Vanessa Kowalski is a Polish-American independent curator, writer, editor, and artist. She received a BFA in Photography from the School of Visual Arts in New York City, and an MA in Curating, Mediating, and Managing Art from Aalto University in Helsinki, Finland. Her artworks and writing have been featured in publications such as Clog x Artificial Intelligence, Take Shape Mag, Precog Mag, Speed of Resin, Spectra and more. She currently lives and works in California where she loves making a mess and cleaning it up.
it takes only one time of writing something to call yourself a writer
but how long until the title is revoked?
just how much non-writing must one indulge in
in order to be punishingly excluded?
is it a week, a month, a year?
or is it until all writing utensils are out of harm’s way,
no longer kept at an arm’s reach,
or worse, simply no longer reached for?
to write about non-writing is surely writing,
but it not yet and yet somehow already negates the act altogether
as if it were not non-writing at all but rather
pseudo writing
faux writing
pretend writing
big phony liar writing
but if you break it down
and present the case in front of a judge and a jury
they’ll unanimously agree:
it’s writing, allright
guilty as charged
but there may be a juror, singled out, who raises a timid hand and says “but...”
only to walk themselves in a circle, circumnavigating the verdict
going from point a to point b
only to realise there was never any need to go anywhere, or do anything
and certainly not to write
but they say life is about the journey and not the destination
like how writing is actually more so all about the non-writing
by non-writing
i don’t mean thinking,
i don’t mean research,
i don’t mean editing or proofing,
i mean
the detesting of the word,
the shyness before the page,
the refusal,
the inability,
the not doing it,
whatever “it” may be
but then comes the sentence, like penance
and for the rest of your life without parole
you’re doomed to write and also to not write
and to sometimes write about the non-writing
so that you can continue to call yourself a writer
rather than a prisoner
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