After a very bad no good month, I have been in a creative funk. I can barely get off the couch most days, and I spend it watching TV and playing video games. Borne out of illness and stressful life events, we are in a miniature flop era. But I have tools to get out of these now, so that’s what I aimed towards today.

A lot of times, I am creatively blocked because my self-worth is so tied to external approval. At my worst, positive feedback gets me going into a rut with whatever got me the feedback, until I burn out. Meanwhile, negative feedback will delay me from making new things at all, until I eventually decide, okay, I’ll have to make art without an audience. This of course invites further criticism, as I internalise more and more bad habits or unquestioned idiosyncrasies before I next share my work. I’ve been trying to troubleshoot this for years.

Today, I decided to try and unstick myself by writing two reviews of my art. By ‘my art’, I considered not just my existing body of work, but art in progress, or art that I want to make in the future. The first review would be the most brutal review possible, and the second would be a rave review written in response.¹

The bad review poured out effortlessly. It was easy to find flaws in my own work, but also in myself. I would estimate that half of the review was ad hominem attacks. Things like (paraphrased, for my own privacy!) “Mal has no friends/is despicable as a person!”, sitting alongside “they should consult an anatomy textbook” or “they use a lot of flashy techniques in their work without understanding them”. Another theme was the idea that I should not release any work to the public at all. So… yes, I learnt a lot about my inner critic from this exercise. Mainly, they want me to shut up! It also made me realise how silly and baseless a lot of my critical monologue was, and I wondered who gave me those ideas in the first place.

I wrote the rave review as a counter to every single point in the bad review. I reframed the ‘worst’ parts of myself and my work as aspects that could be loved and enjoyed. It was a harder process to produce something that felt real, as opposed to ego inflation with no proof. But I realised in doing so that many so-called ‘flaws’ in my work were features, not bugs. While venture capital is pushing people to delegate their every cognition, word and excretion to thoughtless, data-gobbling machines, big ideas executed imperfectly by living beings should be celebrated. Though I’ve been reluctant to acknowledge it, that does include my own. Google Gemini does not care if it tells you to eat rocks, it just wants to deliver the fastest answer and page load possible. I need to treat sharing my work the same way. The consequence of sharing a bad piece of art is far more benign than the consequence of sharing dangerous misinformation.

This exercise also helped me realise what I valued in a positive critique. What would make me listen to a compliment and take it onboard, instead of just assuming the reviewer was being nice? Well, understanding is a big part. I make art to help others understand my experiences. So, if the critique reflects an understanding of that, I have in part succeeded. A lot of my positive review was an explanation and analysis of my own goals, which helped me understand why I prioritised those goals. I realised that a key component of my art is to make people feel less alone with emotions which others might diminish or call melodramatic. So, writing this blog post was a part of that, acknowledging my own flaws so others might feel seen.

And, with some caveats (see below), I would recommend you give it a try yourself.

Think of your absolute worst critic - your own Statler and Waldorf, if you like - and write a review of your art from them. Do not pull punches. Be direct and brutal.

Then, counter each and every point with a positive spin. Write yourself a rave review. Give yourself permission to love your art.

This exercise was super illuminating and helped me to discover what I value in feedback. I realise now that some feedback settings (like brutal, art-school-style critique workshops of near-acquaintances) may not be quite right for me at this stage of my recovery. But right now, it would be helpful for me to build a tight creative support network, who could share an understanding of each other’s aims. I’ve done this in part with friends already, but I think it’s time to step it up a bit more.

The caveats: This isn’t medical or psychological advice. It will likely be taxing or even triggering to dwell on your own flaws, even creative ones, so your mileage may vary. For me, it was a relatively low-risk exercise, because I have experience of how journalling therapy should feel. I am also actively in therapy so I can’t fuck myself up too much before I have my next session to discuss what went wrong. If you do not have psychological support or haven’t done this kind of self-reflection before in a therapeutic setting, this could be more risky to do on your own. If you decide to do this exercise while you’re not feeling so good, please remember to follow it up with the positive review.

thanks to Gio Almonte @ unsplash for the cover photo!

Footnotes

1. I’m sure this is not a new journalling prompt. Apologies if I have unknowingly absorbed it from somewhere else - perhaps the Artist’s Way? Let me know if you know. But either way, I hope it is useful for someone else! ↩