Tom’s Favorite Posts: Art Shaming

From Tom:

This post is one of my favorites not because I guest-wrote it, but because of how it resonated with readers. It is one of the most commented on post we’ve ever produced.

We encourage the arts in our children—as part of their play they are painters and musicians and sculptors and actors from preschool onward. But at some point, perhaps high school when education becomes more about focusing on a vocation, we stop playing in the arts. Many of us live our entire adult lives without playing artist again until we retire and rediscover this latent passion. From the comments we received, many of Susan’s readers fall into this pattern.

Sometimes the reason behind our exit from the arts is an unkind or thoughtless comment from a teacher, parent, or friend: art shaming, as I call it. I passed on a few examples of this phenomenon in the post, from Susan and myself and from a reader who commented on another post. This inspired a flood of similar experiences. Most of these stories end happily as the artist found their way back to the arts.

To read the many inspiring comments from that original “Art Shaming” post, Follow This Link and scroll to the bottom of the page.

To find other “inspirational” posts, look for the “Category” search option in the right hand column of this page or at the bottom of the post (if on a mobile device): select “Inspiration.”

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For the next few weeks, Tom will be choosing some his favorite “inspirational” posts to revisit. This is so that I can spend my time with my mama Meta, (otherwise known as Oma), during her final days and hours. I am so lucky to be able, with my sister, to be present during this stage of her life. I hope you understand why we are unable to provide new content at this time. I will return as soon as I can. While a challenging moment in my life, and one filled with deep sorrow, I can’t imagine being anywhere else or doing anything other than being with my dear mama. —Susan C.

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Art Shaming

Original Post from June 30, 2018

Many of you know that I am married to Susan and am a partner with her in the non-art, non-teaching aspects of her business. As her assistant I often field emails and address the ones that don’t need her personal touch.

Recently Susan received an extended response to her blog post “Why Color Is Irrelevant.” Susan’s post is about how value is more important than color when creating form. It stresses the important relationship between light and dark when using fabric to make images. Blog reader Cindee Andres, however, saw the piece from a slightly different angle, reminding her of a distressing childhood memory.

For a final project in art class, ten-year-old Cindee decided to make a yellow hippopotamus. This was unacceptable to the teacher, who insisted that the image be made “real” and demanded that Cindee “fix it.”

Happily Cindee refused to comply and didn’t make the hippo gray, even though she was denied her achievement badge for the project. Unhappily, the event sucked the joy out of creating her beautiful yellow hippo.

Says Cindee:

I had forgotten this exchange until I read Susan Carlson’s blog post on “Why color is irrelevant” just now, 46 years later. The problem I had as a 10 year old was not ignorance or inexperience; I knew what color a live hippo was. The problem was not that I was a rude and stubborn child who would not comply to reasonable requests. The problem was I could dream big, see things other than how they were, and had not learned yet to hide my knowledge and vision from the outside world. The lessons were harsh. 2 years later I was scornfully told by my own mother (who was herself a frustrated artist) to “stop wasting my time drawing.” I put down my pencil immediately and didn’t pick it up again for 40 years.

Twenty-six years later, Cindee started quilting, which re-introduced her to art and to her “wild artistic childhood self.” Quilting provided a back door, as I’m sure it does for many of Susan’s students, into the art world. Traditional quilts can be seen either as utilitarian or expressive, making them “safe” to produce and present to the world.

As an observer at many of Susan’s classes, I see many a student who claims they are “not an artist.” It seems to me that they use this phrase as a protective shield, proactively lowering expectations for their completed project. It makes we wonder how many of them have endured experiences like Cindee’s. What wounds are they reflexively covering up?

I like how Cindee stood up for herself despite the consequences, but I bet she is an outlier. I suspect that most children (and adults) suffer such criticisms silently, quietly setting aside their paints, or their clay, or their pens and pencils and never picking them up again.

Susan herself suffered a similar experience. When she was a teenager she played the guitar. She used to bring it on Girl Scout camping trips where they’d sing at the campfire. She knew a few chords for popular songs and she enjoyed singing with her friends. Then one day she played and sang for visiting family members, where laughter over either her playing or the song broke out. She pushed through to the end of the song, but then ended the session. Soon after, she gave up the guitar, and to this day she avoids sing-alongs like the plague.

In contrast, she never received anything but encouragement for her visual art. She took art classes throughout high school, went to an art college, and has practiced art continuously since, either as a hobby or a profession.

As for me, it was the lack of encouraging word that set back my artistic expression. As a grammar school student I loved to sing. Chorus was my favorite class. I had an ear for melody and could sing on key effortlessly. But I never received any encouragement for it. Neither my teachers nor my parents ever said, Hey, you did really good. You sounded nice. You should do more of that. In high school I wound up in band, playing clarinet, for which I had very little talent. So it’s only now, more than forty years later, that I am coming back to singing.

Our son, Sam, may have inherited his love of music from us, but he is not a fan of the visual arts. He produced very few pieces of art as a child. The few he made, like the butterfly above, we cherish and display proudly. No matter what we said to encourage him though, once he tried something like painting, once was enough.

Words—or the lack of them—have more power than we appreciate. I doubt that Cindee’s teacher or Susan’s family understood the impact their reactions would have. Neither do we fully understand how powerful our praise and support can be.

Susan says: “All art is good art.”

This sums up in five words what makes Susan a popular and effective teacher. This is why women return to her classes again and again, to receive and be replenished by that nurturing message.

When Susan says, “All art is good art,” I don’t think she means that all art is equally as accomplished or technically proficient. I think she equates “good” with “valuable.” Valuable to the person who makes it, as a mode of expression or as a learning opportunity or however. It takes a special talent to recognize and appreciate the value in a piece of art that you might not personally find appealing. Susan has it. I am still learning.

What I’m learning is that it’s more important to be encouraging and inspiring than it is to be critical and exclusionary. In short, a kind word is better than an unkind one. Criticism done correctly of course is not unkind. But it must be done carefully not thoughtlessly, as in the case of Susan and her guitar or Cindee and her yellow hippo. It can take decades to undo the damage.

As Cindee says:

Thank you, Cindee, for sharing your experience.

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If you have an art shaming experience, please consider sharing it in the comments below.