I have just spoken to another local school about the project. I hope they got what I was after – although I teach I still find I get very nervous when talking about my own work. They were very attentive however and it’s always lovely to get applause!
I have been e-mailing local papers trying to raise the profile of the project – I am hoping at least one will pick up on it, in terms of being community- centric it couldn’t be a better project.
I am planning to do a days temporary install at the artsdepot in August – possibly the 5th. The idea is to install the work as it is so far and take some photos for this blog. I am also hoping to do some of the actual work there if they’ll let me and see if I can’t get some paper donations on the day.
If anyone reading this has any paper they want to dispose of that relates to Barnet’s history let me know! I need all I can get.
Success! Well some more progress anyway. I have managed to get some paper from East Finchley Library- thank you to the nice ladies there – and yesterday I spoke to my daughters school about the project. Last week the children had been working on a project looking at the work of Richard Long. They had produced some lovely work both in the classroom and in the grounds and surrounding landscape. I was especially pleased to see some had been working with maps of the local area – the link (coincidental I think) couldn’t have been better! I have now finished cutting out the whole of the map of Barnet and have started work on the next layer. This is using paper that has been donated by the library and good friends.
I am feeling a bit more confident now that the work is going to happen. I managed to put a few good hours into the cutting and the map is beginning to transform. You can see how the folds seem to disappear when the paper is cut away from the streets. The cutting is monotonous in its action but as I am forced to only work on it a few hours (or less) at a time I am finding myself getting quite excited each time I get it out to do some more. I am ambivolent about working like this, sometimes I find it so hard and against my natural desire to make a mess or mud-pies, and yet…its sort of like scratching an itch – you start and you want to keep on doing it.
Having proposed this work and been given the go-ahead from the artsdepot I seem to have found my self torn between a variety of necessary but very different activities. Trying to find schools that are willing to participate and help in my quest for paper, raising the profile of the project locally (local libraries, local press) and actually doing some of the work itself, (let alone officially entering the 21st century and starting this blog!) It’s hard to know which is the most urgent and prioritise appropriately. However – if there is no work then there is no project… Back to it!
