The Paper Place: unwrap and explore

Wrapping paper. If you are like me, you reach for that 3-for-2 special deal at the supermarket checkout; rush home to wrap the gifts; then Christmas morning, take a dustbin bag out ready to collect and throw away all of the used paper and packaging. Did you know we are expected to throw away 227,000 miles of wrapping paper in the UK this year? That’s a forest of trees that would cover Wales.

I was asked in this article to tell you about a little shop that has just opened on Rye High Street. You probably missed it the last time you were there… and the delivery man when I visited still thought it was the health food shop, now moved next door. I stopped this week and had a look inside. And, well, as you can tell from the first paragraph, the experience has made me reflect deeply about, what I call, “the big stuff.”  Recycling. The balance of nature. Beauty in usefulness.

Step into this little gem called The Paper Place. Anwesha will greet you with her warm smile and extraordinary stories. She is the dream-developer for the beautiful paper, fabrics and many lovely gifts you will find. She asked me first to feel the sheets of paper festooning the walls. Each type of paper has a story, all of it recycled from materials such as wool, silk, and even the leftovers of ladies’ bras. All of it made by hand and screen-printed in small communities in India. (I so want to share their own history and stories, but that is for another time.)

Much of it includes gold which ensures it sparkles with richness. It is these sheets of paper which sent my head spinning about my own paper wastage. Especially when, as I was speaking with Anwesha, groups of people came into the shop and welcomed her back with absolute affection. They related to me how the paper they bought from her years before is still being used and then is ironed and rolled up ready for its next adventure. She tells me this kind of greeting happens all the time. Last week, a lady couldn’t help herself and started to dance with happiness in the middle of the shop.

Anwesha described to me her own tough personal journey to Rye. Emerging from these challenges, she made a decision to only surround herself with the energy and love for beautiful things. She points to her mantra written across the back wall of the shop. Words by William Morris stating “have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.”

Her vision of bringing the paper products to England and being able to sell them at really reasonable prices has been enabled because a) paper has a unique no import duty exemption and b) she is able to negotiate directly with the manufacturing communities of artists she has built a relationship with over the decades. Why she and her family ended up moving from London to Rye is simple: “I was looking for the sea; the sound of the waves that used to lap outside my own childhood window in Bombay.”

Perhaps like the tapestry of her own life, she envisions The Paper Place continuing to evolve and adapt. She has already almost sold out of her current stock of beautiful embroidered silk fabrics and detailed, colourful, hand-painted Christmas ornaments. She is planning workshops in the new year to teach people how to use the paper to cover containers, trays and book binding.

I found myself collecting some of the little colourful eggs really meant for Easter, just in case they sold out too. And this year, just for my husband and myself, I am going to buy her paper. It will be our special wrapping paper, to be re-used and remembered through the years to come.

Image Credits: Abigail Cooper-Hansen , Kt Bruce .