Paper Dolls

Every summer my sister and I spent a week with my grandmother in Alabama. We'd pile into her cream Oldsmobile—two enormous doors, no air conditioning, hot vinyl seats—and drive to "the Walmarts." We were each allowed to choose one paper doll book. Back at her little duplex, she'd save stacks of Sears catalogs for us to cut apart. We spread everything across the living room floor and built entire worlds for our paper dolls.

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I realize now that I never stopped.

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Today, I still build worlds. Only now they're made from pencil, paint, vintage papers, and memory.