criticism

You know I've gotten my share of criticism about my artwork..uh, well, I really haven't. Most people don't say anything to me directly if they don't like my artwork, so mostly I get comments from people who like the artwork and who are willing to gush about it.

Those people are geniuses I just have to say.

But I did get some slight criticism a few months ago, on a blog forum page, that I had to deal with. In some ways I didn't mind it too much -- I mean basically it's like if somebody comes into your studio and doesn't like something. I've learned that it isn't the end of the world and that for every person who doesn't like it, there are plenty that do. You don't need to change your whole way of thinking cuz one person in your studio doesn't like the work and that seemed to apply to this public criticism as well.

Recently though, I've seen an artist who has been around a long time get criticized pretty severely in the pages of a newspaper and seen how he has dealt with it. And it hasn't been pretty.

I guess if I get in that kind of situation, where I get stung by some criticism, that I hope I won't try and make it the other person's fault somehow, that I wouldn't try to convince all and sundry that in actuality I'm good and the critic's bad as a way of dealing with the situation. Which is what this artist seems to have done, and continues to do without an end in sight apparently.

To me, the criticism originally received by the artist starts to be validated by his response to it and these continued attempts to try and prove that it's the critic who is suspect not the artist really show the artist to be less of a big original thinker than I thought he was. Up to the point that he started his assault, I thought he was a person with a good vision of the world, and of art, and that he was a good spokesperson for the local scene.

Well, who knows how I would react in that situation myself and I hope I never have to find out. It's easy to comment on it, but if I were the one being criticized a person such as myself might slip into that kind of behavior pretty easily. Which makes me worry that in other ways, in other situations similar to this one where I might be criticized for my behavior, that I have a process that's similar to this artist, where I go through the same kinds of machinations this artist has done to try to prove (at least to myself) that I'm blameless.

You just wonder, I guess, it's sometimes hard to see in yourself (and easy to see in someone else).

Of two minds

Whoa, this is one of my favorite paintings here, I don't know why. And it's mine to boot.

It's a good example of a painting that really just came out of me somehow and to have to explain it would just be a waste of time because I really don't know what it means.

But I reserve the right for it to mean something.

People are always so worried about what something means. I guess I'm starting to realize that there's a whole big part of a person who can respond to a painting without your conscious mind being a part of that response.

So you see a painting and you love it starting from some nether part of your being and you love it so much it starts to penetrate your conscious mind as being something worth noting and your conscious mind starts trying to find a reason why you love the painting so much.

It works and it works to figure it out and usually it comes up with something, something probably that can seem pretty coherent really. Like I like that green color. And I'm a person who always likes a green color so no wonder I like this painting so much.

But I think there is more to it, and the more to it that's there is not explainable. Try telling that to your conscious mind though, it aint' gonna buy it, something like that is basically like a revolt and your conscious mind is going to nip it in the bud.

Gonna say something to you like you know I really do think you're going crazy.

But don't believe that, stand up for yourself silently and continue to just like things without having to explain them. Nurture the part of you that cannot speak, and look for signs that it does communicate just not in the usual methods.

Pathway

There's something very satisfying to me to write something, and then to wipe it out. I think the reason for that is it's very hard to come up with something that is useable in a painting, writing wise, and you're never quite sure it will go over very well.

So if a person such as ME goes over it (with paint) it feels good, now NOBODY is gonna know what you wrote.

I'm trying to do this painting right now where the writing is partly obscured and partly legible. There's one particular part that when I wrote it, I didn't think it was too good so that particular part is gonna be VERY hard to read, and I feel good about that.

Lately I've been doing a lot of the same kind of paintings, and as much as it's good to develop a signature style (people definitely can tell it's one of my painting from across the street) it also isn't all that good in that it can get repetitive, and you can feel frustratingly tired with the whole thang.

I'm painting crowds and as I do the next one I think about all the things that I have already done and hope that each painting isn't just like the last one. Especially in the poses of the people involved.

Well, one I'm doing now, it's gigantic, 8feet high and I'm doing another one, a little one for the Henry Bash, which I can safely say are different than the ones I have done previously. Maybe that's why I'm doing them so big and so little, to be different.

But I didn't consciously decide that, it just happened.

The big one is awesome (for me) cuz I really like the figures almost being life size...they're probably about 3/4 size and it's fun for me to paint them. I feel I can do more with their faces and bodies than I have done before.

The little one has been a bit of a revelation cuz I'm able to get a crowd scene in a very small area and still have the people be as individual as I want them to be. The little one doesn't have writing but as I write this, I'm thinking maybe I should add writing to it, sorta finish it off.

Well, anyhoo, maybe based on the observations here, I should move on to something else, take a different pathway than the one I'm been on for about the last six months. I think it might be a good thing.