A diptych of dilemma: Becoming an artist and a teacher

The impetus for this article derives from an identified need for research to deliver further insight into the challenges inherent to becoming an artist and teacher (Graham & Zwirn 2010; Hall 2010). Of particular interest are the implications an existing and active artist practice can have for the beginning teacher. According to Hall (2010), becoming an art teacher is a complex process within which personal and professional identities and practices intertwine. This being the case, there is great value in examining the specific actions, decisions and consequences that contribute to shaping the artist becoming teacher process. In this article, I adopt Deleuze’s (1995) use of the term becoming through which to examine formation and interactivity of artist and teacher identity. By definition, becoming is taken as experimentation with the unknown and new coming into being, or be-coming (Semetsky 2010). As such, becoming is understood and realised in this article as the movement evident in changes between particular events, such as the interchange inherent to an artist becoming a teacher.This article explores three teachers’ capacities to maintain arts practice from the perspectives of early career (myself), competent (Angus), and proficient (Jane) artists and teachers (two other participants). All three participants identified as having active artist practices prior to commencing their teacher training. Within this article, Kitchin, Morgan and O’Leary’s (2009) definition of an early career teacher is applied, which defines an early career teacher as someone working within their first five years, post training of professional teaching practice