Early Life
Paley was born in Urbana, Illinois, to Hiram and Jean Paley in an American Jewish family. Her father was a mathematics professor at the University of Illinois and was mayor of Urbana, where they resided, for a term in the early 1970s.
She attended local elementary and high schools, illustrating a "History of the North Pole" comic in collaboration with University High School history teacher Chris Butler, and attended the University of Illinois, studying art for two years.
Her first animation was made when she was 13, it was recorded on Super-8 reels. Her first animation as an adult was short story "Follow your Bliss". Her second clay animation, "I Heart My Cat", was shot on a Krasnogorsk camera. These two, along with the "Cancer", were found on VHS with description “NINA PALEY DEMO REEL 1998.” in 2012, Paley decided to publish them under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike license.
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