Put Away Your Weapons

Artists are very familiar with criticism.

Art students are criticized by their peers and teachers.

Works of art are criticized every time they go out into the world.

Artists criticize everything they see.

Criticism is a huge part of the artistic experience, and that seems like such a shame to me.

I know, I know...criticism is supposed to help us get better.

But is that why we criticize? Do you really criticize things because you're interested in helping other people improve?

We deal with feelings of jealous, incompetence and pride. I haven't performed a scientific study of the motivations behind criticism, but I suspect most of it comes from less than noble emotions.

I'm not really talking about formal critique. I'm thinking of the thoughts you have in your head. I'm talking about the attitude with which you and a friend trash someone's work. I'm talking about the spirit of ruin--the desire to tear down what others have made.

We have a spirit of unhealthy competition instead of a spirit of cooperation.

Why aren't we trying to help each other out? Why don't we want to help others be better? Why do we want to trash something that someone else has created.

I learned a long time ago that it's so much easier to criticize than to create.

Creation is such a gift. Are we harmed when someone makes something? Then why do we hate on others' creations as though they shouldn't even have been made? I hear that attitude all the time, especially about music and movies. Some people think that just because a person's work gets "worse" that they should stop working.

How bizarre...to actually wish that someone would stop creating because you don't like their output.

Creation is messy, and we have a lot less control over the process than we like to admit.

I'm on a quest to become immune to criticism. Not that I don't learn from it, but that I'm not emotionally harmed by it.

At the same time, I wish we artists would embrace creation for its own sake. We don't have to pretend that everything people make is good. That's delusional and unhelpful. But we can applaud the desire to create and encourage it. How do you think people learn to make awesome stuff? By making a looooot of bad stuff.

Making stuff is good.