With just a few cuts, folds and twirls, Daphne Lee can transform pieces of paper into classical Venetian windows, elaborate honeycombs and even a delicate bird-of-paradise. It’s pure magic that reveals the vast potential paper has when it’s in the right hands.

The founder of  Judith + Rolfe, Lee is a paper virtuoso, freezing obscure and often overlooked moments in time, like a freshly bloomed flower or a bustling day at Caldecott Station, with nothing more than carefully placed paper strips.

Specializing in on-edge paperwork, Lee constructs her art by laying paper on its thin edge resulting in texture and depth that would otherwise be lost.

A sketch is initially done to brainstorm where pieces need to go. For precise work, like typography or geometric ones, the design is traced onto a backing material (like archival board) using a burnishing tool to ensure the paper is glued with accuracy. For more organic art, like florals, it’s often done free-spiritedly.

And no flamboyant additions or touches of watercolors will be found here. Lee lets the paper speak with its natural curves, hues and textures. “I’m a purist when it comes to materials,” she says. “It’s all paper.” The only tools relied on are X-Acto knives, quilling needles, scissors, rulers and glue.

Born in Singapore, Lee traveled to New York in 1997 to study architecture at Cornell University. After graduating, she worked in New York City for about a decade. While at the firm she met her future husband, Jamie Sneed, who also worked there. He eventually received a job offer in Minnesota and the two moved. It was after this transition that Lee discovered a passion for papercraft.

“It was a big change for us, and I guess after the move I just didn’t feel like doing architecture anymore,” says Lee. “I was dabbling in paper art on the side and friends and family were having babies, and I wanted to make gifts that were personalized for them. Paper was easier and I had the material lying around.”

She made tightly coiled, name pieces and the gifts were well received. Her husband later suggested posting her works on Instagram. While both were staunchly anti social media at that point, the experiment ended up being quite rewarding as people caught onto her work and started reaching out for commissions. Judith + Rolfe (an ode to each other’s middle names) came to fruition in 2016 and hasn’t stopped intriguing the world since.

Over the years, Lee’s work has been displayed at places like the United Kingdom’s Make Southwest and North Carolina’s Blowing Rock Art & History Museum (BRAHM). But one that stands out the most was her first exhibition ever, held at the Helsinki Design Museum in 2017. She designed a vibrant floral assortment to help celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Fiskars iconic orange scissors.

The couple moved to the Richmond area in 2021 to be closer to Sneed’s family. Lee intended to have a studio built when first moving here but it proved to be a difficult task. Her atelier ended up being her dining room, a space where she has since just become comfortable working in.

While Lee has created numerous pieces, one of her favorite projects so far has been forming massive roses. The colorful blooms measure about 3-by-3 feet and take around 80 hours to make.

Unlike other pieces confined to a rectangular backing, these delicate flowers are free to grow outward on their own, looking as if they’re about to burst with fragrance.

The first few did require glass framing but that has since been discarded. “Behind glass there’s that separation,” says Lee. “It’s nicer when artwork doesn’t need to be framed.”

While heavily inspired by the natural world, Lee is challenging herself to move from that theme. “I’m trying to get away from doing florals. I feel bored of it, but it’s what has resonated with people,” she says. “But I would like to do more abstract work and texture now that I have more free time after finishing up commissions.”

After a recent busy season, she also hopes to get back into gallery shows. “It’s nice to see the work in real life,” she says. “With photography, it’s hard to capture depth and shadows of the work.”

Lee’s especially interested in displaying her pieces in the region. “I’d love to put my work in Richmond galleries,” she says. “I’ve really procrastinated reaching out to local galleries since I’ve been here but the next step, ideally at some point, would be representation by some gallery – that would be nice.”

Until then, this artist continues on in her dining room, immersed in a beautiful paper world designing pieces that might one day inspire a new wave of paper artists. “Quilling is such a traditional, old art form,” she says. “It makes me feel good taking an old art form and making it my own.”