Paula Mills
Mad Paper Love
It all started in the schoolyard in grade one. The boys played footy, some of the girls proved their skills on the monkey bars and I quickly learnt that one way to earn major kudos was to swap pretty writing paper. I was smitten. I had a large shoe box, covered in Holly Hobbie patchwork wrapping paper and it contained what felt like gold to me; sheets and sheets of pastel-coloured, beautifully-illustrated, and sentimentally-messaged writing paper. If it was extra special the sheet may have had a matching envelope – thick, plain paper with a complementary pattern printed on the inside of the envelope! That was in Cape Town, South Africa in 1980. Many years, and three continental moves later, I still go weak at the knees at the sight of beautiful stationery. I am a bit of a hoarder. It may have something to do with the fact that my family moved around a lot while I was growing up. Every couple of years my mum would have a big clear out ready for our next move. The Holly Hobbie box lasted a few moves but not all of them. It was replaced by other boxes, folders, big brown bags, and eventually a whole trunk. I now have a few trunks full of collected paper. All through high school I kept diaries full of every tiny bit of scrap paper that ever meant anything to me (way before scrapbooking); handwritten letters, tape covers, tickets, sweet wrappers, stickers, Valentine cards, pictures cut out of magazines such as Vogue, Mizz, Just Seventeen and The Face. Again, the thicker your diary, the more interesting your bits of paper, the more respect you were given in the schoolyard. I was fortunate to be surrounded by a family that embraced creativity. My grandparents had a wonderful studio full with all sorts of art materials and stationery. I was often allowed to indulge in long hours of making collages, cutting and pasting. One of my uncles had his own business making paper and recycling cardboard, my grandfather was an illustrator, while my grandmother had a small business making beautiful marbled paper. My piles of collected paper came into use for the invitations to my 21st birthday, which were individually and painstakingly collaged. I left South Africa in my early twenties and London became my base for the next eight years. During this time I travelled, married and had two of my three babies. My love of paper never ceased. Every city I visited, every beautiful stationery shop I stumbled upon, every art shop Paper Runway / 15