A reflection on being asked to consider "Writing as a Practice, Writing as a Process."

I have felt that writing has been relatively inaccessible to me, whether this being a result of some disorder like dyslexia (which I am in the process of being tested for) or a result of the comments throughout my life on the quality of my writing, accusations of laziness being the typical statement.  I have always held a strong passion for stories and enjoyed analyzing poetry to find the deeper meaning. I think I have had issues with my ability to express myself in writing or speaking, finding that my choice of words have limitations to convey what I am attempting to communicate. I suppose this is why art has played such a major role in my life. The use of visual poetics helping to communicate things I was unable to speak. The use of masks, rules and borders, though being used unconsciously at the time, on reflection have fairly unsubtle messages behind them.

But this issue of writing has remained, I don’t feel confident about my writing but in starting this MA, I have found it necessary to find a way of clarifying what my ideas are and where they have come from. I did not make any conscious decision to write in the way I am currently, but it feels natural to, as with my portfolio the writing seems to act as a documentation of the performance of thought.

I have been surprised how writing (coupled with verbal communication) has begun a sort of metamorphosis, from an isolated, detached, inward looking, image basis, I feel that I am developing toward a balanced inward and outward, reflective and critical, image and language based way of thinking, this metamorphosis has allowed me an insight into my past process of thinking which was otherwise inaccessible and already I feel responses resulting from it.

I find myself reflecting back on one of my earlier works, A large scale circle with 350 000 dots of ink, titled ‘Itself within Itself.’ (2010), in which I was attempting to describe a significance/insignificance relationship. The dots of ink are reflections of the whole they contribute to, without their presence the whole would not be the same whole, but when focusing on a single dot it becomes a sort of superposition of significance/insignificance. Alone it is a dot of ink, other than its physical composition its role is fairly arbitrary. In its singularity it has very little relative qualities, but when placed in proximity of other dots of ink relationships start happening, a process and system begins, eventually leading to a whole made of this constant process building system of relationships, it is impossible to see the whole without considering its individual parts but by focusing on one of these parts you will learn very little of the whole, it is the relationships that make the both the whole and individual significant.  

In implementing writing in to my approach to my practice, there is a sort of mirroring effect going on, similar to the process of the dots of ink, I have begun a kind of automatic writing that is functioning as a way of recording specific thoughts when they arise. I mark down these thoughts in quick hand writing, using a pencil, reflective of the immediacy of the action of making a mark, each word in itself arbitrary but full of potential when combined with the other words in a sentence, paragraph or essay. The word comes alive and active, it takes on a meaning but that meaning is limited by the borders of the statement. It exists as a singular. When combined with additional writings it takes on new form, filling a gap in the whole of my practice.  I m surprised at what I have been able to achieve in the short time I have started using writing, it has been interesting to see how it has affected me in my transition from my previous way of working to the academic setting, but also in its function, writing may be transitioning into a part of my practice, its similarities to the action of mark making being very clear to me. It would seem that in light of this similarity, it would make sense to reject the idea of separation between them, both being practice and both being a part of the process of making and informing that practice. If the process of events unfolding is something I consider as of high importance in my work, by not attempting to review the very process I go through to make that work would be detrimental.