paper comes in rolls or sheets of different thicknesses and sizes. It can be folded, rolled, torn, cut, ground, glued, or used as a surface for different media and pencil works.
Therapeutic and Spiritual Significance
Historically, paper is made from plants, decomposes, and recomposes into a surface on which one can create, symbolize, and mark stories, drawings, and tunes. This is an alchemical process that begins with natural matter. The human spirit is processed into a surface in order to imprint another spiritual act upon it.
Paper represents the receptacle element in the art process, and to some extent, also tolerance and forgiveness. It affords one the experience of opportunity and starting over again and again.
Every paper unfolds a fresh option for a new mental space, an inner landscape with a different pace and essence. It is an infinite womb, continually offering a new beginning.
For some people, the crisp new space of paper will evoke freedom of expression, while in others it will provoke the fear of the blank paper, “Horror Vacui”.
In therapy, in education, and in general, paper has a major role, receptively carrying the work process and the final product. The qualities of the matter the paper is made of, the production processes, thickness, and textures—all these will determine how it responds to different art media and forms. Reaction and integration between paper and paints also depend on temperature, humidity, and the ambient temperature, especially when working with organic paper materials.
Efficient and honorable use of paper, mainly matching the work material to the type of paper, will contribute to the aesthetics and harmony between the two, and they will become inseparable. For example, patches of watercolor on high-quality paper will look brighter, richer, more elegant, and purer than if used on second-rate paper. Nib lines on thin yellowish notepaper may evoke memories of dim European museums.
Being a receptacle for the substance placed on it, thickness and texture signal different types of painting materials. Very thick paper can support a long, complicated process, loaded with layers of paint. Then, the paper and what it holds become one being with a long, multi-layered history. However, thin paper calls for browsing or moving quickly, as a well-summarized history of a short period.
In therapeutic and educational situations, it is often a good idea to offer thicker paper for gouache (240 grams), representing the therapy process and the therapist as a safe-place container - even if the client chooses thinner paper. This therapeutic intervention provides a more stable and supportive vessel for his painting work. Paper is the foundation and the earth, and without it, the painting would not exist. It needs to be stable.
However, much more can be done with paper beyond painting or drawing on it. It is a medium - a substance unto itself.
Paper as a main character:
Tearing is like breaking a taboo. When in therapy, a child is given a pile of newspapers and asked to tear them quickly. This evokes feelings of entertainment, doing something forbidden (but with permission), the legitimacy of wasting time, surprise, playfulness, enjoying sound, melody, and bodily movements. This process reflects tactile, kinesthetic, auditory, and visual modalities. It is a celebration of the senses.
Tearing can facilitate the process of ventilation of energy and expressing anger, especially if this activity is carried out intensively. As this is considered to be unacceptable behavior, feelings like anxiety and discomfort may arise. A subtle tearing, on the other hand, creates a soft, flowing sketching line. These pieces of paper can be used for collage projects.
Cutting randomly with scissors is also an action that fosters emotional release. The various shapes, planned and unplanned, can be collected or used for gluing projects. Cutting is a slow, concentrated process - the line is a kind of drawing, especially when done by older children and adolescents. Younger children, as they learn the craft, enjoy cutting with scissors or tearing with their bare hands. They are focused on their sense of control, the tactility, and the sound coming from their actions. Shapes, colors, and paper type do not interest them.
Three-dimensional paper results from folding or creasing, reminiscent of sculpting. When corrugated, a pile of torn papers acquires volume. The volume can be achieved by folding, as in origami, or by making cuts in the paper and then building one into the other. You can paste layers of paper one on top of the other or fold paper and glue the folds to create a three-dimensional block.
Paper, as a container, is not indifferent toward what is done with it. It absorbs, folds, notches, rolls, and twists; It is both rigid and flexible. It easily accepts the marks of time, light, air, and moisture, just as our human skin does.
Surfaces and Tools
Paper as a surface goes naturally with pencil, charcoal, chalk pastels, oil pastels, gouache, acrylic, watercolor, ink, and even oil paint.
Joining paper with adhesives: glue, UHU, and all types of paper glues.
Staplers and paper clips also work to join pieces of paper.
Additional tools: small nail scissors for cutting paper cutouts. Large scissors for regular cutting. Blades for cutting freehand or with a metal ruler.
Working with Paper
Collage
A patch of color or an image from a magazine can serve as a starting point for a collage that combines color, gluing, and drawing.
Children in early developmental stages often collect pictures of important things: boys usually collect motorcycles, cars, etc., and girls will mostly collect well-dressed women, cosmetics, etc. The gender is obvious, and also the need for large quantities. Usually, only after guidance, a deepening process will occur, allowing the child to choose a more accurate image, limit the amount, or even cut without considering the shape or image from which it was cut. He may look for a specific image that he feels is missing in his work.
Collage works require thorough training, abstraction skills, and an effort to organize and arrange the work organically, integrating other glued works or drawings. Usually, a good collage work will be done by a child with a natural sense of ornamentation, or after getting help with planning and organizing. Without guidance, collage works usually do not develop past the level of a concrete, perhaps meaningless, list.
Origami
In origami, there is a linear accumulation process: crease, another crease, and another one. The folding process ends with a concrete product - an airplane, a frog, or more complex works. The act of creasing combines two contrasting poles – one is the angle and the sharp and clear crease, and the other is the softness and flexibility of the paper and its nature. The process of making origami, particularly creating a defined familiar image like a ship or plane, provides rhythm, protection, constancy and a sense of predictable success. Origami can provide a creative experience even for very young children.
There is an element of surprise in presenting paper as the central matter. Since it is so useful as a working surface, other possibilities are forgotten. For example:
When a team works with paper, so that each participant is given one scrap of paper to work with, a rich variety of possibilities is discovered. It also reveals the richness of colors made by shading, creasing and textures that each pair of hands creates.
Intensive tearing and creasing of newspapers help open up creative blocks and encourage fun and freedom. These actions break myths about paper: "Do not crumple": "Do not waste"; "Do not tear"; "This is just to write or draw on"; "Do not tear out of the notebook". Instead, wide possibilities of expression and creation open up.
Drawings made from creased and folded paper can be a wonderful passageway toward the abstract. The first stage is concrete and the second stage, the drawing, opens the door to understanding the abstract.
Paper Sculpturing
Weave by preparing various colors of paper strips and weaving them in a crisscross method. This enables a rhythmic, aesthetic framework, and success is guaranteed.
Crumple the paper and use glue and a stapler to create chunks of paper, that can then be formed to build sculptures. When wrinkled and folded, these can be placed somewhere, or even hung from the ceiling or the wall. It is a sublimation process. Something "ugly" or "out of order" becomes a valuable product.
Origami (Japanese paper folding) - You can make a series of objects, animals, and various images from folded paper. These can later be processed by adding color and integrating the three-dimensional work into a drawing. This technique promotes control over the process, order, and precision, as everything is predetermined and the results are guaranteed.
Fold a sheet in half to cut out a symmetrical image: for example: an animal, a character, a mask, a tree. Due to the symmetrical division, an animal, for example, can stand on its feet. The symmetrical work creates a feeling of security and aesthetics incorporated into the process itself.
Produce paper by grinding raw material (plants) or recycled paper, diluting it with plenty of water and then pouring it on a net. While it is still wet, you can submerge in wires, objects or pieces of cloth so that they become an organic part of the paper. When the water evaporates, the paper peels off the net. It is a process of collecting and consolidating opposites into something new.
Grind paper and add plastic glue to create the sculpting matter for papier mache. You can use cardboard, cartons, or nets as a foundation. Here, the paper becomes a raw, three-dimensional, soft, and flexible sculpting material. It may evoke sensory pleasure alongside anxiety over getting dirty. A dry paper sculpture could be painted in gouache, acrylic and so on.
You can also create paper sculptures out of flat pieces of paper dipped in glue and then glued on each other.
Build a stable high-rise construction by cutting paper pieces and creating slots. Each piece stands at 90 degrees to the other. This technique enables the construction of high-rise buildings. This work enhances control, planning, and precision in performance.
Paper products, boxes, and cartons are important raw materials that mirror dealing with relations between the container and the contained, while forming structures such as a kennel, a house, a doll house, a shop, etc.
Initial Encounters
Collect various papers, whatever papers you see around. Sort them out by several different criteria. What did you discover?
Experiment with paper as a surface by choosing several papers of different weights and textures. Explore the reaction of each paper to a thick patch of color, a pencil line, or an oil pastel marking.
Cut newsprint paper. Imagine the scissors are a pencil drawing a line on the paper. Work attentively. Pick a few cuts and place them on a sheet of black poster board. Play around to create different compositions, then choose one you like and glue its pieces on.
The same exercise can be done with tearing. What is the difference between the two? o Cut papers out of magazines. Do not cut images, but abstract patches of color. When you have a rich “stock”, choose some of the pieces, create a composition, and glue it on.
Loosely glue cut or torn patches of color on top of one another, building at least six layers of paper. Start tearing and creating peepholes into what is underneath. Tearing or cutting is a drawing process that produces a composition. You can continue to glue and tear as needed.
Create paper-cutting designs by folding paper to at least four layers and cutting shapes in it. The scissors should be sharp and in good condition.
The text is based on The Spirit of Matter / A Database Handbook for Therapists, Artists, and Educators, Nona Orbach and Lilach Galkin, 1997
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