on receiving criticism...
We all know the feeling.
That sick feeling.
You've just put some of your work out there, and now it's time to pay the piper. Perhaps it's just a group of friends, or a writer's group, or a producer, or, further down the road, it's the critic of the local paper, or the judge in an adjudicated show.
Here it comes: criticism.
Here's a definition I read once about critics - I think it was in an Intro to Theatre textbook (it's in my notes somewhere, a Brit critic somewhere said it, I think.) - "a critic meditates between the artist and his work."
Yesterday, my Act One screenwriter's group "mediated" between me and my work (a little screenplay project called The Morgan Rebuild, and when the mediation session wrapped up, my work and I were like a happily married couple suddenly waking up to the fact that our particular happiness was built on illusion, and the only hope for our "marriage" was to face the awful, ugly truth about ourselves fair and square. At the end of the day, The Morgan Rebuild and I were not very happy with each other, teetering on the edge of divorce, but more likely than not, we're probably going to dig in, keep going to counseling, and hopefully, work out the bugs.
Interesting analogy, isn't it? In marriage counseling, two things are under the microscope: the marriage, and the willingness of the individual to face the truth of things. In our analogy of art and its critique, what I want to suggest is this:
When artistic work is being critiqued, from the point of view of the artist, two things are in play: 1) The work itself, and 2) the spirit of the artist, and the manner in which he interacts with the critic and/or the criticism.
It seems to me that here is one of the chief opportunities where disciples of the Christ might shine, offering to the world a truly unique picture of artistic interaction, and by extension, of love.
The 12 artist/disciples gather, bringing their poems, their plays, their paintings. What they see are works in various stages, perhaps one is a masterpiece, one sheer banality, with all the others in various stages in between. But in each is the kernel of a kingdom advancing truth, and the beginning stages of a kingdom advancing artist, both fragile and needed, and the artist/disciples, led by Jesus, know there is little to be gained by false pats on the back.
Rigorously, they love, speaking truth as best they can, creating a tough but safe environment where kingdom advancing, artistic achievement can grow. They don[base ']t try to re-make their fellow artists creation in their own image: instead they are committed to "honoring the mystery of the other," and like mid-wives, they stand by to help usher in the birth of the new work, the new song the artist is trying to sing.
And those of us on the receiving end of things, who must publicly face the fact that we are not nearly as brilliant as we hoped...is there a better training ground for humility to be had?
Or to use another picture from The Passion of the Christ...Jesus had to carry his own cross, but Simon of Cyrene threw his weight under it, helping, in a small, but profound way, the master artist gather the strength to complete the masterstroke in the making of a new creation.
We usually think of the critic as the one crucifying. What I'm subversively suggesting is this: offered in the right spirit, received in the spirit of Christ, criticism is one of the chief tools needed if the artist is to follow the way of Jesus.
In a terrible paraphrase of a Proverbs verse somewhere...the wise man welcomes the smart, loving critic, while the fool shuts his ears...
To my Act One screenwriter's group...thanks for mediating...
10:32:23 AM
