Helming change.

Yup, no more lazing about when it comes to blogging. I can no longer fall back on the excuse of being a print journalist for I am now editor of Malaysia's leading arts and culture news website Kakiseni.com, and all that it stands for - a free space for the kind of critical arts documentation and dialogue that we need so much of in Malaysia.

The first two weeks have been fun since my new colleagues are people I've known from before I joined. It was a return - in more ways than one - to full-time arts writing and the immersion into the arts world here.

In the time that I was away, a good friend sent me an application form for some arts writing fellowship - the very existence of which I have never allowed myself to consider, what with my scrapes and ensuing distrust of (local) arts academia. But apply, I did, knowing that the application in itself would be an exercise in self- and external assessment. My application did not make the final cut but there was the surprise of some encouraging jottings handwritten by one of the main judges in the reply letter.

My father and husband said that I ought not to be so surprised at such a note. But, truth be told, I know that arts writing has a long way to go before it meets the standards practised in societies where personal liberties are a top priority. The self-reflection that went into that application opened up windows I had never really taken a good look through in all my rushing about to get the messages of as many artists as I could to as many readers as I could.

About two months later, the arts world lost Redza Piyadasa , a reference point (to quote from sketch artist speak) in regional visual arts. At the time, I thought that I would have nothing left to write after wringing myself silly for a multitude of angles on such a broad range of art events and personalities. But then, I received a request for a tribute to Piyadasa from the semi-academic arts journal FOCAS (published by The Substation, Singapore). Three days later, after I had pored through pages of writings on and interviews with Piyadasa, and after discussions with FOCAS' editors, I found a voice I had never allowed to emerge in all my eight years of arts writing.

Attending a day-long seminar held at R A Fine Arts in tribute to the seminal artist gave me a new aim in an activity I once saw as a way of helping my family get through the debilitating effects of 1997 Asian financial crisis and, at best, contributing whatever little I could to the arts from the sidelines.

Arts writing is a powerful tool of both the arts and the media. Like how the late Krishen and Piyadasa strove to show, arts criticism can put things in perspective for arts people and steer the course of arts history.

Of course, such writing can only grow in tandem with critical thought and a freer press.

With these recent experiences and revisited thoughts, I submit myself again to the discipline of arts writing, the rigour demanded of it by those like Krishen and Piyadasa, and the possibilities of cyberspace.