VVAA Artist in Residence Creates Artistry With Words

By BOBBIE GREEN

The Progress

The Virgin Valley Artist Association has brought Debbie Lambin as its February artist in residence. Lambin is a paper sculptor with forty-years of art experience.

Through a grant received from the Nevada Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts, VVAA was able to bring an Artist Lambin to the Mesquite Fine Arts Center for one week.
There was a lot of interest in the community for Lambin’s unique art form of paper folding and sculpturing. Her classes at the center filled up quickly.

Lambin’s personable style comes through as she tells how she accidently became a paper sculptor and book artist. She said that she had a home-schooling book for her children that she had felt was derogatory to religions.
“I really didn’t want others to have this book,” she said. “So I just began folding the pages in different ways.”

She ended up with something interesting that she called a paper football. She used it as a business card holder at art shows.
“People wanted to buy this cardholder football and this new artistry was born,” Lambin said.

Nowadays, she makes all kinds of wonderful sculptures with her book folds. Lambin loves showing others how to make pieces for themselves using their own creativity.
Lambin refers to herself as an “accidental artist,” even though she has a background in art, painting. woods and metal.

Lambin travelled to Mesquite for the week from her home in Carson City, Nevada. She travels all over the state and nationally showing her work and teaching others.

Lambin has an online studio at www.MyThousandWords.com. She published a children’s book in 2020 during the pandemic and currently is working on a memoir and how-to book, about doing book art.