I Thought I Was Building a Business.

004 / 365 This film is part of an ongoing body of work investigating how identity transforms through sustained creative inquiry. 365 is an archive of observations, questions, experiments, and discoveries by Christina DiStefano. Each entry serves as evidence of an unfolding research practice, documenting—in real time—the evolution of an artist. Rather than documenting finished ideas, each entry captures the movement of becoming—the slow reconstruction of identity after leaving corporate life. It asks what happens when the artist is no longer left outside the conference room, but invited back into the work itself. It is an ongoing attempt to make the invisible a little more visible. ⸻ THE WORK CHANGES YOU FIRST. For the past few weeks, I’ve been trying to figure out what this next chapter of my work actually looks like. During a conversation about my personal brand, I realized something I hadn’t seen before. I was looking at myself through the lens of my business instead of looking at my business through the lens of who I am. Somewhere along the way, I started believing my content needed to be about real estate because that’s the industry I work in. But that’s never been what draws me. I’m an artist first. Not because I sell artwork, but because being an artist is the lens through which I understand the world. It’s how I notice patterns, ask questions, find meaning, and build ideas. This isn’t really a film about branding. It’s a study in identity. What happens when we stop asking who our business needs us to be…and begin allowing our business to become an expression of who we already are? Today I realized I wasn’t building my business. My business was quietly rebuilding me. Thank you for witnessing this part of the work. — Christina Inside the Studio: www.christinadistefanoart.com www.CD-DA.com Instagram @christinadistefanonyc