Reflections on Praise & Criticism

I remember when I was twenty-one standing alone in a gallery waiting for people to arrive for the opening night of my first solo exhibition. The gallery owner and I’d hung the paintings (hi Ely if you’re reading this!), printed the titles, sent out invitations, and she’d popped downstairs to get herself ready for the evening.

Which left me alone for the first time with all my paintings hanging on the walls and cars passing on the busy street out front.

I distinctly remember wondering if anyone was going to show up.

“Imagine if no one comes!” my mind said.

But they did come. In fact between my friends and family and their friends and family, there was quite a bustling crowd overflowing onto the pavement out the front.

And I noticed something.

I noticed how one person could love one of my paintings, but not care much for the others.

While another person loved the series of paintings on the left, but didn’t care much for the ones on the right.

That’s when I realised an important point that’s helped me through my creative career.

Which was basically this; some people like vanilla, while others like chocolate.

These days I don’t get hung up on whether or not people like my paintings. After exhibiting in over 48 exhibitions, experience has taught me that if one viewer doesn’t resonate with my style, someone else will. Which makes it a whole lot easier not to get caught up looking for people’s praise.

But it wasn’t like that in the beginning.

When I was learning to paint, I desperately wanted feedback, and I wanted it to be good.

I wanted friends and family to love my paintings, to gush about the colours or the textures or the balance, how it made them feel, how they wanted to hang it in their living room. Basically, I was looking for them to endorse my vision of what I was creating.

Nowadays, when visitors come to my studio or an exhibition, I don’t mind if people walk past my favourite work. If they don’t notice it or it doesn’t sing to their soul, I don’t melt into a puddle on the floor.

I know vanilla and chocolate are both good. Caramel is wonderful too.

There’s space for all kinds of tastes in our creative lives.

We all look at the world through our own lens.

When we make something with the hope everyone will like it, it’s like hoping the whole world will like the same colour. Imagine trying to convince someone who loves turquoise blue why they should really love fire engine red. It’s futile to worry about such things. We can’t convince someone to change their taste. Some things are just intrinsic.

But do you know what? If someone doesn’t like blue, it’s not actually a reflection on blue.

The colour doesn’t change its quality from one person to the next.

The ‘judgement’ whether blue is good or not, calming or boring, is purely a reflection of the person looking at it, not of the colour itself.

So it is with our creative expressions. Our paintings, poems, photos, videos, blogs, and even our living rooms.

They have a flavour of their own.

Some people will love them. Some people will dislike them. Some people won’t even notice them.

But don’t make the mistake of believing that’s in any way a reflection of your worth, or the worth of your creative outpourings.

It took me a while to realise my creations were not part of me.

They are separate.

Yes, we play a part in our creations, but they are not us.

And if someone likes them or dislikes them, it’s not a reflection of our value or even the value of our work.

Other people’s feedback and opinions give us more information about their tastes, their preferences, their experiences, or cultural trends, than information about our painting, poem, photo, blog or style.

Whether they’re a lecturer at university who’s marking your work, your neighbour from over the back fence, a gallery owner or your significant other, their feedback will give you more information about them personally, than information about you or about your work.

That being said, feedback can be incredibly useful, when received with full knowledge that it is someone’s subjective opinion, but don’t make the mistake of believing it encapsulates your creative worth or ability, or even the worth of what you’ve made.

For instance, if you ask me to describe vanilla my response may be, “Oh I love the delicate warmth, the smooth, inviting sensation in my mouth whenever I taste vanilla. I adore it. For some reason it makes me think of France.”

Or it may be, “Vanilla? What? I can’t stand the stuff. My mum used to buy thick, buttery, yellow vanilla slice for dessert every week from the local bakery and just the sight of it makes me want to be sick.”

(Actually, my mum didn’t buy vanilla slice every week from the local bakery.)

But you get the picture.

Whether I like vanilla or not, or whether other people like vanilla or not, has nothing to do with the quality of the flavour.

Just the same, whether I like your creation or not, or others like your creation or not, has nothing to do with you or your creation.

It’s about the viewer. And they’re allowed to like or dislike whatever is true for them.

So, if that’s the case, I always figure it’s best to make things that please you.

Things you love.

That light you up, challenge you, perplex you, or delight you.

And as the beautiful Tara Mohr says, practice unhooking from other people’s praise and criticism.

Tune into your heart and make things from there.

Express them clearly, explore them deeply, and mould them with love.

You’ll create a life you love that way; a creative life that’s authentic to you.

Now, I’d love to acknowledge the natural stages we go through when learning a new skill or developing our own style. Because you see, I could end this post here, all nice and neatly wrapped up on a feel good note, but the reality is it’s natural to feel sensitive or apprehensive about other people’s opinions when we’re beginning something new.

These days, I often find myself feeling vulnerable after I send a blog post or even at times a social media update. Much more than having an exhibition.

And that’s when I remind myself, I’ve had 13 years practice at exhibiting my artwork, while blogging and social media, after just four years, are still comparatively new on my radar. And sometimes they freak me the heck out!

After I hit ‘send’ or press ‘publish’ I often feel pulled back to my computer or phone. I worry about stats and numbers and the sound of silence. I play out terrible scenarios in my mind even when I know it’s futile to do so.

I catch myself pondering over one word I wrote and worry some people may misconstrue the meaning of my entire post. I imagine some people will think my writing is authentic and uplifting, while other people may think it’s over the top or even worse, just a way of blowing my own trumpet.

That’s when I remind myself, it’s not my place to worry about how other people will interpret my writing. All I can do is share from my heart and write about what inspires me, my thoughts and learnings as clearly as possible.

Then let it go.

For instance, when I first made my little affirmation quotes for Instagram and Facebook, my mind screamed that I may sound ‘preachy’ and like I was telling people what to do, or like I was putting myself on a pedestal.

Every time I posted one, my mind totally flipped out. Because I hadn’t done it before. And our minds love to keep us safe by keeping us in ‘known’ territory.

So after riding that wave of fear and self doubt over and over for about a week, I sat back and had a little talk with myself.

“Nic, why are you putting these out there?”

“Because I think they are lovely little reminders, and encouragements for people to take care of themselves.”

“When you made them, did you enjoy it?”

“Oh yes! I loved the entire process! I love painting the backgrounds, I loved designing them in Canva, I loved writing them while we were in Maleny.”

“Well, then, focus on that and when those fears pop up, just remember why you made them, what your heart is, and how much fun you had.”

It’s been a heck of a lot easier since that internal conversation.

And now, as I build my muscles here in the blogging and social media sphere, I wish you all the very best in your own journey of making whatever it is that’s in your heart.

Whether it’s raising children, hand-crafting candles for the local market, cross-stitching a picture for your grand-daughter, painting your first picture, building a model ship or sharing a photo of something you love on Instagram.

You are courageous.

And I applaud you. Truly, I do.

Make what’s in your heart. Tune into that place. Remember why you’re dong it. And share it.

It will fill you up in return.

Have a beautiful, playful, creative and gentle week,

With love,

Nicola xx