When my daughter was about seven years old, she asked me one day what I
did at work. I told her I worked at the college – that my job was to teach
people how to draw. She stared back at
me, incredulous, and said, You mean they forget? -Howard Ikemoto
That quote from Art and Fear (David Bayles & Ted
Orland, The Image Continuum Press) comes to me each time I am around young
children.
Most people feel uncomfortable about others looking at their
work and making a judgement about the outcome of their efforts. We folks in the
arts put our work out there and we expect feedback and hope that our efforts
will be appreciated. The sweet visitor to my studio was our four-year-old
grandson. He walked in with confidence and said, Whatcha working on? Need any help?
He watched me for a bit then as he walked around the studio
he stared at a recent painting of a favorite lake. Do you want to touch it? I asked. His small fingers gently followed
the lines of the trees. Then with a sure
opinion he said, I like it. And he
left the room.
Just for fun, or maybe because of a hidden slice of fear, I
Googled how to critique artwork and sure enough a lot of important sounding
stuff came up, not in four-year-old language, but the dreaded academia talk.
The Google search discussion was informative and helpful but not the straight
forward honesty of a four-year-old.
In Art and Fear,
the authors discuss the role other people’s reaction to our art and how we
proceed to on the creative path after critiques. Here is the gem paraphrase a reaction
to criticism: when we the artists react negatively to casual critiques, we are
giving others a lot of power over our work.
We have to continually evaluate our art at the time we are working
in the studio. After a painting session we take an important few moments away
from the studio then come back to the piece in progress with a fresh view. We
might see it better if we had the eyes
of a four-year-old.
Joel
I've had a lot of experiences with critiques, especially now after taking a few advanced level classes, and I have to say that the best way that I take criticism is that I don't.
ReplyDeleteLots of times, critiques end up being either:
1. About stating problems I'm already in the process of working on, or
2. Different paths I can take in my work (if it is an in-process critique)
I generally find in-process critiques a little more helpful as the ones critiquing can see the underbelly of the work and not just the polish on top. I suppose this is a bit different in the realms of drawing vs. painting, because once a drawing is finished there is little one can do to salvage it if serious changes should be made after critique. Painting has a little more leeway, since you can paint over somewhat effectively.
Lately, I've been finding myself coming into the problem of people wanting my work to be bigger. I'm more comfortable with the work being small because that's how I like to work - with fine details. I did try making larger work, but it just didn't feel the same to me as my smaller works and nowhere near as precise.
I suppose critiquing is more of a process for the artist rather than for the work. It is more about taking in the good comments and filtering out the bad ones. Getting to know what is beneficial to the work will not come from every comment coming out of a professional's mouth, but the artist will know it when one sees it.
Great thoughts!
- Tyler
Thank you, Tyler, good clear comments. I appreciate hearing from you.
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