Arrived or Becoming?

Arrived or Becoming?

"An artist has got to be careful not to think he's arrived somewhere. You have to realize that you're constantly in a state of becoming. As long as you stay in that realm, you'll be all right."

- Bob Dylan, No Direction Home

Photo: Close-up of Picasso guitar sculpture, from The Picasso Museum at the Château Grimaldi in Antibes, France

For someone so prolific and poetic with his songwriting, Dylan has been notorious for being obtuse in interviews. He never quite explains himself, sometimes turns on the interviewers, and he consistently shys away from the labels of icon or "voice of a generation."

But he has some real honest and direct moments in this documentary. It's interesting to watch simply because he's Bob Dylan, and well, because he's an icon. But it's also been interesting from an artistic perspective.

His comment above was intermixed with the story of when Dylan went electric. Dylan was already famous at this point for his folk-style songs. Crowds literally booed him for playing with his electric guitar, backed by The Band.

People were so attached to who he'd been that they reviled who he was becoming. He mostly appeared to take this in stride. He just needed to do what he needed to do, whether people liked it or not. He had certainly arrived, but he was also becoming.

That struck me as taking a tremendous amount of courage and determination. Or maybe it was simply a strong sort of self-knowledge, and a desire to grow, evolve and be true to himself.

Whether painter, musician, dancer, sculptor, photographer -- his comment rings true. It's challenging as artist -- you think you've done one of your best pieces, and you want to hold on to it or capture that moment in time somehow. But you have to keep moving, growing and creating.

You have to stay in that constant state of becoming.