She REALLY hates my work!

Fact of life: Not everyone will like your work.

We know this intellectually - we know that others don't share our tastes or our personal histories or our worldviews.

And yet, we can be so thrown off by criticism. I used to absolutely dread showing my work for fear of being criticised. I would ignore any nice comments and focus ONLY on the bad ones. And often I would change direction because of a negative comment - or not try something because I knew people around me wouldn't understand.

So much has changed since I found my own creative voice. Now my ideas are generated from within and I am following my own curiosity. It's lovely when people like what I do, but I don't worry when they don't. I can just shrug and think 'they're not my people.'

I wanted to talk about this today because I've noticed more criticism coming in as I become more visible.

It isn't just criticism of my art but also of my teaching, or the way I look, or how I talk. There are podcast listeners who get annoyed by my voice. There are Youtube viewers who don't like the way I film my videos. There even are other artists who have changed their attitude towards me as I have become more successful (no names!).

And of course there are the people who don't understand abstract art and want to tell you that you're an idiot (thereby proving one of us is an idiot for sure lol).

The latest was a woman on Facebook who mocked my work as "a f****ing joke" and told me to "dribble on."

Out of curiosity, I clicked her FB profile and saw the disconnect instantly. I won't describe her, or the art she chose as her profile photo. I'll just say that we are clearly not in alignment - about anything!

But what if she had told me that my work was amazing? What if she had lauded me as a wonderful artist? I'd never have clicked through to learn about her. I'd have simply accepted her words as if they were fact and perhaps felt a little better about myself.

Same person; totally different reaction from me.

You might have thought this was going to be a message about not listening to the critics, but it's more than that. I wanted to say that as you share you work, you encounter both praise and criticism. Because most people are kind, you will hear more positive remarks than negative ones and this can be a problem.

This is because we turn towards praise like a flower turns towards the sun. We want more of it. And this makes us vulnerable in two ways:

1) it can make us want to adjust course in order to get more of it (e.g. your spouse liked your last painting so you do more of those)

2) it can soften us, so that we are really hurt by the inevitable nasty comment that eventually comes

A much better approach is to try to let both types of comments pass you by. To simply not let them in.

This may sound easier to say than to do, but I have found the secret is to be secure in your own work - and the way to get secure about your own work is to KNOW it is your work, your path, and the only possibility for you. 

Now that I am secure in what I am doing and why, other people can't hurt me by attacking it. And they can't inflate my head by praising it. That's because I know what I am aiming for and whether I have achieved it. I can be my own judge and jury. 

My invitation to you this week is to reflect on your reactions to the comments of others. Do they derail you a little bit? If so, how can you be more clear about the reasons for what you are doing and how you are doing it? That knowledge will become your coat of armour - a surefire defence against those who love your work and those who do not.

But don't worry if you don't know the answers yet - we find our way to them by making our art and learning from great teachers and watching tutorials or painting demos and learning about other artists. And as we keep painting, clarity starts to come. We start to see what we love and why. That's when we can then start to make work that is personal to us, and that is immune to the opinions of others. Many of the artists reading this have already got to that place and you can too. Just keep working and trust the process :)