Natalie Welborn came to the age-old art of paper cutting with a can-do attitude that belied her education in the sciences. With scissors and glue she discovered her left-brain artist within.

“I’m pretty much completely self-taught since I started my paper-cutting journey, but I knew a little bit about the art beforehand. In 2008, when I was 18, my aunt and uncle took me to an art fair near Redbud, Illinois. I met a woman there named Polly Mitchell who was making these incredible paper cuts. I said ‘I wish I could do that,’ and she encouraged me to do it. She told me the kind of scissors to get, and told me to get some paper, so I did,” Welborn says.

With that nod of encouragement, Welborn took scissors in hand and started cutting. In 2020 she kicked her art into high gear. “I had more ti

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