Cutting It

Haha! The sun is out! The birds are singing and my ACE budget balances! Now to cut flipping great chunks out of my beautifully honed prose to make my proposal fit into 2000 words…

I really did not expect to feel so much excitement in seeing two columns of numbers that have the same total. A little sad I suspect.

I met with an ex-colleague- the talented Mr Gary Spencer, yesterday. The idea was to hone my ACE application into something akin to fund-atttracting gold. The reality was an interesting discussion on the limits and difficulties of applications and just how many brilliant artists there already are out there. That and the fact we’d happend on a pub proclaiming to be hosting the worlds largest beer festival -(something to be said for bigging oneself up perhaps..?)

Two sick children at home have meant things have slowed down – no, scratch that, come to a temporary halt. I heard from Lorna at Muswell Hill Library yesterday that someone had just dropped off two boxes of paper for me – so there’s more proof of word getting around. I’m very curious to see it – I’ve no idea who it is from – so far I have met most of the people who have given paper – or at least know its origins, so I’m rather excited about this. It’ll be a kind of social archeology! I’ll post any good pieces up here once I’ve had a good route through it!

So Mapping Muswell – An N10 Paper Project’s Blog is officially underway…

I find it interesting that as we are (and have been apparently for many years) moving towards a paperless society we still seem to be surrounded by the stuff. Although i-pads and the like are available to those that can afford and wish to have them I think there is a basic enjoyment that one gets from writing/doodling/drawing on paper that we are not likely to give up on any time soon.

Incidentally, the kind of paper I’m after is really anything that has been made personal in some way – a doodle, a shopping list, a note left hurriedly on the kitchen table, the kind of thing that could have only been made by that individual but has no real use or significance after the event. I don’t need tons of the stuff but it would be lovely to get some from many different N10 residents, the more people give paper the more the work will be representative of the area, not just a map made up of streets and images but snippets from peoples lives.

It has been an exciting few days: I did a bit of ‘direct marketing’ for my project – that is taking to the streets of Muswell Hill with a couple of flyers and talking to people directly about my work. I even got a couple of brilliant donations there and then! One from Ben “the Chewing Gum Man”, and another from the lovely Elena.

More recently there have been some further developments – first of all I have been really pleased to get such fantastic paper donations from John Lewis of Hungerford (Muswell Hill) and The Clissold Arms. Some great examples of handwritten notes, of which I’ll post a sample here. I have also had some paper from O Baby and other individual N10 residents – it all helps in building up a picture of the area’s diversity.

For the ‘Green is Good in Muswell Hill’ Event I have arranged to be ‘in residence’ upstairs at the library in Muswell Hill on the 31st March. Please do come and visit and have a chat. I will be cutting away at the paper and in need of a break. If you want to bring some paper for me to go into the project that would be fantastic – or just come and check out the work.

Many thanks too to Cora Jenkins for posting about my project on the Muswell Hill Sustainability Group website – word is getting out at last!