Handling Criticism

Use It To Your Advantage

Handling criticism. In all honesty, nobody likes it and some people love dishing it out. How do you handle criticism when it’s aimed at you or your artwork?

Do you know how to handle criticism or do you let it crush you? (Photo Credit: 123RF.com Copyright : Rafael Ben-Ari)

First of all, understand the different types of criticism.

Criticism is simply negative comments made in reference to someone or something. In this case, your artwork. The first type is the one we’re most familiar with. The type where someone tells you that your work sucks and suggests that you should just quit trying. The basic troll type criticism.

It’s negativity with very little intelligence behind the statement. If you asked the troll why they felt that way, you’d more than likely get the same statement again with very little added to it. There certainly won’t be any intelligent information.

Chances are, the person doing the criticizing has little to no knowledge about art, is not an artist, or just wants to tear someone down.

When someone dishes out disparaging comments about your work, consider the source. (Photo Credit: 123RF.com Copyright: Image 94108721 sifotography)

The second type of criticism is a critique. The word critique is from the Greek kritikē, from kritikos, or able to discern. In a nutshell a critique is “a…