On Being vs Becoming

For the past year or so, i have been turning a corner in my art. I have been experiencing a transformation that is magnificent. I could feel it coming but wasn’t sure where I was in the transformation. Recently I have discovered that I am through it and now on the other side.

Since I left work to become a full-time artist, I have had several skins to shed and replace. It has been part of the “becoming” an artist. I have had to leave behind behaviors that worked in a corporate environment but not in an artistic one. I have had to retrain the way I think about myself, art, patience, work, and money. These were not easy skins to shed!

I have also needed to put new skins on. Some didn’t fit right away. I hadn’t grown enough for them to look right on me. Some of that is technical growth. Some is personal. Some is ideological. The way I look at art and other artists and their accomplishments is a growth process I have been enjoying. I am so proud of other artists and what they do! I want to feel that way about myself.

One of my most impatient aspects has been: when will I stop becoming an artist and be an artist? This doesn’t have to do with the technical learning, or the personal growth. I know those are lifelong and unending - as they should be. I meant more in terms of my own view of myself: when will I believe that I AM an artist, not that I am going to be one.

It happened this week. I cannot pinpoint the exact moment. It was a dawning as I worked through some thoughts. But I realized I made it. It is no longer "I'm going to." It's "I am."

I still have work to do. This is new. I will backslide some days. I may doubt myself sometimes. But I can feel it today: the corner has been turned and those doubts will be temporary, not definitions.