Willow Glen Resident
News
Photograph by Vicki Thompson
Gloria Beltran has created Paperscapes, a children's collection of small, 3D play sets made of paper. The play sets come in a variety of scenes and are available online.
Paperscapes provides alternative to typical toys
By Mayra Flores De Marcotte
Growing up, Gloria Beltran remembers playing with paper dolls. Blondes, brunettes, redheads--she drew them all.
"It was basic," she says. "Not like the toys today."
As a kindergartner, Beltran spent hours adding color to them, cutting and folding and giving them backgrounds and names.
Her artistic inclinations never faded.
In 2000, she tapped into her love of paper dolls and created Paperscapes, a collection of paper projects that children--with the help of their parents or grandparents--can color, cut out and fold into place.
Sold online, Beltran's paper collection offers an alternative to typical children's toys found at the mall.
"Although I always was dabbling in some small art project, after I lost my husband, the thought occurred to me that I could be forever lonely or be busy," Beltran says. "That might have been when I chose to pursue my art again."
Paperscapes activity builds creativity, especially compared to playing video games or watching TV, she says.
"Most of the activities kids engage in are stressful, not to mention violent," Beltran says. "They're usually games and activities that create technology-dependent skills, hardly good at self-esteem building."
Allowing children to be creative with their hands and working with things as basic as colored art pens or crayons does exactly opposite of what video games do, she says.
"Children can build self-dependent, technologically independent skills that are real, that go with you wherever you go, that may actually be more conducive to increased self-esteem," Beltran says.
The local artist has seen the effects the paper activity has on young children firsthand. Her granddaughter Justine enjoys hours at a table coloring and folding and putting together zoo and farm scenes into cohesive stories.
Born in Berkley in 1929, Beltran remembers her playroom and all the artistic possibilities.
"I just remember drawing," Beltran says. "I've always had a pen and paper and would just draw. It was innate."
As a student at Willow Glen Elementary, then Hoover Middle School and finally Lincoln High School, art ruled her life.
"Art class was an option we could take," Beltran says, "but it was never an option for me. For two years, art was my first class of the day, and in the mornings, I couldn't wait to go to school because of it."
She was known as an artist. Other students would come to her if they needed a banner painted or fliers drawn.
Beltran's artistic flair matured by the time she reached college. She enrolled at San Jose State College and received her degree in art.
After college, she married Felix Beltran and freelanced as an artist, designing and painting brochures for various real estate companies.
She had two boys, Neil and Jon, but never set aside her art. Instead, she took up projects, and taught Neil to draw and Jon to cook.
"I'm not the artist in the family," says Jon Beltran. "My brother Neil got the artist gene from my mom. I took a back seat."
Jon does, however, remember the various art projects his mother brought home.
"My mom would do mosaics and tiles and create all sorts of stuff," he says.
Now adults, both Jon and Neil are proud of their mother's achievements and say her Paperscapes endeavor is an important one.
"It's great to see in this high-tech time, she comes up with this low-tech product," Jon says. "We put it down with the kids, and they are glued to it. Kids still love these products, and parents just forgot about it. She's gone back to the good old standards."
Paperscapes can be purchased online at www.paperscapes.com, or by mail at Westwood Drive, San Jose, CA 95125.
