Nikitha Yelchuru

Nikitha Yelchuru's picture
Neighborhood: South Bay
_____

The world is brimming with patterns — an innate structure in the most chaotic of environments. While the engineer in me is fascinated by these patterns, the artist is intrigued by how shapes and colors come together to create an intangible harmony of mood, meaning, and energy.
The ancient art of quilling allows me to translate what I see and interpret into tangible objects. I started creating paper jewelry in 2012. Soon, I was receiving commissions for custom-made pieces. In 2016, I took it up full-time, and Paper Sweetly was born.
Today, I work out of my home studio in San Jose and create everything from earrings and necklaces to wall art and sculptures. My creations are a product of my world, perception, and mood — from layers of geometric patterns to clusters of curling details.
The entire process — starting from creating the first sketch of an idea, selecting the colors, to quilling into existence a delicate and perfectly crafted representation of what was once just a glimpse of something I’ve seen (perhaps in a dream!) — is incredibly joyful and stress-relieving.
I particularly love bringing my client’s ideas to life — understanding their vision, learning what appeals to them, and creating something that perfectly conveys what they want to see — is challenging and satisfying in equal parts.
Everything I create — from the colors and patterns that I choose to my choice of using recycled paper as much as I can — is intended to bring joy to the world. It is the one emotion I hope to share with anyone who experiences my art.