is this why I lose a follower every time I update my tumblr? although I try not to do the 'augh this is shit' thing. If I really think it's shit (and not funny shit) then I won't post it.
It seems a bit harsh to call people people out for lacking confidence. "Hey, like yourself!" Is about as effective as "Hey, cheer up!" to someone with depression.
Something that was oddly comforting in a weird way was when I worked with a guy who had done everything, had every job, and worked in the industry for 25 years... and he still felt that his work wasn't good enough. Maybe that should have been a bit depressing because its kind of one of those 'god I'm never going to escape this self confidence issue' but it also made it more... normal for me. Kind of easier to deal with.
I think confidence is something ALL artists tend to struggle with, sometimes to the point of being irrational. There's just no benefit for anyone when an artist publicly call their work shit when in reality it just doesn't line up with their taste. Me and Mac (from SS) were talking about this subject once and he mentioned an Ira Glass quote that summed it up nicely.
I agree that reading or hearing about an artist's self-deprecation gets pretty annoying, and from a business standpoint is just a poor move. If you don't care for the work you're putting out, then why should your audience?
I don't necessarily think this is something that is unique to the art world either. In my day job I'm a software engineer (and have been for 13 years) and I still think my code is shit from time to time. Seems like it just signifies that you care a lot about whatever you happen to be doing.
I'm curious how long they can continue using the artist did poorly in the last challenge so they go to the elimination without taking into account previous challenges.
I feel like this is a hindrance to the show that each time the winning contestant has used the same model. Especially in cases where there isn't really a loser, but simply the work got a negative criticism and may not have been poor artwork.
There are definitely cases where mediocre work prevailed over work that may have been on the fence but was called out by the judges. I think Katie's T-shirt design, and Mynt's Skate Deck fit this category in particular.
I'm thinking like Lexxy Vs Tavis this elimination model will definitely result in another unpopular elimination because it gives unfair advantage to more tame or mediocre efforts, but especially as the field of artists narrow I'm afraid I can see someone like Katie going to elimination again despite strong performances or the alternative, that someone with mediocre (but still good) abilities will make it to the end, but not have the ability to really compete at the same level because they skated through previous rounds.
It seems a bit harsh to call people people out for lacking confidence. "Hey, like yourself!" Is about as effective as "Hey, cheer up!" to someone with depression.
"Lacking confidence" is a slightly different beast than "constantly complaining about your work/deflecting praise" though. Every artist who has ever committed themselves to their work almost certainly has confidence issues.
But bitching about how much you hate your own work - even though you are the one who is, of your own free will, posting it for the entire world to see - is completely unproductive. At best, you're just inviting a bunch of people to come out of the woodwork to prop you up, and if you really truly hate your work as much as you'd have the internet believe, then you already know that praise is going to fall on deaf ears.
So in the best care scenario, that behavior is just inviting people to waste their breath, to what end I'm not really sure. Maybe so the artist can satisfy the itch of really laying into the person they hate most IE themselves? Or perhaps because it lets them affirm to everyone that they are truly shitty, thus setting expectations so low that they never have to try to be truly exceptional.
In the worst case scenario, the artist is just looking for attention, for someone to give them praise, or so that their Tumblr/Twitter box won't be so empty.
I know I've felt compelled to do that kind of horseshit for both reasons. But the best artists are the ones who can take that angst and do something productive with it. The ones who realize that in order for the praise to feel genuine, it needs to come in direct response to their work, not as a reflexive response to their constant self-inflicted browbeating.
["Lacking confidence" is a slightly different beast than "constantly complaining about your work/deflecting praise" though. Every artist who has ever committed themselves to their work almost certainly has confidence issues...
...The ones who realize that in order for the praise to feel genuine, it needs to come in direct response to their work, not as a reflexive response to their constant self-inflicted browbeating.
Is acknowleging your faults really that bad? Maybe I should stop doing that. It's so hard though. When I recognize an area I need to improve, I do my best to point it out so that someone else doesn't point it out first, and then I feel bad.
I think maybe we should establish a common language about this. Understanding where you need to improve is completely different than tearing yourself down at every opportunity.
Its the difference between "I understand that I need to focus on facial anatomy and expressions. Those are probably my weakest area" and "I have no idea what I'm doing, I don't deserve your praise, I'm so terrible, etc". One of those is a dispassionate, objective measurement of your capabilities as an artist, and will ultimately help you grow. The other is an excuse.
Sometimes though just sucking it up isn't something that people are able to do. Depression is a very real thing and not just an excuse. Not saying you are saying that, but you don't always know the situation of the person you are following.
Maybe I'm just jealous that some people are able to let themselves go and blow off steam like that.
And just so it's clear, I understand the irrational depression thing, and I typically assume that, when a person seems incapable of understanding their worth as an artist, it's probably genuine. It's when someone goes out of their way to vocalize that dissatisfaction that I get aggravated. It's just so tremendously unproductive in every sense. If you want to talk about your feelings towards your work and yourself as an artist, there are so many ways of going about that, ways which don't put your audience on the spot.
["Lacking confidence" is a slightly different beast than "constantly complaining about your work/deflecting praise" though. Every artist who has ever committed themselves to their work almost certainly has confidence issues...
...The ones who realize that in order for the praise to feel genuine, it needs to come in direct response to their work, not as a reflexive response to their constant self-inflicted browbeating.
Is acknowleging your faults really that bad? Maybe I should stop doing that. It's so hard though. When I recognize an area I need to improve, I do my best to point it out so that someone else doesn't point it out first, and then I feel bad.
Acknowledging them to yourself is fine. Publicly (like in a blog/tumblr post) acknowledging them before they are pointed out is something I try to avoid because as you've stated the only purpose is to make yourself feel better.
I guess I'm coming at this from a professional standpoint. There are many people who won't notice the same flaws in your work and still hire/commission you anyways. Whereas if you're pointing out your flaws at every chance, it already plants seeds of negativity in the viewer. Don't give people a reason to put points in the "bad" column.
Obviously I'm not saying that you should try to be purposefully misleading, but instead, stand by your presented work with pride no matter what level you're at. Could it be better? Of course it can, it can ALWAYS be better. But if you find a way to balance confidence with humility, you give yourself the best chance of being hired while you're improving.
Even in a critique setting... I've been taught to present my work, with maybe a little description of purpose, and let the viewers arrive at commentary on their own. If you show your work and the first things out of your mouth are "this, this and this are wrong" then you're robbing viewers the chance to open a dialogue about your piece. After that dialogue is underway, maybe you can start talking about things that you could have done better, and seek advice on how to proceed. But I don't feel that it should be in your opening statements.
I think confidence is something ALL artists tend to struggle with, sometimes to the point of being irrational. There's just no benefit for anyone when an artist publicly call their work shit when in reality it just doesn't line up with their taste. Me and Mac (from SS) were talking about this subject once and he mentioned an Ira Glass quote that summed it up nicely.
I agree that reading or hearing about an artist's self-deprecation gets pretty annoying, and from a business standpoint is just a poor move. If you don't care for the work you're putting out, then why should your audience?
the quote my last art prof used was: "every good artist can recognize that high quality 'wow' art vs. mediocre art instantly, but it takes 10,000 hours of dedication to develop your skills until you are able to replicate what you are so easily recognizing, everything you produce up until that point is 'aproaching.'" something like that. I'm paraphrasing.
All you Aesop Rock fans, not sure if you guys know about 900bats or not, but there's some pretty great stuff on the site. AKA this little gem http://900bats.com/2013/demo-power-hour/
I think confidence is something ALL artists tend to struggle with, sometimes to the point of being irrational. There's just no benefit for anyone when an artist publicly call their work shit when in reality it just doesn't line up with their taste. Me and Mac (from SS) were talking about this subject once and he mentioned an Ira Glass quote that summed it up nicely.
I agree that reading or hearing about an artist's self-deprecation gets pretty annoying, and from a business standpoint is just a poor move. If you don't care for the work you're putting out, then why should your audience?
the quote my last art prof used was: "every good artist can recognize that high quality 'wow' art vs. mediocre art instantly, but it takes 10,000 hours of dedication to develop your skills until you are able to replicate what you are so easily recognizing, everything you produce up until that point is 'aproaching.'" something like that. I'm paraphrasing.
Did penis fencing cross your mind at any point and you had to restrain yourself from wrapping your mind around it while you focus on being normal in front of her?
Did penis fencing cross your mind at any point and you had to restrain yourself from wrapping your mind around it while you focus on being normal in front of her?
Cause God I hope so.
We talked about it and decided to figure it out at a later date.
There was a shooting near MIT today. I'm starting to have real concerns about the country collapsing on itself
Though I guess the sad reality is thinking about how often this stuff happens that doesn't make its way to the media. I just love my naive happy bubble of innocence and bubblegum too much to notice.
Posts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome
Something that was oddly comforting in a weird way was when I worked with a guy who had done everything, had every job, and worked in the industry for 25 years... and he still felt that his work wasn't good enough. Maybe that should have been a bit depressing because its kind of one of those 'god I'm never going to escape this self confidence issue' but it also made it more... normal for me. Kind of easier to deal with.
I agree that reading or hearing about an artist's self-deprecation gets pretty annoying, and from a business standpoint is just a poor move. If you don't care for the work you're putting out, then why should your audience?
I feel like this is a hindrance to the show that each time the winning contestant has used the same model. Especially in cases where there isn't really a loser, but simply the work got a negative criticism and may not have been poor artwork.
There are definitely cases where mediocre work prevailed over work that may have been on the fence but was called out by the judges. I think Katie's T-shirt design, and Mynt's Skate Deck fit this category in particular.
I'm thinking like Lexxy Vs Tavis this elimination model will definitely result in another unpopular elimination because it gives unfair advantage to more tame or mediocre efforts, but especially as the field of artists narrow I'm afraid I can see someone like Katie going to elimination again despite strong performances or the alternative, that someone with mediocre (but still good) abilities will make it to the end, but not have the ability to really compete at the same level because they skated through previous rounds.
"Lacking confidence" is a slightly different beast than "constantly complaining about your work/deflecting praise" though. Every artist who has ever committed themselves to their work almost certainly has confidence issues.
But bitching about how much you hate your own work - even though you are the one who is, of your own free will, posting it for the entire world to see - is completely unproductive. At best, you're just inviting a bunch of people to come out of the woodwork to prop you up, and if you really truly hate your work as much as you'd have the internet believe, then you already know that praise is going to fall on deaf ears.
So in the best care scenario, that behavior is just inviting people to waste their breath, to what end I'm not really sure. Maybe so the artist can satisfy the itch of really laying into the person they hate most IE themselves? Or perhaps because it lets them affirm to everyone that they are truly shitty, thus setting expectations so low that they never have to try to be truly exceptional.
In the worst case scenario, the artist is just looking for attention, for someone to give them praise, or so that their Tumblr/Twitter box won't be so empty.
I know I've felt compelled to do that kind of horseshit for both reasons. But the best artists are the ones who can take that angst and do something productive with it. The ones who realize that in order for the praise to feel genuine, it needs to come in direct response to their work, not as a reflexive response to their constant self-inflicted browbeating.
Is acknowleging your faults really that bad? Maybe I should stop doing that. It's so hard though. When I recognize an area I need to improve, I do my best to point it out so that someone else doesn't point it out first, and then I feel bad.
Its the difference between "I understand that I need to focus on facial anatomy and expressions. Those are probably my weakest area" and "I have no idea what I'm doing, I don't deserve your praise, I'm so terrible, etc". One of those is a dispassionate, objective measurement of your capabilities as an artist, and will ultimately help you grow. The other is an excuse.
And just so it's clear, I understand the irrational depression thing, and I typically assume that, when a person seems incapable of understanding their worth as an artist, it's probably genuine. It's when someone goes out of their way to vocalize that dissatisfaction that I get aggravated. It's just so tremendously unproductive in every sense. If you want to talk about your feelings towards your work and yourself as an artist, there are so many ways of going about that, ways which don't put your audience on the spot.
Acknowledging them to yourself is fine. Publicly (like in a blog/tumblr post) acknowledging them before they are pointed out is something I try to avoid because as you've stated the only purpose is to make yourself feel better.
I guess I'm coming at this from a professional standpoint. There are many people who won't notice the same flaws in your work and still hire/commission you anyways. Whereas if you're pointing out your flaws at every chance, it already plants seeds of negativity in the viewer. Don't give people a reason to put points in the "bad" column.
Obviously I'm not saying that you should try to be purposefully misleading, but instead, stand by your presented work with pride no matter what level you're at. Could it be better? Of course it can, it can ALWAYS be better. But if you find a way to balance confidence with humility, you give yourself the best chance of being hired while you're improving.
Even in a critique setting... I've been taught to present my work, with maybe a little description of purpose, and let the viewers arrive at commentary on their own. If you show your work and the first things out of your mouth are "this, this and this are wrong" then you're robbing viewers the chance to open a dialogue about your piece. After that dialogue is underway, maybe you can start talking about things that you could have done better, and seek advice on how to proceed. But I don't feel that it should be in your opening statements.
His philosophy was basically "if you knew they were wrong, why didn't you fix them".
the quote my last art prof used was: "every good artist can recognize that high quality 'wow' art vs. mediocre art instantly, but it takes 10,000 hours of dedication to develop your skills until you are able to replicate what you are so easily recognizing, everything you produce up until that point is 'aproaching.'" something like that. I'm paraphrasing.
My Portfolio Site
I've always heard the 10,000 hours thing as well.
-snip-
INSTAGRAM
Yes, but there is a blanket ban on linking to kickstarters on the forum.
INSTAGRAM
Cause God I hope so.
We talked about it and decided to figure it out at a later date.
(My mind was almost blank the whole time)
Ah crap I sized my AV all wrong. DURF, ah well I just changed it back to old thing...
INSTAGRAM
No...but I did walk outside her and hold the umbrella over her.
Fix iiiit! It was awesome.
INSTAGRAM
Yeah it can't be resized by the forum. If you give me the gif I can size it down tomorrow.
tumblrrr
deviantart
tumblrrr
deviantart
It is a weird looking sentence, but i catcha yo driffft.
That'd be mighty kind of you 'Ruka. Mighty kind.
INSTAGRAM
Though I guess the sad reality is thinking about how often this stuff happens that doesn't make its way to the media. I just love my naive happy bubble of innocence and bubblegum too much to notice.
INSTAGRAM
Not that this absolves your anxiety but violent crime is the lowest its been in a long time for the US:
http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/29/justice/us-violent-crime