Being paper makers (and paper nerds), we are very interested in the way people hold onto certain letters or written words…and why. We asked Sarah Schwartz, editor of Stationery Trends and The Paper Chronicles, to share some of the objects on her desk and the reason why she just can’t part with them.
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So, Mohawk asked me to write a #WhatsOnYourDesk post. My assignment: To examine our continuing allegiance to the cards, letters, envelopes and postcards that dress our desks, even as the death knell for paper is sounded by the pundits that make such claims for the millionth time.
To my mind, Mohawk couldn’t have asked a better person to write this, as my allegiance to paper borders on addiction. Actually, who am I trying to kid, there’s no healthy border here! You see, I started covering the stationery industry 20 years ago, and that’s given me ample time to accumulate a lot of ephemera.
Every piece has a story behind it, and for that reason it’s hard to part with. Further complicating this issue is the fact that there’s a steady stream of paper coming into my office each day. Just when I have a handle on everything, the postman comes and I have a new bundle of treasures.
This is so steady, in fact, that if I don’t stay on top of it, the papers threaten to ascend to hoarder-like proportions. This is an easy situation to let fester — it will take a lot of time before I risk injury from a towering pile of letters — but I was forced to deal with it a few weeks back, when we started remodeling my home office. I waited until the last minute before moving my iMac up to my temporary working quarters — our dining room table — and then I had to make a lot of snap decisions about the letters, postcards, stationery samples, promotional pieces and business cards populating my desk.
That difficult task completed, and the most precious of the precious safely put away, I was able to face a new day with a mercifully blank slate. This is me we’re talking about, however, so it didn’t start truly blank — that would have been downright depressing.
Sugar Paper sent me one of their dreamy planners over the holidays, and not to digress, but it’s made me a planner person. Their chic chambray model — embossed with my initials in gold on the cover, no less — will sit prominently on my desk all year.
