With a nod to the audience member who asked this at a recent art talk I attended.
Arts writers and critics are a dying breed in newspaper print. But they’re everywhere online.
Does the impact of media attention affect how you work?
Are you concerned about how your art might be perceived?
Consider media in the broadest sense: anyone who might write about or talk about your art.
Do you worry about what they might say?
Do you change your art based on what they might say or what they have said?
The Impact of the Media – Deep Thought Thursday
- Alyson Stanfield
Share this post
6 thoughts on “The Impact of the Media – Deep Thought Thursday”
You’re chasing the wind if you start to change your work based on what people say about it… Far more interesting is writing about your own work and the work of artists you admire (or dislike) because then it becomes about educating (and creating) your audience and yourself. New media is more a dialogue of back and forth exchange instead of a one way monologue.
I’m with Patrick!
To my mind new media just makes the conversation more visible and more interesting. Even the print media critics–the ones who were used to being the only voice–are blogging and having to navigate the world of comments. I think it’s healthy for everyone!
What people are saying, whether in print, on blogs, on YouTube, Twitter, whatever, does not drive what I paint. My artworks come from inside me and are created to tell stories that I think are important. They are not created for a market. That being said, I do pay attention to some feedback. I like to hear what people see in my works – they come at them with a different viewpoint, background, and mindset, so they will see things that I may never have intended. I also pay attention to constructive criticism on technique, composition, or concept. But all that is completely independent of media.
Reading or listening to what others have to say about my work is always something I greatly appreciate. I love learning the words that others associate with my paint strokes because it is enlightening and often motivating. Who are the online media art writers? Where can I find them?
I teach a class called, How to Use Feedback and Criticism Constructively, both live and recorded for the Artist’s EDGE Membership. Bottom line, what others say about your Art is feedback. Some of that feedback is really useful, some not useful at all, and most everything else lands somewhere in the middle.
The challenge for most of us is both to determine what is useful and then use it. The biggest obstacle to that is our emotional response to the feedback.
The urge to dismiss it all out of hand is usually driven by emotions – and IMO is a mistake. Feedback can be hugely valuable and create tremendous growth in your craft. But accepting everything is equally a mistake. And it can really do harm to your self-esteem.
So, really the ability to look at this feedback and use it is a hugely valuable skill – one that you can learn. And I encourage you to do that.
I am intrigued by the feedback I get concerning my art, but it is only one influence among many that may affect what I will create. I don’t really plan my artwork; more often than not, it develops as I work to stay receptive to many different influences and to the artwork itself, which will tell me how — and in what direction — it wishes to grow
at any given time.
I do not believe that art can really be judged. It will appeal to some and not to others, but that makes it neither “good” nor “bad.” In some sense, each artwork by any artist contributes something necessary to the vast tapestry of culture that is weaving and unfolding in every instant: a picture that none of us can see outside of the mind’s eye.