Name: Amy Flurry
Nikki Salk
Nationally: American
American
Profession: writer and co-founder of Paper-Cut-Project
blogger, artist, co-founder of Paper-Cut-Project
Place of Residence:Athens, Ga, USA
Atlanta, Ga, USA
Who are Amy Flurry and Nikki Salk?
Amy: For fifteen years I have been writing for fashion and lifestyle magazines and that evolved into editorship roles where I also styled and produced the pages. My main contribution in the conceptualization of Paper-Cut-Project, which we launched only a year ago this month, was the confidence I had in Nikki, that she had the refined eye and skill to fabricate ideas much larger than what she had ever worked on. I'm sure this is more than she bargained for, but in a good way.
Nikki: Practicing art and paper technique for more than seven years, I received my Bachelor of Fine Arts in Interior Design form the Illinois Institute of Art in Chicago. After graduation, I opened (and eventually closed) an upscale women's clothing boutique. Before, during and after the closing, I was and have been a freelance artist, creating paper sculptures specially commissioned by private clients. Now, along with my own art business, I have happily joined up with Amy and together we are Paper-Cut!
Describe your work for someone who hasn't seen it before.
Picture a perfectly natural leaf that folds and folds again, ties, ducks under, rises, curls, roles, spreads wings, grows fur and might even form eyes, all without moving at all. It's the opposite of trickery and a reminder: that's what white paper can do - allow you to use simple tools to cut it, shape it and recombine elements to form a new whole. Whether adornment, flora or fauna, mean to be a mask or to be unmasked, these not so delicate paper objects behave like trifles, flat sheets of vellum that slipped into adolescence overnight and wake into morning to become imperfect, handmade things. While we work hard to let the paper do what it does, which is to allow a bit of soft finery back into an over-polished world, when our designs come close, but not too, to what I had imagined, I always remember: no two snowflakes are identical either.
How did the Paper-Cut-Project Start? Who and what made you come up with the idea of creating with white paper?
Nikki had long nurtured affection for paper through her own art and some of it hung on the walls of her Atlanta boutique. I am a veteran fashion editor and writer and frequented her store. Over time, we realized we shared a love of fashion and the fantasy in storytelling as it played out in campaigns, runway productions and fashion spreads. When hard economic times fell on the publishing industry and simultaneously on the store, which she closed, it created both the time and opportunity for us to work together. Nikki had been creating paper art as a side business for six years and I picke up the necessary skills to create cohesive tandem projects. It naturally came about that paper should become a main feature of what it was we were going to do together. At this point it is really difficult to say exactly who does what.
Together we conceptualize collections and campaigns and we both cut every last bit with an X-acto knife. Nikki is the overall senior/lead artist and I create the textures and repeat cuts, which are thousands of tiny cuts for each piece. PCP is a new installation design element using expressive cutouts. The result are fantastical and very pronounced styling elements that we long imagined could and should be part of fashion spreads, runway productions and even home decor.
Your work is interesting...fun, yet but using total white it gives it a very modern, polished feel. Why no color?
Nikki: We aim not to use color because the minute it is introduced, the intrigue of lines, shapes and textures become less apparent. The stunning contrast shadows can make on pure white layered paper, cannot be created nearly as effectively when using colors.
List 5 Random facts about yourselves.
Amy:
I secured my first national magazine job on the floor of a late night disco.
I will always look to vintage first and have a few dresses in my closet that cost me less than $25 that predominant designers have tried to buy off my body!
I collect obscure book titles by Henry Miller and Lawrence Durrell.
I really love attending middle school basketball games.
There is a delicious lunch spot where I live - Martis at Midday- that named a sandwich after me. "The Amy" which is a curry chicken salad with fruit on a brioche.
Nikki:
I was once fluent in German.
I love Proenza Schouler, Rodarte and Balenciaga.
I am a big J.R.R Tolkein fan.
Escher, Dali, Van Gogh and Botero are my favorite artists.
I generally only eat the frosting on cake.
Volume is...
Nikki: Volume is the perceived mass of an object that fills up empty space.
http://www.paper-cut-project.com/
Nikki: We aim not to use color because the minute it is introduced, the intrigue of lines, shapes and textures become less apparent. The stunning contrast shadows can make on pure white layered paper, cannot be created nearly as effectively when using colors.
List 5 Random facts about yourselves.
Amy:
I secured my first national magazine job on the floor of a late night disco.
I will always look to vintage first and have a few dresses in my closet that cost me less than $25 that predominant designers have tried to buy off my body!
I collect obscure book titles by Henry Miller and Lawrence Durrell.
I really love attending middle school basketball games.
There is a delicious lunch spot where I live - Martis at Midday- that named a sandwich after me. "The Amy" which is a curry chicken salad with fruit on a brioche.
Nikki:
I was once fluent in German.
I love Proenza Schouler, Rodarte and Balenciaga.
I am a big J.R.R Tolkein fan.
Escher, Dali, Van Gogh and Botero are my favorite artists.
I generally only eat the frosting on cake.
Volume is...
Nikki: Volume is the perceived mass of an object that fills up empty space.
http://www.paper-cut-project.com/
