Cut & Paste

As much as the world tries to jade and corrupt me, I maintain a soft heart firm in its belief in kindness and the kind of magic some might insist we lose with childhood. Despite maintaining somewhat of a Peter Pan syndrome all my life, doing childhood over seems a bit daunting to me; however, I’d give for certain moments again. I’d give to sit a spell at a little desk (big then; the kind with the hole for the inkpots still). I’d give to feel again the anticipation of my teacher reaching my desk, of her licking her index finger so that she might slip off two exact pieces of construction paper and leave them on the desk in front of me. All for me!

If you ever cut out strips of construction paper and weaved them together into a placemat, or cut and pasted a Valentine for your parents or best friend, then you have an idea of where my love for paper craft traces its roots from.

Ever since I began watching Canada’s most beloved children’s television show, Mr. Dressup, and was eventually and inevitably exposed to the delight that is elementary school art classes, I have been playing with construction paper. Mouth agape, I watched Mr. Dressup make wonderful, simple items like hats and telescopes out of paper, and marveled at the crunch, crunch of his scissors as they chomped through fibrous coloured paper. I sat intently, a shy child, as my third-grade teacher showed us how to make faces and flowers out of the same thick paper. I soaked up Mr. Dressup’s craftiness from the TV screen, and brought my school lessons in creativity home, where I made semi life-sized police officers and doctors out of construction paper, and as I grew older, cards for relatives and friends.

I’m not sure when the hobby turned something more… but somewhere along the way I realized I could make smaller construction paper scenes: likenesses of people and places, all with only scissors and glue (I can’t draw to save any life) and a friend commissioned me to make one for them. Until this point, I had never felt what I did worthy of any monetary compensation. Much less did I need that compensation as motivation. It was a hobby I enjoyed doing, absent any pressure to actually be good at it… But, one commission led to another, the construction paper turned into slightly higher quality fade-resistant art paper, and I unexpectedly began to hone skills I didn’t realize I had.

What I’ve learned is that a passion is as good as a talent, and a talent can only be as good as the passion you put into it. All I know is that I get lost in endless possibility and heart-calm when I cut into a piece of coloured paper and begin making pictures for folks. I love the deceptive simplicity of the art I do and how far I can delve into little details, and the sigh my insides make when I realize how what I am creating feeds my soul’s appetite.

In homage to my childhood hero, I have named my little business C & F Paper Creations, after Mr. Dressup’s endearing puppet sidekicks, Casey and Finnegan. I do not make a living at what I do, but sometimes I can pay a bill or two, and if I don’t earn anything at all, the process still makes my heart rich.

This year, during a Pandemic, I fulfilled my lifelong dream of tracking down and writing my third-grade teacher, who helped foster in me, among other things, that love for paper craft. Even better, she wrote me back!