Calling a painting bad
Letâs discuss. Is it ever helpful to call a painting bad? Is it ever true? Youâll hear me say âall painting is good paintingâ and âno painting is badâ to which people often reply âyou have to say thatâ The truth is I mean it wholeheartedly.
Painting is a process that involves as much challenge, trial and error and battling inner forces, as it does ah-ha! Moments. We often learn the most from the error side of trial. So if we deem our experiments bad, it takes something away from the good – which is always: experience and learning.
Artists are always creating, attempting, doing rough work and figure things out in a visual format. When we sit down to paint, we are experimenting with light, colour, form and texture. Not all of our experiments make the wall! It to say our process is âBadâ means it is poor quality, not such as to be hoped ir unwelcome. It may be picking at semantics but the word bad has a negative finality that doesnât convey the importance of each creative experience.
There can be bad things. Bad eggs, bad intentions, bad relationships ⌠unfortunately we can not change another person. However we CAN ALWAY change a painting! And this is at the core of my belief that no painting is bad. Perhaps you donât like the composition or the texture and all of your colours are muddy. Being an attempt at creation, it can alway be reworked, reimagined and renewed. A painting is never done until we say it is. We can work a painting weâre not happy with until we love it or choose to take what weâve learned, toss it in the rough work pile and move on. Instagram and Facebook are full of artists pages ripe with finished works blocked out into carefully curated âsteps of their processâ if youâve spent time with a working artist you know just how fictitious this display is. A lot of experimentation went into that final display.
How to Critique Art not using the b-word
When analyzing our work or that of others we need to be specific. Especially when weâre critiquing some thing that is lacking. For example, Instead of saying âthis painting is bad, itâs not my bestâ, try saying âhere is a painting I am working on, It has an area of visual dead space and Iâm not sure Iâm liking the contrastâ
Blanket terms create creative dead ends
Where as a more specific critiques can point us to ways we might attempt something differently and open the doors of possibility
Saying a painting is bad will always restrict
growth. Saying, Itâs a work in progress, I will work it out. Iâm not sure how⌠but thatâs the fun part