Art and originality

Recently I wrote to a friend, " I have taught myself art by copying others whose art I admire, but I'm at the point of where I'm asking myself, ' Where does their art end and mine begin?'."  The ink was barely dry on the page when I discovered this book featured on several blogs:

Then I received a newsletter written by Cate Prato for Cloth Paper Scissors Today, addressing the same issue.  Synchronicity?  Oh yeah.  Basically, it seems to be okay to copy another artists' work to learn a new technique or style, but then one must experiment and add one's own style (whether you know you have one or not!), to make the piece uniquely one's own.  My partner, Roch, a musician, cited Billy Joel as an example.   He said that Billy Joel was known for copying the voice and style of other artists out of admiration for their talent, and this practice finally developed into his own style, for which he has become wildly popular.  Hmm.

While all this information makes me feel mildly more comfortable, I'm still a bit uneasy.  I would never want another artist to feel that I have ripped them off.  If anything in my work seems evenly remotely like that of someone else, I would hope that they feel flattered.  I am learning and growing as an artist.  I have faith that eventually my OWN style will emerge.

Thoughts anyone?