Exercises in Failure (Part 2): Let them trash your work

I had a professor in one of my painting classes who always gave everyone the highest mark possible. From the struggling students to the almost-pros, our grades were almost exactly the same – 100/100.

Of course, chronic absentees were another question – but the lowest they’d get was 80%. This made everyone happy as it made them feel like their work was appreciated, and that there was finally a teacher who didn’t pour her bitterness at us by trashing our work. Cool, right?

Well, no.

It seemed that our happiness was short-lived. My classmates and I stopped doing our best, knowing we were going to be rewarded with high marks anyway. Many of us even stopped showing up, content with the 80% final grade we’d get from our professor. Her attempt to encourage us actually discouraged us.

After thinking about this myself and talking to my other classmates, I realized that our lack of enthusiasm came from three things:

1. Our mistakes, weaknesses, and laziness barely had any consequences.
2. The hardworking students weren’t happy about being rewarded on the same level as those who didn’t exert any effort.
3. We weren’t given any direction.

Now, one could argue that there were consequences to our mistakes, including (but not limited to) artistic stagnation. Also, why would you need a teacher to give you direction? Aren’t you supposed to find that out for yourself?

First of all, students in their late teens and early twenties don’t usually look at long term, intangible consequences of their actions. Who cares about artistic stagnation at 19? Especially if you’re trying to juggle school, work, a social life, and all the drama that comes with being young and uncertain. What we needed were consequences right now. Otherwise, it’d be too late when we learn the lesson.

As for direction, being self-directed is wonderful and rewarding, but not if there’s no third party pointing out the stuff you missed because of familiarity blindness.

That’s why there are editors. The writer knows what she’s trying to do with a story, but can her readers infer this from her work? For this reason, I’ve always felt that editors were there to find the balance between the purity of a writer’s work and the ability of the reader to understand it. They’re not there just to make you feel like an untalented hack, even if they might give off that impression.

Our kindhearted professor may have had good intentions, but by giving everyone perfect praise she left out one of the most crucial elements of creative work – criticism.

Everyone who makes anything creative has to face critics. If you really can’t stand this kind of criticism, especially for the work that seems so personal to you, then you’re faced with two choices:

1. Either do something creative and let people trash it; or
2. look for something risk-free and painless then choose that be your life’s work instead. Just leave creative work to the masochists.

Which choice are you willing to live with?

24 February 2009

Posted in Creative Work.