Text By Ellen Gardner • Photography by Borella & Company

Blessed is the recipient of a gift from St. Louis artist Linda Solovic, when it’s wrapped in bits of the past. Her collection of vintage and handmade papers often finds its way into her collages, but a few lucky friends are honored with gifts artfully done up in these carefully preserved pieces of yesteryear. “As an illustrator, I’m always attracted to anything with pattern on it,” she says. “I started collecting Christmas decorations and other holiday things back in the 1980s. The wrapping paper is a natural extension of that. Everyone responds to the quirky, naïve joyfulness of the designs. I use a lot of it in my work, but always set some aside for presents.”

(a) Vintage wrapping paper, and boxes from the 1940s and ‘50s, (b) and (c), are part of artist Linda Solovic’s holiday treasure trove. Inspired by the cheery patterns, she tends to hoard it, but occasionally uses it in her artwork or to adorn a special gift. Some of the packaging here came from department stores in her hometown and evokes memories of her childhood holidays.

“I especially love figurative patterns, like these poodles from the 1950s,” Linda says of the paper at (d). “The most vivid designs are found from the 1940s through the ‘70s.” She believes the snow-covered-houses pattern, (e), is from the ‘50s.

During the holidays, Linda likes to create displays of vintage boxes, including the Cinderella box printed with pumpkin coaches delivering presents,  (f) (top box). The box, inspired by the beloved Walt Disney cartoon, was made around the 1950s for the now-defunct Famous-Barr Co., a longtime St. Louis department store.

Some of the best wrapping paper in Linda’s collection came from family members. “My husband’s grandmother left a lot, and my mother tends to save things, too,” she says. One of her best “scores” occurred a few years ago at her mother-in-law’s house. “She’d wrapped all the Christmas gifts in this great old paper, and while she was cleaning the kitchen, I ran around collecting all the scraps.” When her mother-in-law realized what Linda was doing, she dug into her stash of supplies and generously shared them with her daughter-in-law.
Other pieces take Linda back to her childhood, like the boxes from a now boarded-up downtown department store where families once made pilgrimages to visit Santa and see the holiday window displays. “Though the boxes and paper aren’t worth more than a dollar or two in the collectibles market, you really can’t put a price on memories and inspiration,” she says.

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