The Midnight Hour

Originally Published in POVO Magazine 2013

I am writing this at twenty to one in the morning, taking advantage of my usual midnight lucidity. For me, the midnight hour is always my moment of greatest clarity - doubt and fear flee from me and I suddenly remember who I am.

Who am I?

Who I am… that is a question I find I have been asking myself for close on ten years now.

Ten years as an African female designer in the Zimbabwe of the past decade. Fascinating I will say. And year after year I have asked myself that same question – ‘who am I?’ and more – ‘what am I doing here?’ What difference is another advert about best the meat in town or anything else going to make? Who is going to care in another ten years what I was selling? Will the product matter or the style of the design? Will it be about numbers - how much money we made for ourselves, or our clients? Or will it be about the other numbers - how many lives were transformed or misled by our stylishly mapped out and seductively presented campaign strategies? Who will care? Will I care?

Question after question after question.

And everyday I ask myself - WHO ARE YOU CHIRATIDZO SHUMIRAI CHIWESHE? - Who ARE you my inner me demands - screams at me! And for a long time I have failed to answer. For a long time I have just been another cog in the machine, another piece of furniture in studio - necessary but expendable. And for too long as a person, as a woman, as a writer, as a designer and as an artist, I have felt that way about myself.

Yes I am necessary - but I am also expendable.

"Rage against the machine." I laugh to myself, I cannot now remember which band it is that gave that title to their album; maybe it's even the name of the band itself. I cannot be bothered now to Google it and find out. But what I can say is that it is a smashing title! It so perfectly sums up what being an artist has come to mean to me: I want to rage against the machine. I want to be a raging storm that shocks and throws everything off kilter. I want to demand everything and give everything; I want to change the world. I know I can do it, as every artist since the beginning of time has always believed. But now I also know I’m going to do it.

Being an artist… I find I must digress for a moment… I seem to keep using the word 'artist', not 'graphic designer' or any other such lofty or egotistical title, but 'artist'. That word encompasses so much of what I truly am - it talks about the labour of bringing forth something that did not before exist, it speaks of channeling the unknown and somehow translating it into something that everyone can not only understand - but have been desperately trying to understand. Or say. Or do. Or feel. You are supposed to see what I do or hear what I say or consume my words and say, yes, just like the right amount of salt and seasoning on a steak - yes! That’s it! That's the right flavor! That's it. And that's my job.

Not to churn out pretty little adverts for money. Not to fill a gap in a creative studio. Not to be necessary - but to be vital. I must be the key that turns the lock. I must be the door to the future, to hope, to change, to more! I must be the channel. Not ‘a’, but ‘the’; Like the heart - that if it weren't for me - everything would stop.

But for that I must stop compromising. I must cease to compromise who I am and what I believe. I must cease to fear myself and what I am capable of doing. I must stop being afraid to say what I really believe. I must stop being afraid to say ‘NO’. It's time to stop being a cog.

So if I will not be a cog - what then shall I be? Again I smile to myself.

I will shed this 'mortal coil', as Hamlet said - I will become more than what I am - like a legend, larger than life. You may call it arrogance and ego, but now I know for sure what it truly is - it is the true knowledge of oneself.

I am writing this at the midnight hour, when everything grows still and my inner turmoil tries to stare me down; when the choice is 'lay down and die' or 'get up and fight!' - because there is no middle ground, believe me. This is a war zone - and the Midnight Hour is come for our industry.

So what is my choice? To be more than 'a graphic designer'! Yes of course, and how laughable and petty that title sounds to me now! Instead I must continue to seek the path of the true artist, I will become a student and a craftsman, I will be a labourer and I will bring forth fruit. Perhaps while I am at it, I will make a name for myself. But one thing I certainly must have is an answer to 'who are you?' in the midnight hour. And may my answer be better than "I'm just another cog in the great machine."