DEEP BLUE brings you thoughts on the mindset of being a ‘sensitive creative type’. I hope you find it helpful!

Hello there!

Feedback. Love it or hate it - as an artist, it’s something that you just have to accept will come your way.

Put your art out into the world and there’s a fair chance that someone won’t like it. Put it out onto the t’interweb and the chances of that will grow exponentially.

And even if you decide not to go there, and choose only to show your creations to your nearest and dearest there’s still no guarantee of an overwhelmingly positive reaction.

Jonathan generally loves what I do but often responds to my enthusiastic ‘Whadya think of this one?’ with an ambiguous ‘Mmm … that’s different.’

To be fair, I’ve usually appeared out of nowhere - brandishing a canvas at him as he busily watches Pointless. So I understand that Jonathan’s simply buying time as he gathers his thoughts.

Which is fine by me. I’m happy to wait as I do genuinely want to know what he thinks.

Whether I’ll pay attention to it or not is another matter!

Because the thing is - if I love what I’ve created then what someone else thinks about it won’t change that.

Why should it?

The painting is still the same painting I was delighted with 5 minutes before.

And the same logic applies when we enter work for a juried exhibition. If it didn’t get selected - then it didn’t get selected. The painting might not have made the cut but it’s no less of a painting as a result.

The lack of selection isn’t personal yet it’s common for artists to say ‘I got rejected.’

But ‘I’ can’t be rejected because ‘I’ wasn’t being judged.

My painting was.

I’m not my painting. And my value as a human being isn’t connected to someone’s opinion of my art.

Because, to put it bluntly, if our value was dependent on our achievements then babies - who are as useless as they’re adorable - would have no value at all.

Yet clearly they do.

Besides, it’s often a numbers game anyway. Not being selected for an exhibition with 50 places and 2000 entries doesn’t mean your painting wasn’t good enough.

If it did then logic would state that there were 50 ‘good’ paintings and 1950 ‘bad’ ones.

What are the chances of that?

Talking of chances, there was only a 1 in 40 chance of getting in anyway. If you’d placed that bet on a horse you might as well kiss your money goodbye before the starting pistol goes off.

The thing is, if we’re not going to take the negative feedback personally then we can’t take the positive feedback personally either.

I might be thrilled when someone loves one of my paintings as much as I do - but their love of my art doesn’t make me a more valuable person.

The painting hasn’t changed as a result of their enthusiasm for it.

And neither have I.

I’m still the same ‘me’ I was 5 minutes before.

Being aware that other people’s opinions don’t change our intrinsic value helps to create a healthy level of resilience when it comes to being an artist.

Come to think of it - being aware that other people’s opinions don’t change our intrinsic value helps to create a healthy level of resilience when it comes to being human!

It also means that when you do ask for the ‘What can I do to improve this?’ kind of feedback you can take it in without getting defensive. Or worse still, without feeling the desire to put someone’s head through the canvas.

And there’s a lot to be said for that!

So there you have it. That’s feedback sorted … !! :)

If you paint and want to put your (possibly new-found) resilience to the test, the Art2Life Annual Exhibition is coming around again. You can join the waitlist and find out more here.

I’ll post a link for the exhibition when it’s open so if you’d like to see the successful entries - watch this space!

That’s it for this week!

Next week I’ll send you LOVES BLUE the omnibus edition of my newsletter. It’ll have links to everything featured over the last few weeks and some bonuses too.

Thanks for reading! If you know anyone who’d like to join my ‘gang’ (get my newsletter) please forward this to them so they can sign up here.

Till next time!

A wee bit about me. I’m a Scottish abstract artist working in mixed media. I’m a member of the Abstract’d Art Collective, part of the team at Art2Life, and a Coach Assistant on the Creative Visionary Programme with Nicholas Wilton. I previously ran a hypnotherapy and cognitive behavioral therapy practice working with many people including artists, musicians, performers and writers. I live on the Isle of Cumbrae with my husband and a very pretty but rather annoying cat. My work is held in collections in Canada, US, UK and UAE.