[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/notebook1.jpg” caption=”A two-page spread in one of the 50 Notebooks has pieces of a broken record and magazine clippings. Photo by Susan Bubak.”]You don't need to be an artist to contribute to the 50 Notebooks project. All you need is creativity. Last November, the notebooks were placed around campus in classrooms, residences and libraries as part of a collaborative art project.

Students were encouraged to express their thoughts and feelings in the notebooks using a variety of media and then pass them on to other students.

“It's completely open to how they want to express themselves,” said MSU president Ryan Moran. “Some students wrote poems, others made abstract art.”

The notebooks feature poetry, cartoons and drawings in pen, pencil, pencil crayon and marker. Some students used the notebooks as scrapbooks, cutting and pasting photos, magazine and newspaper clippings.

Each page is unique. One page consists of a line graph showing the ups and downs of university life. Another page has a pencil drawing of the University Hall tower with the words “My home away from home.” A two-page spread has pieces of a broken record glued to it.

Moran said the notebooks will be scanned and posted online.

The 50 Notebooks project was inspired by a similar art project called the 1000 Journals that started in San Francisco in August 2000.

The notebooks will be on display in the MUSC atrium this week. Anyone who still has a notebook is asked to return it to the MSU office in MUSC 201.