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The private view went well. Lots of people and lots of interest in the project. The remaining places on the papermaking day on June 15th were booked and now there is a reserve list. So I am organizing a day in September.
The event was useful to me as it made me stand back and see what I had done so far. Often it is difficult while you are working to see how it is going. People were very encouraging and it was lovely to see the the building full of life and activity, which I suppose is part of the remit of the residency. I printed out my blog from the project website and made a timeline of it to show the development of work and ideas (not necessarily in that order!). One of my aims in embarking on this project was to open up this process and move the emphasis from the end result.


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The Private View is tomorrow. If anyone is in Esher at 6pm do drop in. It has been a fairly busy day today preparing for Thursday. The work is up, most of the info is ready. I just feel that I want a holiday! Or at least to go and see some inspiring work or make some work myself. Next project I want to be able to concentrate a little more on the central issues and spend less time working out how to get 1500 two colour leaflets designed and printed by the 15th for minimal cost while also devising and organising five days of workshops. I sneaked out and took some photos today in the woods. It was absolutely wonderful.


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What an incredibly busy week it has been! I feel as if I havent had time to draw breath let alone write anything. The trouble with doing a project like this is that as well as 'being' the artist you are also everything else as well. I am learning so much about the whole process but sometimes I just long to be able to get on with the main core work. However if I had had the choice I would have got someone else to do things like the education work and I would really have lost out on a valuable and uplifting experience. It does make putting up an exhibition difficult though. An exhibition of a project like Papertrails which has a fairly large outreach and community aspect is incomplete without reflecting that work. I have sometimes envied other bloggers who are engaged on projects where they can focus on one aspect and develop it thoroughly wheras I sometimes feel as if I am being pulled in all directions. But when I look at the whole project rather than just my 'work' I feel rather differently. In the first three months of Papertrails I worked with 355 people and had over 125 visitors to my studio. One group of children wrote poems about the work they did as a result of the project and I have had such good feedback. It has been a good thing. So those elements have to be reflected in the exhibition as well as what might be more narrowly described as my 'work'.


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