The Many Faces of Feedback

I thought I’d continue to explore the nuances and perils of getting feedback (and the different ways it can manifest) because it brings up a lot of complicated feelings that can undermine our ability to protect ourselves in order to keep creating without getting discouraged.

(Or start creating again when it’s been a long time since we’d made anything.)

So today’s post is about the difficulty of getting unpleasant feedback from our families and loved ones, feeling unsupported, and what we might be able to do about that.

Feeling Exposed

The tricky thing about making anything visual is that your work process itself is visible to the people around you (as opposed to writing, for instance, where you can close your notebook or shut off your computer).

Making visual art or crafts requires you to work “publicly” and to leave on-going projects out in the open either because they have to dry or because it’s rare that you’ll finish something in one sitting.

Putting any work-in-progress away is never useful anyway, as it’s extremely helpful to walk by it, to see it in different light at various times of day, to be thinking of something else and then see it suddenly with fresh eyes as you round the corner or come in the door.

And again, this means that as you’re working, your work-in-progess (and all your trying) is exposed to everyone else’s eyes around you as well.  And their comments. Or the lack thereof.

The Tricky Part

So we can’t always always protect our work from everyone around us or just show it to the people who understand it.

And it can feel more complicated or extra hurtful if some of these people who don’t appreciate our work are really close to us.

Should we start thinking we’re not properly loved if our families don’t “get” our artwork or our artistic side, even when it feels like such an essential part of who we are?

Your family can love you to pieces and still not give you positive feedback or provide the best support for your creative pursuits. And you can feel hurt and offended. And yet, they’re your family, sharing your space, witnessing your efforts, all the while loving you the way they love you. It can feel complicated, or like the perfect-loving-supportive-family story line isn’t playing out the way it should.

A Little Story

My mother was an artist and my father was a football coach–talk about different sensibilities.

So while my dad thinks my mom is enormously talented, he certainly never had any idea what to say about her artwork except maybe “Wow”, or to offer occasional bad puns as title suggestions for her abstract paintings that he thought were fun and entertaining responses to her work. And when we were little kids, we did too. (Eight-year-olds think my dad is hilarious.)

That must have been super fun for her.

Did it mean he didn’t love her? No. Could he have tried harder? Maybe. Does he understand every part of her? No. Does your partner understand every part of you? (And while we’re at it, do you understand every part of him/her?)

I know I didn’t marry a mirror that reflects back everything I think/believe/feel (thank goodness), so sometimes it means that he’s also not the best person to ask about my artwork/creative pursuits. Sometimes my husband gives me super positive feedback, sometimes he gives me feedback that’s right but hard to hear, and sometimes I feel completely misunderstood. Ah, humanity.

If one person/one family unit could provide everything you need, why have friends?

What’s Going On

I think when we’re feeling very tender about our creativity, art-making, or talent, we really really want to be unconditionally believed in, understood and supported in perhaps all-encompassing ways by our partners/families and can feel disappointed when they don’t deliver.

I think what’s happening in those moments, is that we want them to give us what we can’t/won’t/don’t know how to give ourselves.

In this on-going process of creating our artwork (or of getting started again) it would be so enormously helpful to be on our own side, rooting for ourselves when we take creative risks, and forgiving ourselves for making things that don’t live up to our expectations. Honoring the process when we make things that are “bad” or when we plan on making things but don’t follow through the way we imagined.

Instead we’re usually relentlessly hard on ourselves. But meanwhile, we’re still looking for that assurance, that unwavering belief in our abilities, the feeling of being completely understood to help us feel less vulnerable. And often we look to our families to provide it.

And sometimes they do–which is great. But it’s also true that sometimes they don’t. And then we feel bad, or get mad, or feel alienated–you know the drill.

But what if there was another way to experience this situation?

Forgiveness

What if we released our families from the obligation of “getting” our artwork, or understanding our struggle about making things, being creative, feeling artistic? What if we forgave them for not understanding this part of us? What if we stopped asking them to give us something we don’t give ourselves?

I think when we release this expectation, we end up honoring our creative process a bit more because we’re owning it, and when we own something, our boundaries are better and it’s more difficult to feel like something essential can be taken away.

This in turn may allow you to give yourself room to sit with the public evidence of your artistic struggles, your exposed desire to create something good or beautiful, or special or significant whether or not your latest effort achieved any of these things this time around. Nothing more honorable than wanting to try that.

In my experience, any shift I make like this always changes the way I communicate about it as well, and  you may find yourself sharing or discussing your artwork in new ways with your family, which in turn may create surprising changes in the way your loved ones respond to it.

An On-going Process

Now, I know none of this is easy. It’s just something to consider. No rush. But it might be worth it, especially if you feel misunderstood or not supported.

Because really, the whole goal of any of this hard work is to help ourselves find ways to nurture our own creativity, to allow ourselves to actually enjoy the process of creating because that’s what makes us feel good and most ourselves.

And the more we embrace and believe in this part of who we are anyway, the more our families and loved ones do too.

What are your thoughts? Have you struggled with feeling unsupported as you try to incorporate more creativity into your life? What do you think of this strategy?