ENDLESS OPPORTUNITY

Wouldn't it be amazing to go to New York? I wonder when I'll be able to afford an Hermés handbag? Just two of the questions buzzing round my head as I pieced together the collage you see before you.

Insightful, I know.

If you are looking for an explanation behind the chosen torn pages that make up the collage, you are not going to get one. I have no idea what made me put Julian Assange's well-lit but slightly wrinkled portrait next to a how-to-make your own Hermés bag out of paper.

And that, really, is the beauty behind the experiment.

Having been handed several magazines by Lorna V, resident expert in all things blogging-like-a-journalist, we were told to tear, rip, fold and assemble our thoughts from the pages before us.

Hoping that I was going to get Style magazine, I was initially disappointed to find myself with the Times magazine. Nothing wrong with that of course.

Actually it was an incredible eye-opener. Because when I looked back over my collage, and as the rest of the class did the same, I discovered that actually, there was nothing that fashion-y on there. They were merely a visual, messy, torn representation of what caught my eye.

I saw my own angle on a work that was nothing like me, a trick that became the basis of today's lesson. 

I for one, as I'm sure many out there do it to, am guilty of the odd Instagram stalk now and then. I enjoy the feeling of inhabiting another's life, even if it is a little bit creepy. My problem is that I love to imitate, to mimic because it is easier than finding my own voice in a world that seems to have plenty shouting from every corner. 

But there it was. My voice. Peeking out from behind a moose's head and a graphic neon design, willing to be heard, some way or another.

And I think that's maybe the trick. 

Read something you usually wouldn't, go to something you'd normally hate or eat something you know you've never tried.

Get away from what you know and like because from them you will learn nothing. 

Go rogue. Go new.

Take a deep breath and shout as loud as you can.

Because, you know, you don't need to go to New York for endless opportunity. 

Collage by yours truly