Blog post 500…

“This is the beginning of reflection, the beginning of discussion and the beginning of an archive of my words on my creative world.

These words will daydream and deliberate the start and development of my PhD studies at BIAD alongside the development of my artistic practice and general click-clack of the typewriter keys against a fresh piece of paper.

Are you ready? Tomorrow i’ll begin…enjoy…”

I feel like I daydream more than I deliberate at the moment and that I’m always looking for the “tomorrow”, and at such a key time of my PhD – my “prison-house of language” as I call it in relation to post-colonial theory referenced in my thesis, the write-up phase.

Back in 2009, I never would have thought that my words would come to define me in this way, that I would make (life-long) connections, meet new people, get jobs and work and more opportunity for words, gain insight into others and myself through my rollercoaster of a life journey, all from talking about the reality of my “art” world.

In the coming year, I intend for this to become more a more accessible archive through indexing and categories, for more of the interested public to read it and see it, for it to become more of a voice for Chinese contemporary arts, media, design and culture…my niche and corner of the “art” world always alongside a degree of wordgirl life honesty. My 32nd year is going to bring a change in a title, a few more letters after my name, a huge life-affirming accomplishment, a world of medical intrusion, international adventures (as standard) for work and play, new steps with, as I’ve said, the one and only manaXi, and a renegotiation of…well…who is wordgirl and what does she actually want to do with her life…which I’m sure most people ask themselves on a daily basis.

At the moment, I can’t write without background noise…usually Radio Five Live or Sky News dialogue, TV talk dialogue or the soundtrack of a cafe…where every so often I write down things that I hear from these sources, putting them on pieces of paper that get put up on my office wall. They act as another diary (alongside this blog) as much as a point of self-reflection, wordgirl realism and in part inspirational motivation. Today’s words were taken from ‘The Affair’ (yes, I’m a sucker for psychological home-life fictional American TV shows – please don’t judge me)…

“Sometimes I take a giant step back into myself, and watch everyone else go by, like from a window high above. I felt like I could see so clearly from up there. The people swelled and thinned, ebbed and changed direction like the tide. It made me feel better being away from everyone else. I was alone and safe.”

…which made me immediately think of the prologue to  the book ‘Invisible Man’ (1952) by Ralph Ellison…

“I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids – and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination – indeed, everything and anything except me.” – Ralph Ellison

I am lost in a world of words (more than usual!) at the moment, and slowly learning to appreciate the solitary expedition of writing because I’m acknowledging that there is an end in sight and the possibility of the what’s next. What is next? You tell me…