Taking it on the chin
A 2.5-minute read.
Feedback. Love it or hate it - as an artist, it’s something that you just have to accept will come your way.
Put your art out into the world and there’s a fair chance that someone won’t like it. Put it out onto the t’interweb and the chances of that will grow exponentially.
And even if you decide not to go there, and choose only to show your creations to your nearest and dearest there’s still no guarantee of an overwhelmingly positive reaction.
Jonathan generally loves what I do but often responds to my enthusiastic ‘Whadya think of this one?’ with an ambiguous ‘Mmm … that’s different.’
To be fair, I’ve usually appeared out of nowhere - brandishing a canvas at him as he busily watches Pointless. So I understand that Jonathan’s simply buying time as he gathers his thoughts.
Which is fine by me. I’m happy to wait as I do genuinely want to know what he thinks.
Whether I’ll pay attention to it or not is another matter!
Because the thing is - if I love what I’ve created then what someone else thinks about it won’t change that.
Why should it?
The painting is still the same painting I was delighted with 5 minutes before.
And the same logic applies when we enter work for a juried exhibition. If it didn’t get selected - then it didn’t get selected. The painting might not have made the cut but it’s no less of a painting as a result.
The lack of selection isn’t personal yet it’s common for artists to say ‘I got rejected.’
But ‘I’ can’t be rejected because ‘I’ wasn’t being judged.
My painting was.
I’m not my painting. And my value as a human being isn’t connected to someone’s opinion of my art.
Because, to put it bluntly, if our value was dependent on our achievements then babies - who are as useless as they’re adorable - would have no value at all.
Yet clearly they do.
Besides, it’s often a numbers game anyway. Not being selected for an exhibition with 50 places and 2000 entries doesn’t mean your painting wasn’t good enough.
If it did then logic would state that there were 50 ‘good’ paintings and 1950 ‘bad’ ones.
What are the chances of that?
Talking of chances, there was only a 1 in 40 chance of getting in anyway. If you placed that bet on a horse you might as well kiss your money goodbye before the starting pistol goes off.
The thing is, if we’re not going to take the negative feedback personally then we can’t take the positive feedback personally either.
I might be thrilled when someone loves one of my paintings as much as I do - but their love of my art doesn’t make me a more valuable person.
The painting hasn’t changed as a result of their enthusiasm for it.
And neither have I.
I’m still the same ‘me’ I was 5 minutes before.
Being aware that other people’s opinions don’t change our intrinsic value helps to create a healthy level of resilience when it comes to being an artist.
Come to think of it - being aware that other people’s opinions don’t change our intrinsic value helps to create a healthy level of resilience when it comes to being human!
It also means that when you do ask for the ‘What can I do to improve this?’ kind of feedback you can take it in without getting defensive. Or worse still, without feeling the desire to put someone’s head through the canvas.
And there’s a lot to be said for that!
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