Yesterday on YouTube I listened to a personal story of struggle with regards to a book review that spun out of orbit, as it was told by a lady who is a professional book reviewer. She chose a book from the selection the publisher sent her. The book had an interesting cover and the title appealed to her. Once she had completed her reading and refined her notes, she posted her rating of the book on her channel, with the pointers she needed to substantiate her points of view. The rating she gave was fair and not cruel at all. However, the writer was a first-time author who took the review very personally and then a series of unfortunate conversations were sparked. It took about a year for the reviewer to recover from the (unexpected) resistance she had encountered.
Reading a book for a review or writing a (new) book or painting a painting or singing a heartfelt song is a little battle or action (on its own) that requires concentration and persistence. How people will react towards the construct creatives offer, is a completely different action; they will never know how the reviewer, writer, artist or singer felt during the creative or analytical process – unless they were to ask the person involved, personally. This is a tricky situation, because pride is perhaps at the root of every consideration here. As artists or creatives, we are constantly (emotionally) at risk because the arts require the eyes and ears of an audience, to complete the creative cycle. Let us try to keep this in mind, however complicated this reality is and let us make room for disappointments (from critics) which may force us into the depths of self-scrutiny (occasionally) and hopefully, over time we will become more resilient.
The still life I included here is my version of what a cubistic still life could look like. I went through a cubistic period three decades ago. I spent a lot of time on this work and I like the end result. However, this work elicited a few strange remarks from friends and critics: “This is too sad.” “I think you were depressed”. “You were in a very bad state in your mind”. It could be that the colour scheme had invited these perspectives, but it was honestly just an attempt to try my hand at cubism. Let us remember, whatever we create or write or sing or perform, will eventually meet the eyes and ears of others; let us try to stay calm and make room for a few little inevitable tremors we will feel on the inside when others do not like our contributions.
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