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Artist Talk: Criticism
11 years ago
General
How, as an artist (visual, written, whatever), do you personally handle criticism?
I've been thinking about this particularly, after reading 'Kerouac's American Journey': Kerouac was incredibly sensitive to criticism: time and again he would show his work to friends and colleagues for appraisal, and if anything less than effusive praise was offered, he would react with fury, sulk, belittle his critic and basically have a massive hissy-fit.
What a jerk, I'm thinking.
Me, I love criticism. I figure, how am I ever going to improve if I'm never told what I'm doing wrong?
I have particularly fond memory of, and respect for, one of my old college Art & Design teachers. This guy was the exact opposite of the 'those who can't, teach' type who sadly so often seem to infest Art colleges: he knew his shit. He'd worked in the industry for decades, and was basically teaching as his retirement plan.
One of the things I really liked about him was his no-sugar-coating bluntness: if you did something that wasn't up to scratch, he'd say it straight out, and tell you to do it again.
I think I benefitted by being a bit older and more resilient than a lot of my classmates, who were straight out of high school. Some of them got really upset. Whereupon he'd say to them, 'well, what do you think your boss is going to say? An Art Director doesn't have the luxury of mollycoddling your artistic ego. Jeez, my first teacher, if he didn't like your work, he'd tear it up in front of the whole class!'
I really took that to heart: grow a thick skin, is what I learned.
I was reminded of this again recently when I got someone to read something I'd written. When they read out certain parts to me that weren't working, it made me realise exactly how hilariously bad it sounded when I'd used cliches or ridiculously flowery prose.
So I learned a lot from having someone else laugh at where I'd really screwed up.
Of course, that doesn't mean I take everything someone says uncritically myself: if I think a critic is outright wrong, I'll defend my work to the hilt.
The only problem is that sometimes i forget that other people aren't so thick-skinned, so I'll be as blunt in my criticism as I expect others to be of me. So sometimes I'm accused of being overly critical - but people who say that don't usually realise that I'm harsher on myself than anyone.
But anyway, what about you? How do you handle criticism?
I've been thinking about this particularly, after reading 'Kerouac's American Journey': Kerouac was incredibly sensitive to criticism: time and again he would show his work to friends and colleagues for appraisal, and if anything less than effusive praise was offered, he would react with fury, sulk, belittle his critic and basically have a massive hissy-fit.
What a jerk, I'm thinking.
Me, I love criticism. I figure, how am I ever going to improve if I'm never told what I'm doing wrong?
I have particularly fond memory of, and respect for, one of my old college Art & Design teachers. This guy was the exact opposite of the 'those who can't, teach' type who sadly so often seem to infest Art colleges: he knew his shit. He'd worked in the industry for decades, and was basically teaching as his retirement plan.
One of the things I really liked about him was his no-sugar-coating bluntness: if you did something that wasn't up to scratch, he'd say it straight out, and tell you to do it again.
I think I benefitted by being a bit older and more resilient than a lot of my classmates, who were straight out of high school. Some of them got really upset. Whereupon he'd say to them, 'well, what do you think your boss is going to say? An Art Director doesn't have the luxury of mollycoddling your artistic ego. Jeez, my first teacher, if he didn't like your work, he'd tear it up in front of the whole class!'
I really took that to heart: grow a thick skin, is what I learned.
I was reminded of this again recently when I got someone to read something I'd written. When they read out certain parts to me that weren't working, it made me realise exactly how hilariously bad it sounded when I'd used cliches or ridiculously flowery prose.
So I learned a lot from having someone else laugh at where I'd really screwed up.
Of course, that doesn't mean I take everything someone says uncritically myself: if I think a critic is outright wrong, I'll defend my work to the hilt.
The only problem is that sometimes i forget that other people aren't so thick-skinned, so I'll be as blunt in my criticism as I expect others to be of me. So sometimes I'm accused of being overly critical - but people who say that don't usually realise that I'm harsher on myself than anyone.
But anyway, what about you? How do you handle criticism?
I still have an inner ten-year-old who wants to stomp around pouting that someone just doesn't understand how amazing this thing I made is, but I try to keep him bound and gagged in the basement. Beyond that it depends a bit on who's giving the critique, since some are better qualified than others. I'll try to see their point of view either way and decide if I agree with them or not.