(gentle music) - My current form of art is called abstract quilling.

I got started with quilling not really until right before the pandemic.

I've been working with paper for a little over 10 years.

Quilling is taking a strip of paper and coiling it into different shapes to create decorative patterns.

A lot of quilling, back in the earlier, you know, 1950s through the 1970s, the quilling images were more of birds and flowers and plants.

And I took it to an abstract place with lots of color.

And my background in interior design took me to that place where I use more scale, and balance, and rhythm, and texture.

So my pieces are not representational of anything.

They're abstract.

I don't sketch, everything starts out freeform, but I start playing around with a color palette first to see how different colors work together.

Because I put multiple colors in one quilled piece, I need to see how they work together.

I'm very fortunate there are enough quilling paper suppliers out there now.

There's a couple that I go, that are my go-to because they'll offer 300 plus colors.

Most quilling suppliers will offer about 50 different colors.

I am currently in the process of creating my own materials library.

I want a little more freedom in the size of the paper, the thickness of the paper, the length of the paper strips.

And so I'm working with a printer to build my own materials library because I think that will be important as I move forward to keep my own unique representation of quilling.

One goal I have for every piece I make that is a standard piece that would hang on a wall is that I want it to look one way when you're at a distance.

But I want it to draw the viewer in.

I want them to get as close as possible to the piece.

I have a piece hanging in a client's home and it's been hanging out for a couple of years, and she still calls me and she goes, "I just noticed this one little bit that you put in there that I hadn't seen yet."

And that's what I want.

I want people every time they walk by my art in their home to discover just one little thing that might be a little new to them.

And yet when you step back and view it, you get the whole overall feel.

(gentle guitar music continues) They're very simple tools in quilling.

And you have a tool that helps you coil the paper.

And I have some molding tools.

I use paper punches as molds.

I found a cookie cutter company that does 3D printing of cookie cutters.

You can get 'em in every shape and size you possibly want.

I use those in my molds.

So I love the simplicity that you can take this very simple tool and this very simple material, and yet create something spectacular with it.

(gentle guitar music continues) We were in the pandemic and I was sitting and making art.

I had just left my career to go out on my own.

And a friend of mine said, "When you have work to show, you need to go talk to Scott and Rick at Swanky!

Interior Design Gallery.

I think your work would be a good pairing for their business."

And so once we came out of the stay-at-home order and I had a couple pieces framed, I called and made an appointment with them.

I brought two pieces out, and we just hit it off.

And my work was hanging within two hours.

And I've been with him for three years now.

And so it's a good relationship for where I want to take my own artwork.

(gentle guitar music continues) Paper art allows me to tune things out and allow things to be discovered.

It marries both my analytical side and my creative side.

I'm very organized, I'm very detail-oriented, and yet I'm also creative and free in my creativity.

So what was so great about quilling was that the individual piece production and that detail-oriented, rolling the paper and keeping it clean feeds one part of me.

And the laying out and seeing what comes out of the design of it feeds another part of me.

(gentle guitar music continues) Paper's really my first love and it's where I wanna stay.