Art Hate Double Standards

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How come I've sat in class after class of writing listening to people parrot off their bad poems and I've not said anything other than keep it up because everyone was praising them even though they were nothing like anything which would get published...

However

I start drawing and all I get is hate. Downvotes online. My mother saying 'well you have a very unique style'. Insults online.

Is it to do with drawing versus writing, to do with online versus offline, to do with people disliking me? What?

I know my art is bad but it's only as bad as all those poems were. It's amateur. Sometimes people do things as a hobby. When someone is starting out, they're not very good.

It makes me feel like a mug for keeping quiet about those poems over the years. Like I was thinking 'I'm just being a snob, I need to encourage'. But nobody wants to encourage me. Not even NTs, those people who are famous for the white lie in order to make people feel nice.

I can't draw. But maybe one day I'll show them. Maybe one day I'll be good.

Yeah, I know what you mean.

If artists express themselves through their art without regard to conventions, then their art goes unappreciated until after the artists are dead.

But if artists work by commission, producing bespoke artworks (e.g., artifice), then they are labelled as "Sell-Outs" even though they may live well and support other artists.

I feel a bit dumb now, I just scrolled his feed and he's a teenager. An American teenager too, so he has no idea what KT looks like or if I did a good job drawing him or not.

Maybe he hasn't learned how to be polite about other people's art yet.

Maybe taking classes with other adults would be a good idea.

He hasn't posted any actual art of his own online.

Here is some advice from G.K. Chesterton. "If something is worth doing, it is worth doing badly", do art for yourself, to fulfill something that is inside and don't rely on outward praise, but an inward indignation to honor the thing you feel needs praise. Your art -- whatever it is -- shouldn't depend on a need for praise, for you are the one doing the praise of the thing worth honoring through your chosen medium.

For the same reason, if someone is reciting a bad poem, don't be hard on them, they are trying to honor something they feel praiseworthy and may be in the baby-steps of finding out how to do it. Shut your eyes and ears to praise and critique -- do it from an inward passion and not by an outward vanity. No matter how great you are, there will ALWAYS be people trying to shut you down, and in fact, the greater your success, the more people there will be trying to tear you down, artists have to shut their ears to that noise.

Thanks, this is good advice.

I feel like I need to focus more on a mixture of how to draw it (so I can draw it well enough to honour the subject matter) and what I'm drawing. Less on the reception it gets. But it's hard because of my (diagnosed) anxiety. My anxiety is the opposite of my autism. It makes me see everything through a negative social lens rather than for its own sake.

When it comes to other people, I try to do be nice. But it really comes from a place of trying to be polite on the surface. Esp in a critique class where everyone's getting judged. One woman was interesting cos she started out writing badly, went onto write quite well so we started giving her suggestions and then she panicked about what had changed. What had changed was - she had improved and we felt she was ready to get to the next level if only we advised her on it.

I need a filter. Someone insults my art generically or downvotes it or something? Ignore. Someone says 'hey, what about...', listen because they might have sensible, tangible advice.

If I were you, I’d probably stop posting artwork in online communities if it’s bringing you down and negatively impacting your creativity.

I’ve seen how negative some of these forums can be over some genuinely interesting and inspired work. If your personal style departs from realism, the average person won’t get it.

When I was taking a creative writing class in graduate school, we had to write short stories and then critique another student’s work. Before doing so, the professor went over how to give sensitive and constructive feedback by first stating things that we liked and then offering one or two suggestions in a positive way.

Anyway, when I got my story back from a fellow student, she said outright that she didn’t like or understand my story and bluntly stated the reasons why.

The professor told me to disregard what she said and to not change a thing. (I got an “A.”)

The student and I had very different writing styles. She wrote a straightforward, no nonsense story about a little boy going into anaphylactic shock from eating a peanut at a birthday party, and I wrote an intentionally fragmented narrative about a young girl’s descent into psychosis which ends in suicide (sort of). It was based off of some personal experiences I had and my observations of others in a psych ward.

The point is that you should probably avoid getting feedback in an online forum if it’s going to negatively impact your creativity or you could try to find a more supportive community or take a class at a college or community center.

OK so why the double standard though? Like why can't I just approach bad writing and tell someone it's bad without being shunned for being rude? But other people can be rude to me and they don't get shunned for being rude? It's the double standards that bother me most about it. For so long I've kept my mouth shut about bad writing, only to try something new and find people can be rude about visual art.

Joke is - I believe everyone benefits from constructive criticism. Not from praise or from unconstructive.

Usually if I criticise a bad piece of writing, I'd point out the flaws and suggest ways to improve. Not just say 'you can't write give up'. And because each piece has something good I'd also say 'but I like...'

Yeah they just directly commented 'don't give up your day job' without me soliciting anything (and I scroll past art I don't like and normal practice is to scroll past art you don't like, even art you're neutral on, just comment on the good stuff) whereas I've been in classes where the point of it was to critique in a constructive way to help people improve and I've been told I'm rude for critiquing beginners who are there to learn...

Basically I think the thing is they were rude but I need to be prepared to deal with rude people.

But I would have appreciated a not blanket statement. That requires skill though. Someone saying 'the line work is off' or 'the colours need to be less bright' or something. Even just that, so I can think on it and improve for next time.

Yeah that last one is what I do already and I'm told I'm rude and beginners should only get praise until they're at a sufficient standard. I don't believe in that lack of advice but I do it because it's the 'norm'. I call it criticism because I was always told in formal classes that it's constructive criticism to comment on specific things in that kind of 'praise/question or advice/praise' format.

I'd probably benefit more from getting that in an actual class though like Twilight Princess said. Some people online are just trolls and aren't following any sort of politeness rules.

Well then, we seem to be in agreement. People can be jerks, and most jerks seem to think art should show "bar-nekkid wimmin" or look like a poster for an action movie. Those people are not worth the spit to tell them to sod off.

I think you may be on the right track, though. I haven't seen your art, but you did say you were trying different things, so that's good. Frida Kahlo might be someone you could emulate -- she did her own thing and didn't take any bushlit from anybody. I encourage you to check out her biography and look up some of her works.

I agree Twilight but it's concrete advice. I love my bright colours but if someone told me 'I don't like that, the colours need to be toned down' I'd understand their criticism, think about it and decide whether to take it on board or not and respect their subjective opinion. Telling someone to stop drawing isn't productive and doesn't lead to them thinking about whether to take the advice on board or not, it's just rude.

NTs aren't really as into concrete information as we are though, I've found.

I agree Fnord. But on that site it's quite the opposite, they hate anything remotely 'objectifying' or fan art (I often find them hating on very good and tasteful nudes which far more experienced/talented artists than me have drawn). What their obsession is is photorealistic objects which trick them. I like that too but it's a very hard skill to master and not all art has to do that.