How depressing is Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man? Could it be an act of transformation from ‘pain’ into ‘art’?

The ideas about art that emerge from A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man are not depressing.  They affirm the power of creation in a world that desperately needs it.

Through Stephen, Joyce makes clear that the artistic identity is one of transformation.  Stephen must experience pain as he comes to understand that he does not "fit" into the socially designed classifications of the world around him.  He experiences alienation from this world....

The ideas about art that emerge from A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man are not depressing.  They affirm the power of creation in a world that desperately needs it.

Through Stephen, Joyce makes clear that the artistic identity is one of transformation.  Stephen must experience pain as he comes to understand that he does not "fit" into the socially designed classifications of the world around him.  He experiences alienation from this world. He communicates this to Cranly:  

I will tell you what I will do and what I will not do. I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it calls itself my home, my fatherland, or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defense the only arms I allow myself to use -- silence, exile, and cunning.

It is evident that Stephen has experienced challenge in trying to "fit" into worlds that are not for him.  Socially carved out notions like "Fatherland" or "church" don't work.  He recognizes this as a process of transformation, or change.  When he further tells Cranly that he no longer possesses the fear "to be alone" or "to make a mistake," Stephen speaks as an artist.  This is not depressing.  Rather, it is liberating.  

There is significant difficulty in arriving at such a point.  Stephen experiences pain and frustration in establishing his "non serviam credo" and defining his place in the world as an artist.  However, I don't think that Joyce sees this as depressing.  There is little sadness in Stephen's welcoming affirmation of "O life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.”  Joyce shows that the process of transforming into an artist might involve pain. However, it is not a depressing one because it creates something new and meaningful in the world.