It is indeed so important to connect to other creative people, and this site is honestly the only one I've ever felt connected to! Most other sites don't have much of a real mind to community, or even worse, some of them encourage (or have done in past) outright antipathy and play creators against each other. I think the most important thing to do is to foster a sense of trust and comfort between creators.

It's also important that your fellow creators understand what you're setting out to do, and that neatly segues into the one part of the article I wanted to just add my two bits to: I don't think you should ever feel like, or be made to feel like, it is necessary or even okay for others to "tear apart" your work. Some creators work well with that, certainly. But most people are really not very good at constructive criticism, or much any criticism or critique at all, and there's a strange attitude in this day that encourages people just to complain, often brutally. "Criticism" has a negative connotation, and oftentimes people feel like asking for feedback is asking for complaints, asking them to point out problems. There's a toxic trend in academia, too, of students being expected to accept or even embrace fundamentally useless feedback from people who neither know them and their work, nor understand their intent in their art (or any expression) or individual works.

When giving feedback, I always encourage people to think primarily of the things they liked about something, because it tends to make them have to think in greater depth about the work. It is easier for most people to find something they don't like than it is to find something they do. It's also something I've always said, that if someone keeps getting rid of things people dislike about something -- which is what they'll readily tell you if you ask -- there won't be much, if anything, left that belongs to the artist. It can be much more helpful for an artist to concentrate on the things that someone likes and cultivate them, develop them in a constructive way towards flourishing.

There's also nothing wrong, I feel it's important to point out, with not accepting critique that isn't useful to you. You aren't required to accept any of it, and you should never just blindly accept it, or else even potentially useful critique can be utterly wasted. It's important that you be able to use it, and that takes thought and examination. If you don't know how to use it but you suspect it may be useful, file it away for a later date; if you are sure it won't be, or you simply can't see the person's point, or even just don't like their approach, you aren't required by any means to just accept it.

But to bring it back closer to your original topic, cultivating a sense of trust and community can help so much for artists to get to know each other and to become more familiar with each other, leading to a more constructive environment in general. In a good art community, creators can engage each other and the admirers of art can do the same, and they are far more likely to give useful, helpful critique.

I hope very much that this and your wonderful article will help to encourage the already lovely community here to even greater heights of friendliness and understanding!

On Mar 15, 2018, hushicho said:

It is indeed so important to connect to other creative people, and this site is honestly the only one I've ever felt connected to! Most other sites don't have much of a real mind to community, or even worse, some of them encourage (or have done in past) outright antipathy and play creators against each other. I think the most important thing to do is to foster a sense of trust and comfort between creators.

Thank you for the kind words Hushicho. Yes it's true a lot of communities both offline and online are competitive. One of the great things about the university I studied art at is how different the community was there. Everyone was supporting each other rather than competing.

It's also important that your fellow creators understand what you're setting out to do, and that neatly segues into the one part of the article I wanted to just add my two bits to: I don't think you should ever feel like, or be made to feel like, it is necessary or even okay for others to "tear apart" your work. Some creators work well with that, certainly. But most people are really not very good at constructive criticism, or much any criticism or critique at all, and there's a strange attitude in this day that encourages people just to complain, often brutally. "Criticism" has a negative connotation, and oftentimes people feel like asking for feedback is asking for complaints, asking them to point out problems. There's a toxic trend in academia, too, of students being expected to accept or even embrace fundamentally useless feedback from people who neither know them and their work, nor understand their intent in their art (or any expression) or individual works.

You know, I hadn't thought about it until you pointed that out. At my university the teachers were pretty critical and students were encouraged to be overly critical of each others work. And later when I went back to recruit soon-to-be graduates, many of them had little to no confidence in themselves. Being confident is essential when doing interviewing and leads to more opportunities. The overly critical critique culture breaks down our confidence and we end up suffering for that in lost opportunities. It can take years to regain it back again.

When giving feedback, I always encourage people to think primarily of the things they liked about something, because it tends to make them have to think in greater depth about the work. It is easier for most people to find something they don't like than it is to find something they do. It's also something I've always said, that if someone keeps getting rid of things people dislike about something -- which is what they'll readily tell you if you ask -- there won't be much, if anything, left that belongs to the artist. It can be much more helpful for an artist to concentrate on the things that someone likes and cultivate them, develop them in a constructive way towards flourishing.

I think hearing the good things is important as well. It helps you to know what things you're doing right so you can keep doing them. But I think it's also important to know what areas need improvement but only when the artist is ready to hear that type of feedback. Which is why I think it's important to have an opt-in critique system and for artists to take the time to specify in the description what type of critique they're requesting. That way they can get targeted feedback of what they're working on.

There's also nothing wrong, I feel it's important to point out, with not accepting critique that isn't useful to you. You aren't required to accept any of it, and you should never just blindly accept it, or else even potentially useful critique can be utterly wasted. It's important that you be able to use it, and that takes thought and examination. If you don't know how to use it but you suspect it may be useful, file it away for a later date; if you are sure it won't be, or you simply can't see the person's point, or even just don't like their approach, you aren't required by any means to just accept it.

I agree. In fact I think it would be useful for us to have an article somewhere explaining how to give AND receive critique that helps people to understand that. Sometimes we need permission from others to disregard some of the feedback.

But to bring it back closer to your original topic, cultivating a sense of trust and community can help so much for artists to get to know each other and to become more familiar with each other, leading to a more constructive environment in general. In a good art community, creators can engage each other and the admirers of art can do the same, and they are far more likely to give useful, helpful critique.

I hope very much that this and your wonderful article will help to encourage the already lovely community here to even greater heights of friendliness and understanding!

 

Thanks for your comments on the article. Very insightful!