Critiques: The Good, the Bad and the (Ultimately) Good

Some of my studies and drawings, as well as one of my half-life-size sculptures, from the sixth trimester (2nd Year).

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t’s been a tough few weeks. I have received hard critiques. Critiques that made me feel like I wasn’t good enough to be at this school, not good enough to be an artist, that I’d never be able to do “it”. By “it”, I mean painting the way my teachers want me to, painting like a professional artist, understanding the concepts, being able to apply the concepts (like understanding that when a skin tone is more yellow, the transition colour into the shadow “can’t” be blue, because the yellow skin will react with the “blue” colour I see to make it green), and making an exactly accurate replica of what I see, especially in my cast (I’m copying a bust of Robespierre, of the French Revolution and the guillotine – picture from this week attached).

I felt angry. I felt criticized. I felt frustrated. Really frustrated. I felt hopeless, like giving up.

And confused. The critiques were seemingly going straight for my personality. And I didn’t believe these things were part of my personality. Were they? Are they? For example, I am seemingly very impatient. I even asked my dad, via What’s App. “Dad, am I an impatient person?” Dad: “Yes. Meditate!” This was news to me! But the critiques have been consistently addressing this.

People have said in the past, that when you are studying art, you will be facing yourself. And some teachers at the school have also told me that when they critique a student’s work, they aren’t really (or aren’t just) critiquing the work. They are seeing and critiquing where that student is, psychologically and emotionally, at that moment. The artwork reveals all. I didn’t appreciate this, or hadn’t experienced this, until the past few weeks, when I felt like I was coming up against myself – my “bad” habits – every day. Like being on a loop, or a boomerang (to use the Instagram language for a short video that repeats around and around in a loop), where I keep repeating the same behaviours and don’t seem to be able to stop them.

I saw a video blog by a woman called Sophia, the Wise One, a healer in New Jersey who a friend introduced me to. She said being able to see a behaviour you want to change before you enact it, is the first step. But then there is this sometimes long in-between period where you see the behaviour before you enact it but can’t stop yourself doing it. This is an uncomfortable time! It’s only after a period of living in this in-between that you’re able to stop the behaviour before you do it… I can see I am in the in-between stage.

I can see myself being impatient – acting without thinking. Not having a plan for what I’m going to do. Not setting myself up for success, by being too impatient to get to the outcome. Possibly it’s anxiety I won’t be able to get to a desirable outcome. I won’t know how. So, I act, to stop this uncomfortable feeling. But in doing so, I miss the joy of the experience, the journey.

My sculpting teacher Mitch said it so eloquently, when he saw me “slapping on” clay to sculpt an arm on a half life-size figure we are working on. He said, be in love with every stage. It’s about the journey, not the destination (exactly, ironically, what I took away from my Camino experience!). Don’t fight a battle on my sculpture (or canvas) – the marks will show this, and it does not make for a good work! My current cast is a battleground. A war is being fought, and it is now in the 7th week. The 7-week war!

What could I have done differently? Taken a breath. Thought about what I’m trying to do. Created proper planning sketches and value studies in paint. And actually try to match the colours I see! (On a white cast, where you are painting colours that are anything but white, this is a challenge, let me tell you!)

My teachers didn’t hold me back, stop me, tell me not to begin the painting until I’d done these preparatory steps. At this stage, I should know the process, and know what I need to do to make myself successful. More importantly, I need to make my own mistakes. There are no shortcuts. There is no quick way to the finish line. As Mitch also said, I’m going from A to B. I can go slowly, planfully, with care. Or I can spin around and around and around, running as fast as I can. But that’s not going to get me to B any faster. In fact, it’ll take me much longer! (And I’ll be exhausted from all the running!)

So… even though I have found the critiques painful, hard and confronting, I am realising that indeed, this is a part of my personality that I must face. And it shows up in all parts of my life. I spoke to my past leader from American Express Kerrie yesterday, and I recalled a time she gave me feedback on this exact thing – I was too abrupt with a colleague because I was trying to get to a solution quickly, without allowing for the needed steps to get there. I wanted to jump to the end. This wasn’t a good way to engage with my colleague, and it’s not a good way to engage with an artwork.

Kerrie also made the valuable connection between critiques in the art world, and feedback in the workplace. In the art world, we are being taught by teachers we respect, admire and trust. And they tell us – directly, sometimes harshly – what we need to do to get better. To be the best we can be. It is coming from a place of love. In the workplace, too often a leader feels uncomfortable, unable to give the specific, direct feedback that an employee needs.

In the end, after three weeks of having to face myself every day, in a challenging way, I feel like I’ve surmounted something. I have faced myself, and I see myself. And I realise this is behaviour I can change. I just need to be conscious. Like breathing in yoga. I need to breathe. “If one is not breathing in yoga, we have to ask ourselves,” as my favourite yoga teacher Cat Meffan says in her videos, “if we’re really doing yoga.”

Am I really creating art if I’m throwing down paint, slapping down clay, not really looking or seeing or thinking?

The challenge now is to see my behaviour, face it, embrace it, and change. I didn’t expect my critiques at art school to be so direct, so arresting, or so valuable.