QotW: How well do you take criticism from your peers ( other potters), or from customers or the general public?

[Pres]

Lets turn last week's question around. . . How well do you take criticism from your peers ( other potters), or from customers or the general public?

I know that years ago, I had a hard time in college at group critics. There were some students that were out right brutal about paintings or drawings by others. I often cringed when I had to present at these. They were rough! We never had "group critiques in ceramics and it was easier to accept the criticism by the professor. Most of the time I was ahead of the class in my throwing skills as I practically lived in the studio 7 days a week even though it was closed often on Sundays and vacations. Later in life I would have people talk about my pots and discuss their attributes at shows. It was a matter of what they liked, not necessarily whether it was well done. I did sell most of what I had at the time, but never had enough because I was still teaching and many other shows required a large inventory to do well. I have had a few cases where someone would not like certain aspects of a functional piece that I would end up explaining a certain aspect of say a "split lip" on a pitcher, or an inverted curve on a bowl near the lip for easier gripping. In the long run I think I take criticism well, especially after having to crit student drawings, paintings, pots or other works of art.

QotW: How well do you take criticism from your piers ( other potters), or from customers or the general public?

[Mark C.]

I can take any feedback and always consider it worth a listen.  Usually its about items I do not make or forms that are not in my realm like say a square handles on a mug or once why not two handles on mugs. Always worth a chat about. Life is a learning curve

[Denice]

I usually took criticism well at critiques and tried to learn from them.  One time my professor told me that I made perfect work but I didn't have enough soul in them.   He couldn't explain to me what that mean't by that criticism.    The only criticism I have gotten from the public is that I didn't have  the colors they wanted.  Denice

[Callie Beller Diesel]

My approach these days to criticism can be summed up with 2 adages. First, just because they put it down doesn’t mean I have to pick it up. The second is don’t accept criticism from someone you wouldn’t take advice from.

People will say things all the time. Good things, bad things, indeterminate things. If the criticism is unsolicited, there’s only a very small chance depending on circumstances that I will actually heed it. I find unsolicited advice often comes from a place of ego, and rarely comes from a place of being informed enough to be helpful if it genuinely isn’t ego based. Wise folks know there’s a time and a place, and my booth probably isn’t it. I will be polite and deflect, or usually redirect the question somehow.

If I asked for the feedback, usually there was a good reason I chose to ask someone about a given topic. I don’t ask if I’m not prepared for a negative or uncomfortable response.

This is not the approach I had when I was younger, or at least not entirely. In school, everyone and their dog had an opinion. Group crits can be brutal if you haven’t divorced your identity from your work enough to be pulled in so many different directions. I wound up taking on more of other people’s ideas than was strictly useful or healthy, especially from instructors who weren’t interested in the kind of work I was making. But given my ideas and taste were still forming, I needed to try some things on to see if they fit. 

 

[Bam2015]

Pres, I like this question. I think that I take criticism about my pieces quite well, but I don't think that people are usually very honest with me. My friends and family seem to like everything that I make, which is nice, but not always helpful. Maybe they like my stuff because they are not into arts/crafts and think that it is an innate talent rather than countless hours of learning. 

Betty

Edited August 13 by Bam2015

[Hulk]

oops

My potting was somewhat isolated before we moved - even more so now.
I'm welcoming any and all interest.

Edited August 13 by Hulk
be ...done

[Clay17]

9 hours ago, Pres said:

How well do you take criticism from your piers

Interesting question. When I tie my boat to a pier it never told me I did it wrong. 

 

Peer vs pier

[Bill Kielb]

Peer review is something essential to a working Qa/Qc process so for most of my life this has been a requested essential process to get things “right” before they leave the door so to speak. Being part of that “work” team is super important and any and all feedback is a requirement. So much so, if there is no depth to the observations  one begins to feel the reviewer did not really review substantively. 

Now pottery, I really like credible feedback, whether technique, function, or form. Artistic feedback is great; however it is subjective so sometimes there are those that will always critique for the sake of and dislike the form for same. 

Functional feedback for me is essential, if you are a close friend I will likely get detail to what you do or do not like though. Not to dismiss “this piece is not made with enough soul” but it may be a criticism that is hard to quantify and therefore hard to form a remedy for.

For artistic feedback, it’s all still valid. Having said that, there are  times I am hoping my tastes do not align with the reviewer.

[Pres]

40 minutes ago, Clay17 said:

Interesting question. When I tie my boat to a pier it never told me I did it wrong. 

 

Peer vs pier

Point made. . . . I will edit. . . . THANK YOU!

 

best.  . . really!

Pres

[Kelly in AK]

There are a few people I’m personally in contact with who, when they start talking about my work, I go into laser focus, hanging on their every word. They generally don’t take time to talk about my work, so such an event is meaningful. Those discussions leave an impression and it manifests itself in one way or another. The great mass of feedback comes unsolicited from people with a narrow base of experience. Even those become  pleasant conversations. They might not buy your pot, but because of you pots will be more interesting to them.

It’s a nuanced business, internalizing what’s worth keeping in your head (which opinions and evaluations) and shedding the rest. Trust yourself with a good idea.

Your family and friends love your work because they love you. That’s worth something, and important to calculate the physical and financial limits of it.

It’s all about making better work than we did yesterday.

Long story short: A few people have outsized space in my brain and it comes from us having similar tastes. Most everyone else occupies a smaller place in there. 

Edited August 14 by Kelly in AK
Spelling and punctuation

[GEP]

I regularly ask for feedback, mostly from my established customers. They are used to this, whenever I hold my holiday open studio, I usually have some new designs to unveil. I write about the new designs in a blast email to them, and how they react drives my decisions about them. To me, this is a resource of immeasurable value. 

At all times, I am paying attention to how customers react to everything I make, whether they are making purchases or not, gauging both the verbal and non-verbal messages.

But I also maintain a strict boundary, which is that design and aesthetic decisions belong to me, and me only. Yes, I am factoring in the opinions of many people, but the final decisions are mine. 

This comes from my many years working as a graphic designer, where final decisions always belong to the client. From this perspective, I am sharply aware of what a privilege it is to own these decisions now. And I hold onto it tightly! Normal and respectful behavior at an art fair recognizes this boundary. A shopper might not want to buy my work, but they still give me the right to make what I want to make.  

The fact that I sell most of what I bring to every show tells me that I am not closed off to meaningful feedback. 

So when I get unsolicited advice, that blows past the boundary of “potter makes the final decisions,” I generally don’t like it. My reaction will depend on who’s giving it, and what their intentions are. Sometimes I have reacted “holy [bleep] that’s a great idea!” These suggestions usually come from people with enough experience to see great ideas, and enough accomplishments of their own to not inject their ego into their suggestion. 

However, at this point it is obvious to me when someone’s feedback is about feeding their own ego. Sometimes a person will try to put me down, for no reason other than envy. Again, it’s obvious. “I could run your business better than you can” is the intention. Sometimes, people will try to co-opt some of my success, by presenting an idea that they think is super original, even though I already considered and discarded it many years ago, along with 1000s of other similarly boring ideas. These people have no idea that professional creative work involves constant brain churning of ideas, discarding most of them. But they’ve come up with ONE idea and they are so proud of themselves, and since they have no wherewithal to execute the idea themselves, they want me to do it for them. In this case the intention is not malicious, but still, no thanks. 

I guess my answer to this question is that I rank all feedback for its validity. I happily take the meaningful feedback, and discard what’s superficial or malintended. 

(hmmm, this might make a good article for my blog.)

Edited August 13 by GEP