Artist reflects on the natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest with a knife and paper

Transcript

Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors.

Amna Nawaz: Paper cutting is an art form that is believed to date back to the invention of paper itself in China around 2,000 years ago. Since then, many cultures around the world have developed their own unique styles.

Special correspondent Cat Wise recently visited an artist whose paper cutting is inspired by the natural beauty and the people of the Pacific Northwest.

It’s part of our arts and culture series, Canvas.

Cat Wise: Every morning, artist and author Nikki McClure takes a long walk in the woods surrounding her home in Olympia, Washington. She feeds the birds and wildlife that dwell here, and spends some time on the beach just steps from her front door. Inspiration for her art is everywhere.

Nikki McClure, Author and Artist: By the time I have taken that walk, an idea or a story will have shown itself to me. And then I sit down and work.

Cat Wise: McClure begins with a sketch, which she transfers to black paper, and then begins to work her magic with her knife. Cut by tiny cut for nearly 30 years, McClure has revealed the world she sees and the creatures in it.

Nikki McClure: My work is usually all one piece. It’s all connected, because we all are connected.

Cat Wise: McClure is the author and illustrator of 15 books, and she has collaborated on several more, including The New York Times’ bestseller “All in a Day” with author Cynthia Rylant.

She also sells her original paper cut art, prints, and a yearly calendar. McClure’s deep connection to nature and her surroundings can be traced to her early years in Olympia, when she studied natural history at the Evergreen State College.

Nikki McClure: I just kept drawing and drawing and drawing and drawing every stick, every leaf, every insect, every bird. It focused and trained my eye to see details, and then trained my hand to draw those details.

Cat Wise: After graduating in 1991, she began working at the Washington Department of Ecology and was immersed in Olympia’s vibrant music and art scene.

Nikki McClure: We all lived downtown, and these apartment buildings kind of all together, it was so spontaneous and alive. And the way that you communicated was through song or through art.

Cat Wise: For a time, McClure also wrote and performed music and lived next to one of the most famous musicians to come out of Olympia during that era, Kurt Cobain of the band Nirvana.

Nikki McClure: So, I moved into this house, and Kurt lived behind, and I shared the wall, and I could hear him play his songs through the wall. Seeing them play, there was this strong connection in this house.

Cat Wise: After deciding to become a full-time artist, McClure began experimenting with paper cutting. She self-publishing her first book, “Apple” for children in 1996.

Nikki McClure: I found that making art was a more calming way to communicate. I am singing my songs still, but there is a child in a lap, in a home, and it’s ultimately like, that’s where I want to sing my songs.

They call these X-Acto, knives, but they’re not really exact. They have this a mind of their own sometimes.

Cat Wise: On a recent morning, I joined McClure at her desk as she worked on a piece that might end up in a future calendar.

Nikki McClure: This was this one morning where I was swimming, and I had my arms in front of me. The way that the water was making my arms was that they were all squiggled. They were no longer solid, even though I knew they were solid.

Cat Wise: How do you know where to cut to make the image reveal itself?

Nikki McClure: I don’t. You just have to trust it.

What I really like about this process is that there are so many mistakes made.

Cat Wise: Really?

Nikki McClure: And that you are making mistakes over time, in the sense of like, oh, that, I don’t quite work out. But you just keep going. And, really, it’s just a piece of paper.

Cat Wise: But, oh, what she can do with a piece of paper. Many of her works are focused on her experiences as a mother and raising her son, Finn, with her husband, Jay T. Scott, a woodworker in Olympia.

Nikki McClure: It is such a remarkable gift to participate in this life as it developed and formed and grew and started asking questions like, “Mama, is it summer yet? Mama, is it summer yet? Not yet little one, but the buds are swelling. Soon, new leaves will unfold. Mama, is it summer yet? Not yet, little one, but the squirrel is building her nest. Soon, her babies will be born.”

Cat Wise: In “What Will These Hands Make?” released in 2020, McClure highlights a family and their community as they prepare for a celebration.

Nikki McClure: This is the center map spread from the book “What Will These Hands Make?” And it basically tells a story of this family, and here they are right here. They are going from grandma’s house — there’s grandma baking — all the way across town to this cake, because there’s going to be a big party at grandma’s house later.

Cat Wise: The community, filled with people who make things with their hands…

Nikki McClure: Here’s my friend Mariela’s (ph) pottery studio.

Cat Wise: .. is fictional, but many of the characters and businesses are inspired by our mutual hometown, Olympia.

Nikki McClure: Sometimes, I would row into town, and I would row over and go to the Browsers bookstores here.

Cat Wise: The real Browsers Bookshop is one of the local businesses McClure hand-delivers her calendars to each year.

Nikki McClure: Hey, Andrea. I brought you more calendars.

Andrea Griffith is the store’s owner.

Andrea Griffith, Owner, Browsers Bookshop: Nikki’s work, it feels like Olympia. It’s so tied to the natural world and she’s — I think she teaches us how to see things here.

Cat Wise: Like many in Olympia, Griffith says she feels a connection to McClure and the life experiences she reveals through her art.

Andrea Griffith: Last month’s calendar was an image of her son’s boat sailing kind of away because her son was going to college. He’s leaving, so I think we’re all a little sad.

Nikki McClure: I guess what I want people to come away with or to feel when they look at my work is a sense of place and to calm down and slow down and to just take a moment. Our lives are so fast.

Everything’s just, you know, now, now, now, now, now that we forget even what time of season it is. The picture can transport them to a quiet, slow, still moment just for a brief second.

Cat Wise: McClure has been working on illustrations for a new book, which will be released in March.

For the “PBS NewsHour,” I’m Cat Wise in Olympia, Washington.