Continued from Page 8 throughout the year. This year, Aarts has themed her 100 days around creating miniature, intricate collages of local natural scenes, including spots like Cape Disappointment and the Astoria coastline. “It’s been a really fun project for me, I actually really enjoy it,” she said. For her collages, Aarts builds her pieces mostly with recycled scraps of paper left over from magazines and other mediums. Aarts will also incorporate handmade pieces she colors with water- colors and colored pencils to fill in spaces where she doesn’t have scrap paper that works. “I’m an artist, I always have scraps of paper,” she said. “ I don’t throw anything away.” Over the years, Aarts said her style of art has evolved and gone through differ- ent iterations, ranging from watercolors to collages. Throughout the years, a focus on the environment and love for the nature around her is something that has stayed consistent in Aarts’ work. She said she loves exploring themes of the environment in her work to share how beautiful and impactful natural surroundings are. Aarts’ love for incorporating the envi- ronment into her pieces has really shined through in the 100 Days Project, she said. “I’ve always been someone drawn to nature and to wildlife, I care very deeply for it,” she said. “I’m a total naturalist at heart.” Growing up in Florida, Aarts was sur- rounded by wetlands. Now living in Asto- ria and being surrounded by the mountains Prints created by Aarts. and ocean (and going whale watching now and then), Aarts has found herself inspired retailers as well, all on one site so you by the rolling landscapes of the Pacific could shop all the local makers with one Northwest. shopping cart,” she said. “I’m always inspired by all of it,” she There was no shipping or delivery said. involved. Instead, customers picked up As she has watched the impacts cli- their orders curbside-style, Aarts said. mate change and humans have had on “One of the coolest things about the the planet, Aarts said she wants to reiter- event was that all of these artists I didn’t ate through her pieces how important it is know existed in Astoria found an easy humans treasure natural resources. way to put themselves out there,” Aarts Aarts said she has loved participating said. in Astoria’s local arts community in the Based on the success of the event, she past few years. She feels that moving to is thinking about bringing it back this year Astoria and having such a supportive local but nothing is set in stone yet. arts community has allowed Papernoten to This summer, Papernoten can be found flourish. on weekends at the Astoria Sunday Mar- ket where Aarts will have a booth most Last year, she organized the Astoria Sundays through the early fall. Home for the Holidays event, a one-day Aarts said once the 100 Days Project online sale that brought together about 60 wraps up, she’s looking forward to focus- local vendors’ work to sell online to the ing even more on the environment in her North Coast. pieces and working on a collection of “The idea was that it was all local. I watercolor collages. had local artists and small businesses, Photos by hailey hoffman/The astorian Thursday, May 27, 2021 // 9