Learning To Accept A Compliment

During Monday night's class we had another fabulous discussion. One of the topics we tackled was this: How do we learn to accept a compliment gracefully? As artists, why is this important for us to do so?

Here’s how it happened:

Imagine a group of women as different in background and experience as they come, brought together by a single goal: to immerse themselves in Fearless Abstract Painting for 6 weeks.

At the front of the class, everyone either sat or stood in a semi-circle around my desk as I posed this question: Why is it so important for us (as artists) to accept a compliment gracefully?

First we identified all of the many reasons why one would feel like they must offer resistance when a compliment is made towards their work:

• We have convinced ourselves that it is impolite to just say: “Thank You.” 
  


• We feel it is good manners to point out all of the imperfections in our work instead
  


• We don’t want to seem egotistical and/or proud
  


• We feel anxious, undeserving and/or uncomfortable
  


• We feel like the viewer must be made aware of our original intention for the painting so that they too can see how much of a failure it actually is
  


• We are unaware that our job as artists is to allow others to experience our work without our own insecurities getting in the way
  


• We are unable to accept a compliment in every other area of our lives so why stop at painting?!
  

The gist of the advice I gave my students is this:

As artists, our job is to:

Be open to inspiration, 
approach the canvas with as little (or zero) inhibitions as possible,
translate our feelings and emotions into colours, lines and shapes,
work to the best of your ability and then… 
Walk away.

Your have created the work therefore your job as the artist is done. Now it is your job to get out of the way and allow others to experience your painting as they choose.

Abstraction is subjective. Allow others to experience your work as they want to not as you want them to.