paper chase

are you on holiday somewhere sunny? i am not going anywhere and have been thinking of a painting project – to paint dull and naff walls crisp white in my flat. so, when i took some interior books off the bookshelf for inspirations, i came across my old scrapbook, which i made during my “flower london” era when i was studying floristry at college and working as an apprentice for jane packer. the scrapbook, however, doesn’t suggest my then-obsession with flowers. it was paper, such as tickets, stamps and labels. you know, ubiquitous things you find in foreign countries, materials and colours are slightly different from ones you familiar with, which fascinate me a great deal.
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i’ve been prone to accumulate pretty little but trashy things like ribbons and wrapping paper since my childhood, anyway. you can call me a real scrap-maniac or a rag-picker. i simply could not throw them into a dust bin because i got hooked on the beautiful colours and textures of paper, let alone memorabilia like tickets of exhibitions and concerts i took my kids, or went by myself, on weekends or on holiday; postmarks on stamps reflect on how good i was in communication with my mother and friends from around the world. after all these years, i am still surprised at the supposedly big number of letters that they wrote me while living in london. i could treasure each of them in a form of a book for life.

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well, once upon a time, people bought stamps for sending letters and tickets for taking a bus and a train. In lieu of taking extra care not to lose those tiny pieces of paper, we text, email and use e-tickets for travel these days. it’s economical as well as ecologically better this way. wonderful designs can still remain in the virtual world. then again, i can’t help but feel like i am missing out on something sensuous more and more. my old scrapbook took me back to the good old days, apparently. apart from that, my scrapbook also includes my daughter’s drawing and scribbles as well as messages that i asked jane and my then-workmates to write when i was leaving london for tokyo. i rediscovered the warmth of handwriting, too.

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