Unit 9 RECIEVING AND ASSIMILATING FEEDBACK
Unit Overview:
- Read unit introduction
- Read excerpt from Letters to a Young Poet
- Take some time this week to reflect on your work in advance of the studio visit
“The world offers vastly more support to work it already understands- namely art that’s already been around for a generation or a century.“
-Bayles and Orland
In the context of an academic setting it’s easy to feel tossed by the winds of others’ opinions.
One professor encourages you in one direction, another tells you to do the opposite, your colleagues have other opinions. It can certainly throw you into a state of confusion and paralysis. However, the beautiful thing about having all of these disparate opinions is that you realize that it is in fact your job to make the final decision about the work.
The challenge, risk and freedom of being an artist is claiming artistic decision making, not “abdicating [decisions] to others” (Bayles and Orland, 38).
A friend reminded me recently that as a grad student, when I had a scheduled critique with a professor or visiting artist, I would first give myself a critique on the work. I would spend twenty minutes prior to the studio visit simply reflecting on the work and writing about it before I opened my studio to someone outside. It was a practice that served to both ground me in my intention for the work and at once made me more open to what that person had to offer.
What would it look like for you to find a practice of self-critique or reflection for your own work?
Perspective on Criticism:
In this short reading from Letters to a Young Poet by poet Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke explores the meaning and use of criticism. He suggests that criticism is severely limited in its scope. I offer this reading not as a dismissal of criticism outright but as a way to get some perspective on the limits of criticism.
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