The Aurora

Hello, and welcome. Thank you for visiting. My work has ebbed, flowed, and evolved ever since I first discovered paper cutting in 2011. Looking back, I realize I wasn't simply finding a new artistic medium—I was finding my artistic voice. 

Paper cut art as a style emerged from a period of break and restlessness.  I was 22 years old and on academic suspension from the University of Minnesota after failing a bunch of classes that spring.  Insomnia, burnout and overwhelm were my friends at the time.  A horticulture internship at the Como Park, Zoo and Conservatory in St. Paul, Minnesota that summer pulled me out of a rut and gave me a sense of rhythm and purpose.  But the summer internship ended and I had nothing else lined up!

One September day, I pored through a book I picked up at the university bookstore titled  Paper Cutting: Contemporary Artists, Timeless Craft and was immediately enthralled.

“Paper can do that?”  

“Paper can be sculpted, become 3D, create volume and dimension?”

I had a small cutting mat and began experimenting with cardstock, fine art papers, and X-Acto blades. Before academic burnout, I had thrived in studio courses and developed an appreciation for perspective, balance, and positive and negative space. My earliest paper cuts were greeting cards, but before long I was taking greater risks with larger compositions and increasingly intricate designs. 

In 2015, I opened an Etsy shop. Since then, life has been wonderfully full. I've welcomed two children, changed careers, bought and sold homes, lived through a global pandemic, relocated to central Minnesota, and begun seminary. Through every season, though, I continued making art. 

Along the way, I realized that art wasn't simply a hobby to return to when life slowed down. It had become an integral part of my vocation, informing the way I see beauty, grief, hope, and the stories people carry. 

My early 20s was a challenging season, but paper cut art was the aurora and opening to my signature style and voice.  I had no idea an art form would capture me in such a way when I felt so lost, but in our upside-down world, those periods of pause, weakness and nothingness can sometimes be the most redemptive.  I invite you to ponder any “darkness before the dawn” moments in your life, and ask, “Have I learned to befriend the version of myself who once felt so hopeless?”