Dear Proko community, Growth is a mindset, I find. Something I've been thinking about a lot recently. So, I've written a bit of an essay to accompany this post about it. There is one simple truth in art, I think. The boulder we all push up the hill is heavy, and we can never reach the summit before our strength gives way and it crashes back down. So it is with growth in this field. I, alas, am not a beginner anymore. I have pushed my boulder further than most. But then again, I am always a beginner. In the sphere of social media, if one is not a professional, nor a master by any means, it seems pointless. I'll never stand out or get noticed with my less-than paintings/drawings... How can I compete with so many brilliant people? They are better than I'll ever be in ten lifetimes! Such are the thoughts, and so the boulder goes back down. That boulder, as we go along our way, must be pushed and dropped and pushed and dropped for the entirety of our art lives! It feels like a never-ending lie, doesn't it? Like we must toil and see that our meager progress is, in the scope of things, an exercise in futility. I am pushing, and pushing and pushing, and, oh, oh... No... there it goes... crashing back down again! Time to start over. For. The. Rest. Of. Your. Life. That's the rub. In building this skill, one must become Sisyphus. And for many, that is too much. They see it right away, too. A few months, a few years into art, still a beginner. They can tell that they will never "win." Never ever reach that summit. They will always have to start from the bottom again and again. It's demoralizing. Humiliating. If one does not suffer from the Dunning-Krueger effect, one will inevitably suffer from imposter syndrome or a sunk-cost fallacy that traps us in our misery. There is no winning, ever! Period. Uh uh! How can we continue creating when the passion of our pencil is also such a source of pain? Why should we even try? It's the absurdity of Camus. Sure, we can embrace the struggle, assign value to the effort itself, and accept our fate as artists as actually fairly amusing when given perspective. It's the curse and the gift. The ambiguous nature of creativity. But that feels like a cop-out, doesn't it? Well... I don't have any answers to any of that. I can only speak to my own experience. I think we must strive and push ever onward because it is the only way to advance. The peak of the hill might always be too far away, but there is a point in between the top and the bottom when we feel strong, and like just this once we might be able to do it. It's really all we can hope for. So my journey has been one of obstinance more than anything. I have been too dumb and stubborn to stop pushing my boulder, no matter how many times I drop it. I am a mule. And admittedly, I love that process, frustration of starting from scratch and all. I just keep pushing that rock. It is my happy place. It feels like I'm doing something right. Like I'm fulfilling some destiny or something. Putting a little beauty back into the world, as Aaron Blaise would say. Yes, I like that. Let's all strive for a little bit of aestheticism. The art is for the art's sake, and the artist's peace of mind. Does there have to be anything beyond that? With all that said... As a middle-stage intermediate artist, I feel it is helpful for people who are just starting their art journey, who are tired and frustrated and feel like quitting because they see that mountain, to also see someone who is a little further along than they are. Yet not so far ahead that what they are doing seems totally unattainable. A person who is little more than a journeyman, a few steps ahead, who can show that the rough cliff we all traverse does indeed go forward, if not to an actual destination. This is my most recent painting of Katharine Hepburn. Mixed media on illustration board. I never thought I would be able to make something like this two and a half years ago when I set out to be able to paint people realistically. One day soon, dear friends who are just starting their push, with a little hard-headedness and a pinch of stupidity for lack of knowing when to quit, you can achieve the art that's in your head. All you have to do is do it. Become the mule. Laugh at your struggles. Push on! There may not be any point to any of it, but damn, is it a beautiful ride.