Today one of my students showed me an artwork that she was working on and asked me if I can emotionally connect with it. I asked her back if she, can emotionally connect with her work.
Obviously she got upset and argued, why I'm not capable of giving my opinion and how can she learn without her teacher's opinion.
Even-though she did not like the idea, she answered that she could emotionally connect to it but she felt that something was missing.
Then I told her "This artwork is yours, you are the creator of it, therefore only you can know if you are satisfied with it".
She insisted in hearing what I thought of it. This is the moment to mention that this student has been with me a couple of years already, she has exhibited her artworks and even sold a couple of them.
Therefore my answer was: "The only thing that is left for you to learn from me is to learn to trust your creative criterion and together with that and maybe the most important thing is that an artist has to accept that not necessarily people will get emotionally connected with their artworks and to be prepared to receive negative reviews about them".
For the majority this is called "failure", for me it's one of the best ways to learn, one of the best ways to analyze my works and it takes me to the limit to develop my ability to communicate, because the final goal of an artist is to communicate feelings.
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