The Criticism We Need
A large part of the conversation this week at Synergy had to do with our avoidance of constructive criticism. The consensus was unanimous – criticism is necessary to our growth and improvement as artists and community, but the hurdles we have to overcome to change a culture of “Like” into a supportive culture of thoughtful examination are huge. According to surveys conducted for this convention, the vast majority of polymer artists create because it is a source of enjoyment, not because they are trying to make a living off of it or get into galleries or museums. With such a base and the pervasive nature of our internet dependent community, it will be difficult for us to get even a fraction of our folks into a habit of giving and graciously accepting criticism of our artwork.
However, avoiding criticism does reduce the effectiveness of our efforts to grow the polymer image from hobbyist craft medium, to a serious fine art form. More so, we still need our hobbyists, and the criticism is not going to be – and should not be – an integral part of their process. Sometimes we should just enjoy the process of creating. But for the serious artists in our community, criticism needs to be seen as essential and, someday, common. Because the inverse of the quote above is true … what we do will mean next to nothing if we avoid criticism and the opportunity to improve our visual communication with the world we present our work to.
Okay … I got all kinds of serious. Perhaps its because last night was so not serious. Our closing banquet was fraught with silliness, innuendo, and wonderfully warm camaraderie. Our sides and faces hurt from laughing but the conviviality assisted the auction raising efforts. I don’t have the numbers, but I hear we raised a record amount to help the IPCA continue its efforts and changes we are hearing about.
Now off to the American Craft Council show to see what else is going on in the craft world.
Besides a record amount earned for the guild , the IPCA very generously donated $1000 for the Samunnat project in Nepal. The Synergy participants then combined donations which then pushed the total tally raised for the building fund towards $12,000. Truly PC attracts wonderful people.
A local art group, with whom I was associated for a number of years, had a tradition of doing “Grand Rounds” the day before our semi-annual art tours. This is a tradition I’m sure many art tours uphold. All the participating artists actually go on the tour together, stopping at each studio to check it out so that we could ensure quality of presentation better speak to other artist’s work during the tour.
I suggested that we each write a short note to each of the other artists commenting on things we especially liked and making constructive suggestions for improving their displays. This was met with a resounding NO. Even making the comments anonymous if desired did not help. Apart from me, nobody was willing to offer any constructive criticisms and they thought writing the positive comments would be a waste of time. A verbal “Good Job” would suffice.
I find this often in life. My ideas are way outside of the social norms. I would have thought that fellow artists would have a good proportion of those who also had ideas outside of the social norms. So far I have found none locally, and only run into like minds online and in publications like The Polymer Arts.
So wish I could have been at Synergy. Perhaps next year. Here’s a virtual toast to thinking outside the box…and the circle…and the spiral,,,