Last December, Gail Perrymann dropped by the Urich Museum, and seeing it was decorated for Christmas, told the volunteers “Y’all need to put my paper cuttings on your tree.”
Gail is a practitioner of Scherenschnitte, the German art of cutting paper into landscapes and figures. Her comment last year led to an invitation to exhibit her artwork at the Urich Museum in conjunction with the 130th Urich Reunion.
The Urich Community Historical Society invites everyone to a free open house at the museum, 323 Main, on Saturday, Aug. 3, from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. to view Gail’s handcraft.
Why did people put so much time into creating decorations made of paper?
“Because it’s what they had,” she said.
Gail is the recorder of deeds for Henry County, commuting to the courthouse in Clinton from a farm south of Urich where she lives with her spouse, Robert of Perrymann’s Kickin’ Chicken, known for cooking fried chicken for community fundraisers.
Paper-cutting migrated from China to Germany, famous for its nostalgia for Christmas trees, carols and candles, then traveled to colonial Pennsylvania via German settlers. Patterns for cut-paper art often invoke scenes of Christmas past. Most of the pieces Gail makes she hangs on her Christmas tree, she said, or gives as gifts.
“It’s not for everybody because it’s so intricate,” Gail said of the craft. “For some reason, they speak to me of times gone by.”
Times gone by for Gail include her years growing up on a farm in Bates County in Ballard, 10 miles southwest of Urich, where her parents, Mike and Erma Morris, raised cattle, pigs and row crops. Gail attended Ballard School from kindergarten through 12th grade, graduating in a class of 12.
She attended SMU and the University of Central Missouri, then taught school in Clinton. She was in her late 20s when a colleague, Dinah Scott, introduced her to the art of paper-cutting.
“It was an after-school team building meeting,” Gail said. “Teachers were invited to share their interests.”
Small paper cuttings take two to three hours to complete, she said, and are made of heavy paper. She cuts the designs out using an X-ACTO knife on a cutting mat, then trims them with scissors.
One of her favorite paper cuttings on display at the Urich Museum is a nativity scene with palm trees sheltering the creche, surrounded by animals. A simpler one she often makes as a gift is of a horse-drawn sleigh with a driver holding the reins, hauling a Christmas tree home.
Other paper cuttings, made from light card stock, are three-dimensional and stand up. The hardest one she ever made is a cat tree, which various types of cats on the limbs. Gail made it for a friend who came to her house to adopt one kitten and left with two. When Christmas came around, the kittens were half grown and rambunctious, making a regular tree with ornaments not feasible, so Gail made the friend the cat tree.
Another paper cutting she made was a Valentine’s Day gift for a couple who were celebrating their 60th anniversary.
Gail is now into her fourth year as the county’s recorder of deeds, having made the switch from teaching during Covid. Deeds and licenses are digitized now, she said, but the floor-to ceiling shelves in her office hold binders of marriage documents that go back to the mid-1800s. Gail decorates her office with paper-cuttings at Christmas, she said, noting that one of the Christmas trees in the White House once had paper-cut decorations. She’s also seen examples at the museum in Cole Camp.
At home, she tops the Christmas tree with the paper angel she made out of necessity, because she didn’t have one.
In addition to paper-cuttings, Gail will exhibit six large counted cross-stitch pictures at the museum, many also rural scenes of times gone by. She also likes to mark friends’ birthdays by making cakes and decorating them because it makes people feel happy. Gail worked during college at the Consumers Market, a Clinton grocery store that was part of a chain based in Springfield, Mo., that closed in the late 1990s. The Clinton store was located where Ace Hardware is now.
“It had a bakery, and I was the cake decorator,” Gail said.
She and her husband started Perrymann’s Kickin’ Chicken in 2011. They will be cooking chicken for the Urich School Reunion during the community-wide celebration.
Urich School was consolidated with Creighton and Garden City schools to create the Sherwood School District. The school in Ballard that Gail attended is still going, with an enrollment that holds steady at 140 students.
Also still going is the Urich Reunion, billed as the oldest continuous fair west of the Mississippi River. The 130th community-wide celebration features games, contests, a parade, fun run, car show and fireworks. Fair events are centered at Urich City Park, 308 E. 2nd., Urich, MO 64788. Go to the Urich City Park facebook for more information or stop by the museum.
The Morris family farm where Gail grew up also still exists, and is run by Gail’s brother, Gene Morris. But the spot on the map marked Ballard is now just a turn in the road.
