Librarian and papercut artist Muriel Wheatley posing alongside the bronze statue of George and Mary Jane Washington at Centralia’s George Washington Park.
This blue-and-gold jellyfish design is currently on display at the Rectangle Gallery.
Muriel Wheatley and beau, Levi Greenacres have teamed up to create several papercut art pieces, such as this one portraying a stork in flight.
What began as a way for two long-distance lovers to feel like they were “in the same room together” five years ago has flourished into a successful collaboration between Muriel Wheatley and her beau, Levi Greenacres, as they’ve since produced nearly 75 intricate papercut creations, seven of which are currently being featured in Centralia’s Rectangle Gallery and Creative Space.
“Back then, I was still living in Seattle. I was getting my master’s for being a librarian and we didn’t get to see each other very often,” explained Wheatley, 35, who’s been working as a supervisor at the Centralia Timberland Library for the past three years. “He would scan his drawings and email them to me and I would print them out, do the papercutting. We’d just go back and forth like that.”
Greenacres, a Portland-based tattooist and children’s book illustrator in his early 40s, was reportedly an accomplished full-time artist in his own right prior to collaborating with Wheatley in their long-distance venture, known as Lovebirds Paper.
Nowadays, Wheatley and Greenacres don’t find themselves traveling as far to see each other, as the mileage gap has lessened between the two. But that hasn’t affected their work in any way. In fact, it could be said that Lovebirds Paper creations have become even more prolific, with their pieces now regularly being displayed in galleries throughout Seattle and Portland.
This past summer, their productions were featured in an exhibit titled “Animalibris” at the Second Story Gallery in Camas.
Over the past year or so, this artistic partnership has picked up steam, as evidenced by their ability to sell roughly half of their papercut projects, many of which are animal renderings, such as a popular piece showing a small fox sniffing a leafy flower.
“I think it’s mainly drawing from what we find inspiring at any given point,” said Wheatley, an Olympia native. “It started out as solely doing birds because we both are huge bird lovers. Then we started to push ourselves and did portraits of different women, and then we moved on to different animals and different fish afterward, wanting to be more reflective of the northwest area. I wouldn’t say so far that we had a specific message to send, except for making something beautiful to put in the world.”
The representations of what Wheatley and Greenacres both respect, admire and find visually pleasing, include a sleeping fawn, swimming salmon, a majestic jellyfish, a happy toucan and an assortment of floral mixes.
Tiny versions of their papercuts have also been highlighted on jewelry, such as silver pendants that can be worn on necklaces.
Wheatley said that it takes Greenacres about two hours to sketch out his drawing before scanning it over. As for the cutting end of the process, she estimated that it typically requires her between six and 10 hours to perform her precision trimming with her trusty X-ACTO knife.
Down the road, the Lovebirds Paper duo are hoping to gain an even wider audience by having their works showcased in major markets throughout the U.S., including Los Angeles, Chicago and New York City, to name a few.
The secret behind her ability to consistently churn out new designs despite holding down a demanding full-time job, she says, is due to her viewing her artistic endeavors as a hobby or labor of love.
“I feel like a healthy dose of patience is really important. When we started, there were lots of logistical things for us to figure out how to make successful art. It took us a long time to sell our first piece. We didn’t come out of the gate (with) people ready to buy in; we really had to push it out there in the world,” she said. “I think patience and giving yourself the time and space when you come home from your day job to even work an hour toward your craft makes a huge difference.”
A catalogue of papercuts from the duo can be viewed online at www.lovebirdspaper.com.
