hellkitty wrote:I strongly suspect that the artist grew up hearing all of those 'you're a very special person' self-esteem pep talks.
I can understand the idea that some people are given a lot of ego boosting compliments when they are budding artists. It seems like most groups of people growing up have at least a few creative members and normally all they hear are positive remarks. It can continue if these people attend art schools that have instructors who teach art but aren't or haven't been professional artists.
One of the things I benefited greatly from in my art education so far is experiencing proper criticism of work. I attended Sheridan College and every class of mine involved critique sessions that involved all the students. Basically, you take your work for the week and put it up for everyone to look at. Then everyone participates in a group critique. One of the things that was common was no one wanted to say anything "bad" about someone else's work during the first critique session. Our instructors reminded us that without constructive criticism, we would get nowhere and that constructive criticism isn't a bad thing. However, for people who have rarely had criticism, constructive or not, hearing it for the first time can be demoralizing. To be an artist, you have to develop tough skin.
I remember my painting instructor for acrylics, who had a rep for being the worst teacher because he marks hard. His "pep talk" to us during the first class basically amounted to him telling us that no matter how we were treated in our primary school years, we weren't special here, that there are several hundred artists at the school and 99% of them were better than us. Also, he said that we shouldn't expect to get a higher mark than a C for our first few assignments because if we can get even a B, we didn't need to be in his class because he had nothing to teach us if we were doing that well from the get-go.
Now, he was a teacher who everyone hated in my class but I really enjoyed what he offered. He was my favourite instructor, he still is years later. I improved so much in my year under his tutelage. He was the kind of teacher every serious artist needs at the beginning of their educational journey because if you can make it through his class and learn what he has to teach, then you have the right attitude in order to continue improving, which is something all artists must do. You'll also know you're going to be in art for the long run because if you can take his critique, you can take anyone's!
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