Paper Collage - Laura Carraro

Weekends... so nice! We met up with friends in Tarrytown, New York one recent Friday night. Not only was I looking forward to seeing them, but when making a dinner reservation, I noticed on the restaurant's website that the walls would be graced with paper collages by Laura Carraro.

What were the odds that the place we chose would be featuring paper art? Perfect... this next collage could be me caught in that happy moment - ha!

(ooh look, the case of amazing desserts is reflected in the glass)

Using handmade paper sourced from art stores and found scraps, Laura captures simple moments in time.

A keen people watcher, she holds a memory in her mind until fingers and scissors translate it into cut paper form.

Each collage conveys body language and nuanced mannerisms. Laura says she especially enjoys recreating a person who is unaware that he/she has been observed.

I asked Laura how she became interested in paper art:

"I'm not a trained artist. I come from one of those artsy families; we made our own decorations for our Christmas tree every year and spent hours painting rocks on vacation. You know the type. When I was eleven I cut up my mother's Con Edison bill with her good sewing scissors while talking on the phone with a friend."

"It never occurred to me that I was an artist while I was attending college. I chose to be a Creative Writing major with journalistic ambitions. So now I call myself a 'self-taught' artist and am currently working with a business partner on developing a line of Tear It Up cards that's almost finished."

"Our first one is a Mother's Day card, as seen on my website."