This wasn’t the first time I walked away from a critique feeling bad about myself and my work. Even so, that didn’t change the pain.
The sting of being un-understood never wears off, it always burns deep.




























Between snotty breaths, I asked to end the crit early. I ran to the bathroom and cried audibly in the stall.  Eventually, one of my friends entered the bathroom. Their warm voice called to me and I exited the stall to find comfort in their arms. When the coast was clear, we returned to the gallery to grab my belongings. I could feel the distaste in my own work forming. It was hard to look at the things I was proud of just hours prior.

 


























^{Between snotty breaths, I asked to end the crit early. I ran to the bathroom and cried audibly in the stall.  Eventually, one of my friends entered the bathroom. Their warm voice called to me and I exited the stall to find comfort in their arms. When the coast was clear, we returned to the gallery to grab my belongings. I could feel the distaste in my own work forming. It was hard to look at the things I was proud of just hours prior.}


























In my peak post-crit feelings of defeat,
I questioned why I make art and
why I chose to come back to school.

























I should have known that I wasn’t cut out for this. I wasn’t conceptual enough. I wasn’t research-based enough. I wasn’t even intuitive enough.


















I thought about how these faculty members would go on to think of me as a hysterical softy who had no chance of making it in the cutthroat art world. Sometimes I still worry about this, but also I don’t think the cutthroat thing is for me.





























I want to be against conniving competition and combative commentary in the name of constructive criticism.























The hostile format of critique does nothing but snap me in half into two uninspired pieces.
























It does not encourage me to do better, to think about things I hadn’t considered. It is an outdated structure based on spewing doubt at the artist. It is not centered in trust or love for the student.