Judgement Day- Breaking the mould Part 2

This post is a bit of a follow-on from my previous post on man's duality when it comes to individuality and acceptance.

On the trip back from Melbourne, my artist friend and I pulled out our respective magazines that had been purchased from an amazing magazine store called "mag nation" in Melbourne's CBD, where we had perused thousands of magazines for at least an hour. We had both come away with ridiculously interesting magazines and planned to dive into them during the 2-hour flight home.

The front cover was a hand-drawn sketch. I don't even know what made me judge the cover, and speak it out loud, but I did. Here's the conversation:

Me: This is ugly. The head on that woman is all messed up, and the hands just don't make sense to me.

Evil stare from artist friend.

Her: How can you judge it like that? You don't know anything about it!

Whoa, holy hell, I have opened the black box.
Me: I'm just saying...

Her: You don't know what she was going for, maybe it's not realism.

Me: Well how am I supposed to know! It doesn't look right-

Her: Compared to what? You don't know what she was trying to achieve, and you go calling it ugly!

Me: I didn't call it ugly!

Her: Yes you did!

Me: Well yeah I did, but...(feeling quite small here) no I don't know what she was going for...

Her: So you call it ugly?

Me: To me it is; it doesn't look right.

Her: Compared to what?

Me: Compared to a human head! She's got her work out there, it's there for judgement

Her: But you don't know anything about the artist, or what their work is about

Me: How am I supposed to know from a front cover? An artist has to accept that there are going to be people out there who know nothing about their style and just don't get it. People like me who don't know anything about realism or whatever are going to look at that and think, 'what the?'...


Now this conversation did go on for a bit longer, each side (thankfully) able to see the relevant points each other had to make. I don't think it helped that we had just sculled glasses of bubbly in our 10minute flight delay, and I'm not sure if we actually came to a resolution, however, it did of course get me thinking about my own time of judgement.

The truth was, to me the cover wasn't... nice. I didn't like it. I'm not saying I understand what the artist was going for, in fact my point is that I definitely DID NOT get what the artist was trying to achieve. I know I couldn't do any better (I can't draw- even my stick people look stupid), and I know that it is clearly good enough to be published (yes, unlike moi). Doesn't mean I get it.

One could argue that at least their work IS out there, in a magazine, unlike mine, and that perhaps I don't have the guts to display my own work so how can I comment on anyone else's, and I would completely agree except for the fact that everybody does it! Do I expect that every person who reads something I write to be writing and displaying work of their own? No. Would that make a person any more or less qualified to comment on my work? No. Do I expect everybody to like it? No. (Oh the anxiety!)

Am I still petrified of the judgement and hate before I press "publish" on every post? Oh Hell YES!

That is the price of having your work out there: judgement.

I know that is one of the most feared words in an artists vocabulary. That, alongside 'rejection', 'critic' and 'trash' make for a shivering shell in the corner sucking their thumb.

But it's true. My friend argued that I didn't understand what the artist was going for (True), and I said the artist had to accept that people would view the work and sometimes they would NOT GET IT.

Having my work, or even my blogs, this post right here, out in the public, I am subjecting myself to that same scrutiny and judgement. There may be people who don't understand what I am talking about.

The best I can do is BELIEVE in what I write, I have to believe that what I am saying is true, I need to stand behind my words, hold my words hands when someone disagrees with them or pushes them down. Which they will. It's inevitable that not EVERYBODY will like my blogs or any future work I may produce.

I think this has shown me two things:

1) I will be judged. I'd better get used to that idea.
2) I should be a little more considerate when observing the work of others. Just because I don't "get it", doesn't mean I can trash it.


In relation to man's urge to set himself apart, yet having an ache for acceptance and approval, there is always the risk of haters. We don't all like the same things, and we can't expect everybody to like what we do. Yet without this common trait of opinions towards a like and dislike (again, a dual concept and oh the irony) there would be no strive to BE different, no urge to find our quirk, our controversial ground-breaking creation, no individuals. The mould would never be broken, creativity would be dead.

The thought of creativity and imagination being a void of nothingness, of there never being anything created to even place an opinion or judgement on, is a far worse concept than the judgement itself.

Do what you want to do! For every creative thought you kill with the fear of judgement... well the world becomes a little bit duller don't you think?