The majority of Kim’s artwork combines the arts of scherenschnitte and fraktur. Each piece is hand cut from fine artist’s paper, “stained” for an aged look if desired, and painted with watercolors. On personalized pieces, Kim adds calligraphy in either traditional “fraktur” lettering or in italic or Spencerian lettering.
“Scherenschnitte” literally means “scissors snipping,” and refers to the papercutting aspect of the art. Scherenschnitte is cut using tiny scissors and craft knives, and sometimes pins are used to prick designs into the cutting. Symmetrical designs were traditionally cut folded, but Kim opens up her patterns and cuts flat to avoid a fold line down the center. She often purposefully creates an assymetrical “mistake” in the pattern just for interest. Kim usually uses Mi Tientes paper by Canson, which has a high rag content and accepts watercolor and ink well, and also uses chain-laid or antique papers when doing reproductions.
“Fraktur” gets its name from the German word “fracture,” and originally referred to the broken appearance of the lettering. In Europe, the word fraktur still refers to the actual lettering or font style, while in America it came to refer to the content of the document. Fraktur in folk art, were documents that record important religious and life events, and were also used as house blessings, rewards for good students, bookplates, and writing samples. Fraktur did not usually contain papercut elements, but sometimes a cut paper border is found around a special document, and often little bits of wording is discovered upon a papercutting.
Please check out our gallery for lots of examples of our scherenschnitte & fraktur!
