One of the less enjoyable things about being an artist and teacher is just how often I get to watch decent, clever people beating themselves up for failing before they\u2019ve even reached a level where real failure is an option. At this point I offer an apology for the half dozen students who\u2019ve been in my latest class: this isn\u2019t about you. Honest.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been thinking about this more in the light of many classes this year where students have offered me the opinion that they were rubbish, hopeless, useless or, and this seemed a bit extreme, \u2018totally without any talent\u2019. What I think they were actually saying was \u2018this printmaking thing is new, a bit confusing and I\u2019m scared because I can\u2019t see how I\u2019ll make a print by the end of class\u2019. I just wish that this absolutely reasonable concern over the unknown didn\u2019t get turned inward and become so abusive. I wonder sometimes if students even know they are doing it. I have listened in the past to the occasional unconsciously murmured soliloquy of such self loathing that Hamlet sounds positively jaunty in comparison and this from the very student who, in the next breath, is kind, positive and enthusiastically supporting the work of her equally inexperienced neighbour. Trust me, the only person actually deserving of abuse would be me as the teacher if I failed to lead students through the process clearly and well.<\/p>\n
I feel strongly about this because I used to do it myself big time. I never really thought about it until my first residency in Japan. There I was, before we all settled down, pretty much alone and stuck with my inner voice for company. It\u2019s not much fun being half way up a mountain in a very strange place, so many things a total mystery, feeling awkwardly huge, too hot and profoundly worried by the outsize insect life. Add to that the constant nagging voice telling me I was the wrong person in the wrong place and would never, ever, ever get to grips with the process and it made for some very weepy emails home. After a week I couldn\u2019t bear it any longer and made the conscious decision to stop. It wasn\u2019t easy and having an inner Pollyanna along with the inner critic was a bore, but it broke the habit and I am much more conscious about self criticism these days. Nothing wrong with striving for better, but if I feel myself sinking I just imagine how it would feel to be caught muttering the same words to a fellow student. Unthinkable to be so unkind and thoughtless\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One of the less enjoyable things about being an artist and teacher is just how often I get to watch decent, clever people beating themselves up for failing before they\u2019ve even reached a level where real failure is an option. At this point I offer an apology for the half dozen students who\u2019ve been in … Continue reading “Sticks and stones…”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}