Understanding that nothing lasts forever.

This essay can be directed to ones life but I want to apply it to 

Art and how we approach it. How we see it and how we deal with it  as artists. 

I have, in the past, written numerous essays on living the life of an artist and the difficulties that arise and how to spot them to overcome them. Or at the very least to recognize them when they arise.

I speak from a personal empirical point of view after years of working toward being the artist I am today. This is not a professional guide to the psychology of painting and I do not have a degree in the sciences. This is knowledge gained from years of making art and living my life as an artist.

Stress, anxiety, worry, intolerance are all emotions that will cause many negative symptoms in our life. It will exacerbate the feeling of ‘ loss of control’.  Control over our lives. How we think and how we reacted to the world and our constant struggle to control things in our lives.

One of the things that has helped me to overcome my inadequacy while learning to be an artist is “ letting go”. What do I mean by letting go?

As expected, while absorbing the methods and techniques of creating art, I failed often. Knowledge is a sequitious path of successes and failures. It is not a straight line.

As many do, we regularly feel we are not growing and learning quick enough. Just when we are making strides in our process, we stumble and things fall apart to where they don’t seem to be working as we think they should. So we blame our inability to understand or worse our feeling we lack the talent.

After suffering through years of imagined setbacks I began to realize  I was indeed improving. I could not see it except in retrospect.

It became clear overtime my work was improving and getting noticed by the public who started to buy my work; galleries who accepted me and peers who started telling me so. 

But all this outside support means little with this nagging feeling I could be doing better.

I regularly try to reflect. Take stock. Look at my old work. My purpose is to evaluate my progress. This is necessary to do or one is always discontented with their current work.  We create often but stop to take the time to notice our improvement.

Over time I began to realize life is impermanent. And this translates to art as well.   What happened at the beginning of my learning journey was a temporary situation.  It was never going to be permanent. Sounds obvious.

If you want to be an artist you must take into account outside factors. Learning to be an artist necessitates learning about yourself. Who you are. What you believe. One needs to be willing to accept - Impermanence -in every aspect of your life. 

Letting go. Accept today’s failure as a temporary setback.  All the art you make will change. It is this impermanence one has to accept. 

After years of working and improving I became aware that without

accepting that what happens today may not happen tomorrow. And this is a good thing. For this is how we know we are improving.

Impermanence frees us from the momentary roadblocks. Those days where things don’t go your way. Or a work refuses to come together. 

Without impermanence we would be stuck in the same place.

Knowing “ this too shall pass” relieves anxiety. Our doubt  in our ability for learning. 

If you become comfortable with your work and you think it has reached a level of success. Your process becomes permenant and you continue along butt you stop advancing. 

When we gain control over the Art we make, we stop growing and our curiosity wanes. We became dull. Our new work starts to resemble our old work. We become satisfied with our results. The challenge to create something new dims.

Art has no bounties. Learning has no boundaries except in our own mind and our inability to move forward. 

Impermanence is a necessary factor in our constant continued growth. 

While we maintain impermanence we live. We excel. We seek new challenges. Our art enters new realms of interest. For us and our viewers.

As we improve we may feel a temporary sense of failure or inadequacy. But we need to remember this is a temporary situation. When we embrace impermanence, we free ourselves of all the emotional feelings of loss of control, inability and the suffering anxiety creates. 

When we free ourselves and understand everything is transient;

nothing is permanent, our thoughts and emotions are always in flux, our mind is open and we are free to create. 

Another important thing is to not be judgmental. Show compassion for yourself and your situation. And be in the moment. Acknowledge your feelings. Accept them.

If all things are transient and impermanent, this will pass and you will be free to create without anxiety or fear. 

Embrace impermanence and gain control over your life. Gain control over your Art.