A Story About Becoming

 

What are you becoming?

 

I visited an exhibit at the art museum yesterday.  It was called "Becoming Van Gogh".  The exhibit showed the progress of his short career as a painter.  Having already failed at several other careers, he decided at the age of 27 to be an artist.  So he began to teach himself to draw. Using a flat carpenter's pencil or charcoal he copied drawings from a book.  He drew them many times, trying to learn to draw the human figure.  Later he began to experiment with color, but his colors were very somber.  After moving to Paris he started to immitate other artists use of color, so his colors became bolder.  He experimented with colored yarn, laying complimentary and analagous colors of yarn next to each other.  He experimented with impressionism and pointelism.  All of these years of experimentation lead him to his own unique style.  His unique brush stroke is long strokes of color, like pieces of yarn, with directional movement to create drama in the painting. His unique use of color is placing complimentary colors next to each other to create movement. The style we know as Van Gogh's style took nearly ten years to develop.

 

So the point of my story is this.  We are all becoming.  Those impulses to create something, be it music, art, inventions or writing, are the beginning of what will become your unique expression of emotions and vision.  The process of becoming is as important as the product.  So I wish you well in your creative journey.  Don't worry about the pieces you don't really like. Just keep doing what you are doing until the great pieces begin to emerge.