How to be an artist AND handle rejection. Chapter 1: Criticism, and the People who give it.

How to be an artist AND handle rejection.

Chapter 1: Criticism, and the People who give it.

It's the age old dilemma isn't it? Keeping that balance between growth and expression while handling the vortex of rejection and criticism that comes from trying to expand your career.

Now, how to find that balance?

Ask yourself: Is the criticism you are getting promoting growth?

There are going to be people that don't like your art. There are going to be people that hate your art. And you can learn a lot from your haters, if you are open to it.

A fair amount of their criticism is going to be “I just don't like charcoal drawings” or “I hate modern lyric dance.” These people were never your audience to begin with, so shake the mental Etch A Sketch in your mind and let them move by like the breeze off a dog's turd: Quickly bypassed and preferably downwind. (Note: Don't EVER delete their comments or argue with them. One, it is a waste of your time. Two, you are robbing yourself of letting others argue your points for you. Everyone on your thread that LOVES art made from recycled antique plumbing will happily fight this battle for you, and will feel closer to your art as a result. Also, they will be bringing more eyes to your work as the argument ensues. Let it happen.)

There are going to be a lot of others that say “this sucks” or “I don't like it.”

If this is all their contribution is, then they are also just warm air wafting past. Ignore them.

HOWEVER, if their response is something like “I don't like how I can't make out the details at the edges of this frame. I feel like I'm missing part of the story,” or “this seemed poorly rehearsed and unprepared,” BEFORE you get your hackles up and prepare to fight like a mother cat protecting her young, stop to absorb it. Is there useful, actionable information there?

Were you unprepared? Did you rush your process just to get another piece of content out there? Be honest with yourself. And I know this is staggeringly difficult. Most people have immense difficulties being honest with themselves, even outside art. (Which will likely be another article.)

But, we as artists, if we want to grow, have to be honest with ourselves. If we want to grow in our craft, our skill, our careers and our souls, then we have to take on actionable input that informs where we are not doing our optimum, or where we can improve.

This is the flip side of people saying they “like” our work, but have no input beyond that. Don't get me wrong, it's great to have people like our work. But that input still doesn't help us grow. This is why good directors, editors and coaches are so important. They don't just tell WHAT we are doing right or wrong, but they tell us HOW we are succeeding or screwing up.

So, find what is actionable in your feed back. Take note of it, and be honest with yourself. But do not let it crush you.

And keep in mind, the way your criticism is phrased may often not be anywhere near as civil as what I just wrote above.

You may get “I hope your drug through the streets naked by rampaging bulls while force fed kombucha for not pointing your toes in your routine, you Commie fuck!” (And yes, they'll use the wrong form of your/you're.)

And yes, they're an asshole. But you know you're going to get these responses. And you need them. And you need to ask yourself.... was I pointing my toes? Dammit, I wasn't. I got sloppy at that part of the routine. Fix it. Improve. Move forward.

Do let the vitriol the input was packaged in poison you. Let it propel you to move forward. Could they have been nicer in how they phrased it? Yes. Does it serve you one iota to dwell on that negativity or waste time fighting them you could be spending with friends or working on your next project? Hell no.

Also, be glad you got that visceral of a response. You want that. It means you affected them, for good or ill. It meant that they got invested enough in what was going on to give a shit.

Absorb. Reflect. Grow. Repeat.

And go forth, and make better art tomorrow than you did today.

Thank you.

Importance of Story

The world often does not make sense. Bad things happen to good people. The bad guys win in the end, or at least keep attaining positions of wealth and power.

Explosions, violence, natural disaster, poverty, disease and so much more.

It’s overwhelming.

I’m sure it was in the ancient days as well.

So a few clever people, long long ago, gathered around a campfire started telling stories. They told stories of mischievous spirits and petty gods that withheld the rain or cast fire from the heavens. Impish spirits, witches and vampires spoiled food, withered crops and made infants die in their cribs. Monsters lurked in the darkness, causing all of the senseless calamity that befalls humanity.

And they’re still there. Monsters still walk the Earth. Greed, Callousness, Divisiveness, Apathy, Cruelty, Selfishness, and Despair are some of the chief demons that prey upon the people of this world.

And thus we continue to write and tell stories. To make sense of it all.

Somewhere along the line we started believing that the higher powers were all supposed to be ‘good’, for causes we considered noble that we projected onto the heavens. But the ancients knew better. They knew that if there were gods in the sky and spirits in the air, that they were often malicious, because of all of the sundry awfulness that could and did befall a person.

We may even craft narratives within our own history and our own lives. I have seen people craft narratives around themselves to explain their life from the point of view that they prefer, and hone out anything that threatens their version of the story. It’s neurotic and unhealthy, but it a form of story telling.

Others have began crafting grand adventures in table top and video games where we are the central 

character fighting our way through horrific circumstance and overwhelming odds.

But at the end of it, we tell these stories to entertain, but furthermore to engage our weary, damaged souls. Stories remind us of the importance of our own humanity, of the strength of love, the need for courage, the importance of integrity and honor in a world that does not reward such things.

So, thousands of years later, story is just as important as it was when told and painted in the flickering fire light on cave walls back in the beginning of our story of humanity.

Our stories will outlive us. After our death, it will be the stories of our lives and deeds that carry on after we are gone.

It may be with dragons and wizards and aliens that we make our own campaign, or story or blog or game that makes sense of the strangeness and strife of our own existence.

To tell, write, share and absorb these stories that exist as tiny windows of light into the human soul that pour out a little hope, wonder, mirth and affirmative energy into this world, is the greatest gift we can share as we each try in our own ways to combat the tumult of this world.

So rise forth against angry gods, horrifying monsters, wicked spirits and other malicious things that go bump in the night, with your verve, your conviction, your deeds, your spirit and your story.

The World Full of Vampires (Seek to Drain from us...)

There’s a line in the movie Tombstone, where Wyatt Earp is trying to understand Ringo, the antagonist of the story. He asks Doc Holiday what makes a man like that.

Doc replies that “A man like Ringo has got a great big hole, right in the middle of him. He can never kill enough, or steal enough, or inflict enough pain to ever fill it.”

And we're all run into people like this in real life. They just consume the joy and energy all around them. Often they’ll make a big show of how unhappy they are, while expecting you to conjure the answer from them with the stereotypical “I’m fine… but I’m expecting you to keep asking me.” 

They manipulate you into believing that you are failing them somehow for not giving them enough of, whatever, at the time. They need to be the center of your attention, and they often lay in guilt trips or become angry when you are not able to drop everything to help them through their current maudlin dilemma. (Read on Textbook Manipulation for more on this.)

It’s this slow leeching vampirism without the fangs that slowly draws the joy and life out of the people around them. But it will never be enough. They will never have taken enough from the people around them to be satiated.

These people would first have to do some self-reflection and decide that they need to make some changes in themselves. Most often, this never takes place. Because it’s easier to blame the world around us than take any sort of accountability for ourselves.

Only, it isn’t really. Easier, that is.

Sure, on the surface living a life where nothing is your fault seems pretty simple. I suppose it can be. But to constantly view yourself as the victim of circumstance is to never be able to change it. And yes, there may be some emotional liberation there as well, but it also means that any goal towards happiness in life becomes impossible.

“The universe will always work against me, so why even bother?”

So they continue to be miserable. They continue to be unhappy. They keep waiting for some passing comet to magically change their lives, or for some person to provide meaning and happiness. Only, they never can, because this person has never done so for themselves.

And I’m not referring to depression here. I was suicidally depressed for years. I know that private hell all too well. What myself and my friends dealing with life problems or deep depression never did though, was make it someone else’s problem to fix. That is the distinction between the living and the selfish, the actualized individual and the child, is trying to fix our own problems.

Sure, we may not be able to fix everything ourselves, but we need to try. If for our own growth and strength, if for nothing else. Like any other muscle can atrophy from disuse, so too can the strength of the soul wither if we never use it to better ourselves.

I’ve watched it play out time and again. The few exceptions do eventually realize their mistakes and work to win back their friends and fight to improve their lives. The vast majority do not. It’s too hard. It’s too much effort. It’s easier to be Fortune’s Fool.

And eventually, through much heart ache and misery, we all eventually come to the same conclusion: We cannot help someone who does not want help, we can only limit their ability to hurt us or affect our lives. This may sound cold or selfish, but if we examine the behavior of these associates, they are fueled with selfishness. They exist to consume the life and verve of the people around them and then lash out at those same people when they aren’t ‘giving enough.’

So do we just cut loose every friend having a rough patch? That is not at all what is being discussed here. This is about long term emotional abuse and manipulation under the guise of friendship.

This is not a new problem, but I have definitely watched tools like social media allow for certain self-imagined martyrs to find new pulpits of self-absorption.

Yet we must look at this manner of abusive relationship as we would any other. Do we keep allowing someone else to hurt us? To take our joy away?

Do we keep enabling the addict to their own self destructive behavior?

Or do we offer what help we can, and learn to draw a line where we limit their ability to hurt us and the others that we love?

Sadly, it isn’t easy. There is something there in that person we care about. There is some spark in them we find endearing. The same is true of the physically abusive lover or the substance abusing friend that steals from you for their own benefit. But at a certain point we have to decide if they are dimming our world, causing us to be less and hurting others we care about without any regard to their feelings or needs.

Not saying not to care for others. Just saying to make sure they are also caring for you.

It’s not an easy choice. As ever, the choice is yours. 

“Let not another's disobedience to Nature become an ill to you; for you were not born to be depressed and unhappy with others, but to be happy with them. And if any is unhappy, remember that he is so for himself; for all men are made to enjoy felicity and peace.” – Epitectus