Criticism

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Linda Reed
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Post by Linda Reed »

Yeah.

What Cynthia said. (Wow.)

As an aside, But why is glass more difficult to critique for you than painting? People paint landscapes and abstracts and watercolors and acrylics... soft, harsh, realistic, modern... My brother-in-law collects god-awful 'iky' violent brash large paintings that I find disturbing. I prefer softer either realistic (it looks like something real) or whimsical stuff... We may both be able to agree on techniqe, but maybe not. Some of 'modern' art may elude me as far as technique goes. At least for someone without art training who just 'likes what she likes' painting seems way more laden with subjectiveness than glass....

Linda
Amy on Salt Spring
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Re: Criticism

Post by Amy on Salt Spring »

Cynthia wrote: I spent so many years giving, getting and learning how to, that it's very hard to turn that critic off (the nice benevolent one Amy, not the evil one...that one has to go).
Cynthia if they haven't read that other thread they are going to think you mean I am the evil critic!! 8-[ :cry:
Amy
Dayle Ann
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Post by Dayle Ann »

A note from someone new to fusing-- did my first solo fusing in December. Hooked by the magic. While I've had training in art and in design, and have worked in several mediums, including clay, I am finding glass to be the most challenging, and the most addictive. I spend part of most days in my workshop, and I am just beginning to be able to "think" in glass in terms of design. My technique is slowly improving, but I am still deep in the learning curve. I like doing flat work, so haven't even begun slumping yet (that will come).

I have produced some nice pieces among the clunkers. People I have shown them to, including artists (though none work in glass), respond very positively to them. Sometimes I have to pry the piece out of their hands. I consider that a compliment.

BUT: I don't feel ready yet to post photos for critique, or to offer them to galleries. For me, I don't think it is fear of criticism. I know already I am producing better work than many people who do post. (At least I think so... haha, sign of an artist's ego). But the things I am doing now don't yet meet MY standards for work ready to be critiqued. I am still developing my style, my voice, my sensibility of how glass can express what I want it to.

When I get to the point where it is clicking for me, then I will post, even if I feel the work is technically challenged. Because then I will be ready for the kind of criticism that will help me take what I am doing a step closer to where I am trying to go. That's how I am-- other people need more feedback earlier on, if only for encouragement. And to tell the truth, it encourages me, too, because it helps me realize that my struggles and unevenness are ok. I am really happy that folks post work of all sorts.

I too look at the work of accomplished glass artists with a mixture of envy and awe. At the same time, I find myself hungry for the details of how the work was produced-- how does this artist use glass to achieve his/her particular vision? How is this artist's vision developing or evolving? What are the twists and turns on the way?

While the photo section is often inspiring, I get this kind of insight more from the kiln-forming section. Every time someone posts a problem in this section, I learn something about this process. There are "mini-critiques" going on all the time in the responses to these requests for help. In that context, it is almost invariably both supportive and incisive, fosused on helping the poster achieve a vision, whether the problem was posted by an accomplished glass artist, or a newbie, or someone in between.

Dayle Ann
The Hobbyist
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Post by The Hobbyist »

Bert makes a very important point.

Everyone learns from a critical examination of someone's work, not just the brave soul that asked for it.

How many hundreds of lurkers are there here that are cutting their teeth on new techniques that they learned by following our discussions. That's how I learned nearly everything I know about glass (and computers too). By following the threads and reading the question and answers. I don't think I've posted more than two or three questions here. Someone else has usually already asked it and all I have to do is read and try.

Likewise for the artistic part. It isn't enough to have beautiful pieces in the Gallery and on websites. They serve as wonderful inspiration but we also need information regarding what works in a piece, what doesn't and why. Then we will have a better sense of where to go with our own work when we diverge from the inspiration of others.

How many times have you seen a beautiful piece and wanted to ask the artist a question? Have you ever looked at a stunning piece and thought there was something missing but didn't know what? If there are enough courageous artists willing to put their work up for examination and comment, we (lurkers, newbies) will all become better artists. Even the timid will be able to learn how to improve their work.

Jim
"With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil—that takes religion. " Steven Weinberg
Nancy Juhasz
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Post by Nancy Juhasz »

Cynthia and Jim, What wonderful comments. This is something I needed to hear as a warmglasser still cutting my teeth. It is sometimes way to easy to look at a piece and say isn't it great or that's a piece of trash depending on my mood that day. I'm glad to hear that some of the pictures of pieces posted on here were less than great since I had that feeling about some of them. I thought it was just me having a negative day. When ever I get courage to post something I will be saying please critique this honestly. I think we need these discussions on inspiration, quality of work, etc. every so often. Nanc
Tim Swann
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Post by Tim Swann »

When I want true criticize I take a piece to experienced fusers for there review. I do not answer requests for criticism on forum boards, as I do not feel that a set of pictures is sufficient to judge if a piece is composed and executed to specific standards. I need to touch, feel, and inspect a piece personally before I will pass judgment.

Tim
Terrie Corbett
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Post by Terrie Corbett »

Hi Brock,

Interesting thread on several levels. As a continuing student of glass, I am interested in the opinions of those with demonstrated abilities, such as yourself, Avery, Brad and the other generally acknowledged "glass gurus." (I will leave someone out if I try to name them, though their work and knowledge set them apart).

Since my formal training is in painting, my response will be weighted with that experience in mind.

It is often difficult to discern if someone is seeking validation or support, disguised as a request for critical review. (and here, Phil was on point when he suggested that ". . . computer communication is a poor way of communicating something of emotional value." ) I believe that many of us, when dealing with a student or colleague, use non verbal signs of comfort leveled with constructive criticism when asked to evaluate their work- this is almost impossible in a computer environment.

I find it valuable to discuss the merits of the work first. I may embrace an interesting design component, color composition, texture etc. I then enter into a dialogue with the individual "I'm interested in this area...," or "was this [color] your first choice," or "interesting imagery, what prompted this?" I find that this type of discussion and interaction often results in a heightened awareness by the individual, of the strengths and/or weaknesses of their artwork. What elements (or whose work) has has influenced their decisions? Did they make the right choices or the wrong ones?

Most of us do not suffer false praise and I try not to engage in that when critiquing (and the operative work here is critiquing) someone else's work.
If someone seeks your critical opinion, then you should honor that. However, I do believe that criticism without encouragement is useless. An individual's honest and enthusiastic attempt (painting, glass, clay, etc.) though not successful, is not without value.

(My bottom line -- we should open doors, not close them.

l
The Hobbyist
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Post by The Hobbyist »

Tim, what you say has merit and would be the best but that is often unfeasible. For me to do so would be cost prohibitive because Miami is so far removed from the rest of the America.

Evaluating art work from pictures must be reasonably good though since so many juried shows use them.

Jim
"With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil—that takes religion. " Steven Weinberg
AVLucky
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Post by AVLucky »

I think Phil put it quite well.
Phil Hoppes wrote:
The controlled aspect of criticism stems a little from what Jim mentioned in that some posters WANT criticism while others are simply looking for praise. There is a difficulty from a reviewer's perspective that unless the poster makes their intention known, one is left to guess what is the intent. Given a choice of the unknown I think most people error on the side of courtesy and either give a positive review or no review rather than possibly upset the person who made the picture post...

...A good critical review, especially to a novice, requires coaching, good analytical review and through feedback. Some of this can be communicated effectively with text only but it is better delivered when reviewer and poster can physically see each other

...As I said above, good reviews should provide through feedback. MOST important the review should be critical of the work NOT the artist. Sometimes some reviewers may come across as attacking the artist or some fear reviewing as not to be perceived as attacking the artist.

Lastly, I feel some artists, dare I say, should not be artists or should not post their work. “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen!”. In any endeavor worth doing, you will only learn by 1) taking risks 2) making mistakes and 3) seeking advice from knowledgeable teachers, coaches, instructors etc. and 4) learning and pushing forward from 1-3. If you are not open to criticism. If you are not willing to listen to the comments of others in order to learn; well, practice your art but I fear you will probably not grow too far or too fast. That may be a harsh statement but this is a TAME board. The school of hard knocks will not be so kind. If you can’t take the heat in here you will most certainly find the professional art world quite unforgiving... Phil
I see criticism as an extension of teaching, and maybe that's why it's so hard to do it in a bulletin board format. It seems like a lot of people start out in this medium with minimal personal guidance. They may have some great references: this site, and books, and maybe classes, to learn the basics, but what happens over the long term is most likely a private venture. Once you get home from that class, you're on your own. If you're trying to really grow as an artist, you're not going to wait for another class before you make more stuff. Even the most disciplined and self-guided are not going to find all of the answers on their own. That's when criticism becomes crucial.

I think it's so important to have regular feedback as you develop, but if it's not forced on us, I don't think many people try to seek it out. I would guess that fear of negative comments is a big deterrent. A skillful critic can identify problems without being mean, and artists should be realistic about developing their work. Even if those two things don't coexist, a crit can still work sometimes.

Example? I had a college prof. who regularly told his students their work was crap, but ended up getting people to really rise up against him and produce some outstanding stuff (and also say some pretty nasty things behind his back :twisted: ). Whether mean or thoughtful, the common thread across my history of teachers is that the ones who expected the most from their students got the most in return. The achivements I made in those classes far surpassed the indignity of a few negative crits in the process.

So I would suggest the following to those who are reluctant to be crtitcal, or to offer up their own work for review. What's worse: being told that your work needs improving, or having it never improve?
Phil Hoppes
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Post by Phil Hoppes »

AVLucky,

Valid point. My BEST professors and teachers were the ones who pushed me out of my comfort zone to a level I thought on my own I could not reach. Anyone want to see what can be accomplished, go see the movie Miracle. I knew that Herb Brooks pushed those guys on that team to win that gold medal.....I had no idea just how hard or just how creative his techniques were. Would we all be so lucky to have a mentor or instructors to push us that hard. I truly believe the limits we have as people and here as artists are those limits we put on ourselves. More often than not we need those people to give us that external "kick in the pants" to push ourselves further than what we may have thought possible.

Constructive, well thought out criticisim can be of tremendous value. I wonder if this board might not benifit from perhaps a "Critic's Corner". Leave the photo's area as it is and lets use it as a place to crow (we all need that every now and then) and a place to show other photos of things of interest. Then we have the Critic's Corner for posting those shots where we want critical feedback. That way there is no question on either the poster or reviewer that, that is the intent. There are many a time I get partway through a design and I just get a mental block or want another opinion. It would be nice to have a dedicated place for this.

What do you think board?

Phil
Cynthia

Re: Criticism

Post by Cynthia »

Amy on Salt Spring wrote:
Cynthia wrote: I spent so many years giving, getting and learning how to, that it's very hard to turn that critic off (the nice benevolent one Amy, not the evil one...that one has to go).
Cynthia if they haven't read that other thread they are going to think you mean I am the evil critic!! 8-[ :cry:
Amy
Amy gets to stay...I really want Amy to stay. Amy can sit on my shoulder in her superhero T-shirt any day. Amy is NOT the evil critic. #-o
Linda wrote:What Cynthia said. (Wow.)

As an aside, But why is glass more difficult to critique for you than painting?
First, I may despise a piece of work because the content is offensive, or it's simply hideous to me...but formally, it may very well be successfully constructed, concieved and executed and a good critique ignores personal aestics. That isn't where I get confused though and wonder how different work should be critiqued.

I think my difficulty is because I have more experience critiqueing traditional 2-D work and techniques than I do with glass. I never got to work with graphic artists nor learned much about what their specific concerns were beyond design. Craft mediums have a different history and Craft as Art started to converge with the fine arts some time in the 50's. The materials stayed craft (clay, fiber, glass)...the objects moved into non-fuctional items...then back to functional, but with a moniker of being artists works. It gets fuzzy for me because we are working in the same medium but with different approaches and intentions.

I would look at the object with different criteria for a work intended as art than I would a functional vessel that is intended as a service piece. Sometimes that distinction is clear, a wall piece as compared to a Seder Plate. The wall piece is a non-functional piece (hopefully) with a focus on content, and the plate clearly is a functional service piece, yet it's umbued with content, symbology, meaning. Do you critique these two different pieces that were created with such different intent by the same criteria? Do the windchimes and coasters get critiqued in the same grouping as the sculputural, non-functional art pieces? Do the makers of these different pieces have the same or even similar concerns? That's where I get a bit confused. Good design has it's feet firmly planted in some solid concepts that should be employed in any visual work...but then there is that next step, and I think that what applies to decorative or functional work doesn't necessarily cross the board to art work...but there is this funny place where one looks similar to the other.

Do I just make this more confusing, or is my fuzzy line similar to others fuzzy line?
Brock
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Post by Brock »

Long ago, and far away, in a bizarre parallel universe known as Camp Colton, one of my teachers, and a star in the nascent fusing world, was assailed by a peer, who severely criticized, (to me anyway) the work being done. I thought it was brutal and mean and was furious at this attack on my idol.

Later, my teacher told me that the criticism was welcomed, and astute.

Go figure . . . anyway, I have no problem with criticism, (of my work) and have learned much from it. Good criticism should cause you to question yourself. It can cause a shift in your work, it can be the catalyst for whole new ways of seeing. It's important in your development.

I know that some of us are mentoring, after a fashion, several members of this board. Imagine how much more helpful, even more opinions would be. As usual, you must give any advice of this sort, the importance YOU think it deserves. I do not want to polarize the board, but this kind of constructive criticism should be aimed at those people who wish to advance their artwork. I can tell you that several, (or who really knows, perhaps many), of you are doing work after just a few years, that took me a decade, The reason is the incredible resources available from this board. I think it's time for the next step, candid, but helpful criticism. If you are going to pursue kiln work, it can only help you. Brock
My memory is so good, I can't remember the last time I forgot something . . .
Steve Immerman
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Post by Steve Immerman »

Phil Hoppes wrote:I wonder if this board might not benefit from perhaps a "Critic's Corner".
Phil
Could this area of the board also have photos of those pieces that are unfinished and going nowhere? To solicit suggestions of how the piece could be finished and improved?

Occasionaly posters have asked for this kind of help, and the replies have usually been helpful and enlightening in an artistic, rather than a purely technical, manner.

Steve
Linda Reed
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Re: Criticism

Post by Linda Reed »

Cynthia wrote:Good design has it's feet firmly planted in some solid concepts that should be employed in any visual work...but then there is that next step, and I think that what applies to decorative or functional work doesn't necessarily cross the board to art work...but there is this funny place where one looks similar to the other.

Do I just make this more confusing, or is my fuzzy line similar to others fuzzy line?
Good point. There is functional work that is meant to be pleasing to look at or to appeal to certain decors or niches as it is used for a purpose (wind chimes, coasters, plates, bowls, etc, etc) , and the critique of that type of work seems like it should focus more on construction - functionality.

There is glass that an artist makes with the intent of being solely an art object, and then there are the vast majority of items that fall in between. Intent is a big part of how the critique could be structured. When you buy a bowl that you would never use because it works so well as a display piece, and the artist probably created it knowing that it was a display piece and not really expecting that you would heap macaroni salad in it... It's diffferent than a bowl that the creator assumed would be used. Most of us probably own 'art' that falls into both categories - I want beautiful pieces that I can use on the table and they give me pleasure and make me smile. But I also want pieces above that level that I can pose on a shelf and would never think of using.

Fuzzy? Yes. But still each type of work can use critique. As all the others have said, it's how we grow - whether it is a critique of our own work (very motivating) or vicariously through critiques of other work.

I hesitate to pick something off of eBay and tear it apart, solely because I worry about hurting people who are not ready for critique, and who knows that it is not the work of a sensitive lurker... but maybe it is a good thing. Hearing the critiques of all kinds of works teaches me.

Getting a good critique can be very difficult. I have a friend who recently went out of her way to try and elicit critique, but who was frustrated by the response. It's hard for many of us who have not been trained how to give and accept critique to a) say something critical of a friend's work and more so, b) know how to identify and verbalize our impressions.

Maybe some of you who are trained or are used to giving critiques could outline some of the process. An on-line critique seminar. Or at least a class at the next WG function? I know it's a subject bigger than a couple hour class, but a start is a start. A critique corner of the board would serve much the same purpose I guess.

Unsure,
Linda
Amy on Salt Spring
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Post by Amy on Salt Spring »

I agree Linda--there should be rules and guidlines for critique--if there were it would be less likely that the wrong things would be said and people would be hurt. This reminds me of a review for a show I once read in the paper. The reviewer listed what the most expensive pieces were, talked about what her favorite pieces were (but not why), and said about one (really good in my opinion) piece something that basically said, "I didn't understand the piece so I don't think its good". It was amazingly unprofessional and unfair to the artists. The writer had no clue about art--no clue about critique and all those people who had worked so hard to express themselves were evaluated by how they priced their work and whether or not it suited this one reporter's taste.
Amy
Brock
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Post by Brock »

I'm going to post a link to a picture and description of a piece I'm currently working on. I'll post it later today, (As soon as that selfish Avery quits working on her stuff, and goes in the house and posts it for me. Sheesh!)

I invite any and all comments.

Later, Brock
Last edited by Brock on Sat Mar 20, 2004 5:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
My memory is so good, I can't remember the last time I forgot something . . .
Avery Anderson
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Post by Avery Anderson »

Sheesh Brock.....check your email! it's up! Yeah, selfish...the first day I've been in my studio in days and I get grief! Joking aside...this is an excellent thread and I like Steve's idea of having a critique section.

Avery
Brock
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Post by Brock »

Oops! Yet another faux pas. Oh well, carry on . . .

Here's the link:

http://www.averyanderson.com/Brock-gold%20foil.htm

What would you do from here . . .

. . . Thank you, Avery.
My memory is so good, I can't remember the last time I forgot something . . .
Don Burt
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Post by Don Burt »

[quote="Brock"]Oops! Yet another faux pas. Oh well, carry on . . .

Here's the link:

http://www.averyanderson.com/Brock-gold%20foil.htm

What would you do from here . . .

clip[quote]

Stop there and fire. Don't slump. . Start the next in the series. When you have twelve variations, glaze them-up into a big round table top and ship it me. Thanks.
Bert Weiss
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Post by Bert Weiss »

Brock wrote:Oops! Yet another faux pas. Oh well, carry on . . .

Here's the link:

http://www.averyanderson.com/Brock-gold%20foil.htm

What would you do from here . . .

. . . Thank you, Avery.
Here goes

My eye is bothered by the juxtaposition of the 8 equal segments and the randomness of the gold application. Being an organic kind of guy, I would lean towards a more organic design with the gold broken up randomly. I wonder though, if my eye would have a different feeling if there were an odd number of segments, 7 or 9? Certainly more difficult to lay out, but less predictable to look at. I think it might work better for me if there were an odd number of segments though.

I wonder what a tinted cap would look like, say neolavendar?
Bert

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