Creating art involves recognizing the critics and learning from them before one can prove them wrong. Today, I’ll explore some of those critics, two of them enemies to be sure. In future posts, I’ll expand upon some of the ideas presented in this post.

1. ENEMY: Mrs. Acres - first grade teacher, Lincoln School, Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio

I have written about Mrs. Acres before, and as I’m thinking about it, am wondering if the representation I presented of her is an accurate one. (Update: after going back to read the comment thread for the linked post, I guess I did fictionalize some of the story.) No matter, that is how I remember it, and she can go to hell. Fuck you Mrs. Acres, you fat cow, you squasher of young minds and young dreams. (If you go read that story, be sure to read the comments as well, before the spambots kicked in, that is, for one reader shared a similar story that is definitely worth reading.)

2. ENEMY: My freshman year intro to graphic design instructor, 1990, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio

The first assignment was to arrange hand-drawn squares, at least three, up to four, using specific dimensions and galleys and alleys, and arrange them in an interesting way on a piece of paper. The paper itself was a specific kind of paper, I don’t remember now what kind. We were to use Rapideograph pens to draw the lines and Sharpie markers to color in the squares. The coloring in was to appear even, and we were not to color outside the lines. The alleys and galleys had to be very specific widths, and I could not, for the life of me, draw them to spec.

Part of the reason was that I was working on a very small desk with poor lighting. Another part of it may have had to do with the shaking of my hand, caused by all of the coffee that I had drunk. I was, after all, working full time and going to school full time. The big reason, though, was that I had never done anything so precise before, and I was learning. Learning is, after all, the reason one goes to school and pays such exorbitant sums to do so.

I worked on the project beginning the night it was assigned, and for hours a day on proceeding days, until I had come up with the best work I could do at the time. I could see by looking at it that it was a good first attempt but was not perfect. The squares were arranged in an interesting fashion, the coloring-in job was somewhat even. It was getting on close to four in the morning, and I had to take a nap before my seven AM class.

I arrived to the intro to graphic design class that evening after having had a full day of other non-art classes. I was both nervous and excited. I believed that here we would place our creations upon the wall, without our names on them, as we had been told would happen, and each member of the class would criticize each piece ruthlessly, and then say something nice about each piece, thereby facilitating learning through discussion.

This did not happen.

I’d like to remember that my classmates had something constructive to say about my work, and also that they had something nice to say. I don’t remember that. I don’t remember anything about the discussion that evening.

What I remember is that the instructor pulled me aside after class had been dismissed. She was holding my work. She handed it to me and asked, “What are you doing in this class?” I explained to her what I thought should be obvious, that I wanted to be a graphic artist. She frowned and said, “My recommendation to you is that you take up another line of study. You do not belong here. You struggled with this, the simplest of projects, and the road ahead is a long road to haul. You have no talent.”
No talent.

I walked out of the classroom angry, ashamed and frustrated. I had always wanted to be an artist, and thought that becoming a graphic designer would allow me to express that creativity and get paid (see critic #3, below). Now I am being told that I have no talent. I felt like a complete sham, a failure. I dropped the class on her recommendation and explored an English major before falling into teaching secondary education as a line of study.
3. CRITIC: My family, through no fault of their own

My family is a working class family from northeast Ohio. They always encouraged me to express my creativity, but they always did so with a caveat: “You need to eat, Marc. You need to pay the rent.” And it’s true, I do need to eat and to pay the rent, or the mortgage or whatever. The implication from them was always that I could not make a living by making art. I am working to change their perceptions and my own in this regard; creating art, selling my art, and learning how to align other areas in my life so that I can afford to do both things full time without starving.

Right now, I am finding that the way to do this is to have gallery openings. It is at the gallery openings, and in galleries, that I have found the most success in selling my art. Eventually, I will sell prints more extensively, though you can purchase selected prints already, either by contacting me directly, or by visiting Apollonova, an art collective based in Akron, Ohio.

I did manage to have one art opening at Angel Falls Coffee Company before I moved from Ohio. That was back in 1997. I did not show again until I had moved to Missoula, Montana, and that first show was not under the best of circumstances. At neither show did I sell any work. Since those early attempts at displaying my work, I have learned many things along the way, and have begun to redefine what being a “successful artist” means for me. That definition is one I will explore in more depth here at a later date.

The important concept to take away after reading this is that you CAN be an artist, or whatever it is you choose to do, and you can be successful at it, despite your creative enemies and critics. You just need to define what that means for you and work towards that. Last year, I paid my rent for three months by selling art. It was not easy, and I was on pins and needles for much of the time wondering where my next rent check would come from. My day job was behind in payroll, and I was having to be creative in ways that I bought groceries, had an entertaining night out, and paid my monthly bills. I turned to art as an outlet, and had six successful openings, each one with new work in a new venue. In this blog, I hope to
share that process with you, along with some of the many things I learned during that process.

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Share your stories of your creative enemies and critics in the comments or by emailing me directly.
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–Marc