Laser Cutting Paper Designs with Abigail McMurray

When it comes to laser cutting paper designs, one of the artistic concerns is the fear of "burn" residue discoloring the paper. This was true for paper-cutting artist Abigail McMurray.

Contrary to popular belief, laser cutting paper without burning is possible.

Abigail has no shortage of vision in her mission of “celebrating home and the importance of place in our life stories.” She just had an issue with tools.

Her Paper Places collection of map art explores “the shapes of our towns and cities and where home might be within those boundaries.” She also makes amazing custom paper house portraits that can transform the details of a house into an heirloom paper sculpture. Those intricately cut three-dimensional house portraits are mind-blowing! [Think anniversary present when your parents downsize or best housewarming gift ever.] Come back to this link, but only after you read more about what this laser-cutting technique means to you, or else you’ll go there and never leave: www.yeiou.com

Detail of paper cut Victorian house window. — Detail of Abigail’s hand crafted house portraits

I confess reaching out to paper-cutting artists makes me a bit nervous, because I know the importance of working by hand, and I want to respect it. At the same time, laser cutting can be just the right tool for certain projects, or it can offer an artist the opportunity to create more accessible pieces for sale.

Since Abigail was already working with a Silhouette Cameo machine, laser cutting paper wasn't a huge leap and had several advantages.

In Abigail's words, "Laser cutting my Paper Places (below) map artwork has also allowed me to add more detail to my designs. I work with GIS map data, but my Silhouette Cameo isn't great at cutting some of the very delicate details. The maps cut with the Silhouette Cameo also inevitably require some clean-up by hand to smooth down bumpy areas or re-cut details that the machine skipped. The laser-cut maps are better, and they are ready to frame with no clean-up needed."

Since Abigail works primarily with white paper, she initially doubted that a laser could cut her design without leaving any discoloration. As she said, “I knew I either needed to find someone with excellent attention to detail or buy my own laser and figure it out the hard way! Because Sarah was amazingly helpful and clearly very thoughtful about every step of the process, I ultimately decided to outsource cutting to her.”

Abigail’s measure of success was exacting: being able to hang a blade-cut map next to a laser-cut map without anyone being able to tell the difference. But that’s what she got. “I never thought it would be possible to cut white paper with a laser and keep it white," she admitted.