Puleng Mongale is an accidental visual artist. Nothing about her talent is, but today we’re going to trace how this Sotho girl from Orlando East found her way from teenage award-winning poet and thrice failed blogger (4th time’s the charm) to a visual artist who has found a new way to mix media in her soulful collages that feature her but centre something much bigger.
Sticky Post
Alternate title: “I have other talents” a meditation on fear and failure.
I’m a dreamer, a scientist and an artist. An optimist and a realist. I believe in the life-affirming power of contradictions and fear.
The word Diaspora is an acknowledgement of the nature of our relationship. That though we are scattered across the globe, we share common blood and ancestry. The nurture part seems to always get in the way of our reconciliation efforts however: this is the unusual story about how Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther helped me bridge this gap.
Post call is a strange time. I’m excited about going home to bond with my pillow but I’m just lucid and loopy enough to have philosophical and emotional breakthroughs. “Somewhere between psychotic and iconic”. This is the sequel to Science and Faith.
As we walk this journey together, I think some things are pretty clear (particularly because it’s my 40th post!): I’m passionate about friendship and I enjoy giving people their roses while they’re still around to smell them.
This one hits close to home and is a long time coming. With every passing generation our cultures and home languag\nes become more and more at risk, threatened and endangered. I may not be ready for the future children who inspire such thoughts but I’m finally ready to have this chat. Continue reading “Culturally Speaking”
To those of you who are new. This is an adjective game celebrating women from all walks of life whose presence on the planet has moved me despite never having met them (yet?).
This non-blog occasionally dips its toes in travel blog territory (by request). This is often born of a desire to collate phot- erm, I mean, helpful travel tips (and a reluctance for repition). My solo trip to Coastal Kenya was wonderful.
How did this little writing experiment change my life? How did it warn me to cut ties with a bad friend, take a break from medicine or make my vision board in March? Turns out I’ve accidentally been writing on my brain.
I’ve been deeply examining my ideas around love, what it means and how it looks to me and what part conditioning has played in all of this. I used to think I was a manic pixie dream girl. I used to think I waltzed into people’s lives and filled them with whimsy and sunshine. The truth with the manic pixie is in the name: she … Continue reading Love, Palesa
