I am a nice person. But last week I was choosing a dinner place with my friend Dave, a normal burger-eating dude, and I realized that sometimes I am a snob. Let me be absolutely clear: “Snob” is not a label that I want to reclaim with ironic pride, the way that the hipsters use “Nerd.” And unfortunately, my snobbishness is not limited to restaurant choices.
This is difficult for me to admit, but I am also snobby about “amateur” landscape painting. So sometimes it happens that I’ll see a lady in a floppy-brimmed hat working in front of a collapsible easel, and this mean girl will pop into my head. She is the lovechild of one of the “Heathers” from that 1980s movie, and a burnt-out art professor. If you are named Heather, I’m sure that you are very nice. In fact, I have a friend named Heather who is lovely. But the Heather in my mind is an uninvited and obnoxious dinner guest who dismisses amateur paintings of the sunset (or whatever) as trite, even though nobody has asked for her opinion.
As soon Heather speaks, I want to shut her down like my brain is the “Whack-a-Mole” game at the Topsfield Fair. First of all, in my profession, but also in my heart, I am a teacher of art. I usher, coax, and cajole my students into becoming amateurs, or “lovers of” art-making.* I give out hugs and cocoa, and compliment my students sincerely. They inspire me with their curiosity, their progress, and their work. Thankfully, Heather seems to be silent when I am looking at the artwork of people whom I know. But I am bothered immensely by Heather’s critical judgment of paintings done by people whom we’ve never met.
I, Kristin, am an amateur at most things. I pride myself on doing them anyway as anyone who has ever run with me, watched me parallel park, or listened to me “play” the banjo knows. So I really wish that Heather would leave the amateur painters alone. But I can’t unthink my thoughts. I can only hope that by facing the shame that Heather triggers, I can start to understand her.
So why does Heather show up? Maybe it’s because the raw eagerness of amateur painters is simply too naked. Spread-eagle across the canvas, it embarrasses me. The “pleasure painters” stand at the edge of parking lots with their easels and hang their paintings in coffee shops shouting Howdy world, this is the best that I can do! I look at my own paintings and think Thank God that I finished that painting. I’ll keep it safe, right here under my bed. The next one will be better; I’ll show that one, for sure.
Maybe Heather is also there to protect my ego. Like many artists, I am comfortable painting in a studio by myself, not letting anyone see the mistakes, the bad paintings, or the process along the way. At any level, “plein air” painters bring the painting process, literally, into the open. And actually, that’s what I want to do too; that’s why I started this blog. In spite of my MFA, my years in the art studio, and my job as a painting teacher, as a “plein air” landscape painter I am an amateur too. That’s not comfortable for me to admit, but maybe comfortable is overrated. Because actually, what I want to be is braver. So no matter what Heather has to say about it, I think that I just might buy myself a collapsible easel and a floppy hat.
*Michael Kimmelman has a great essay about amateurism in his book, The Accidental Masterpiece. I highly recommend this book.
These images are inspired by photographs that I took of a hayfield in Germany. I was there to to visit my friends Shana and Benjamin, and I was taking a ride on Shana’s bike. I was a little lost, it was raining, and I was late meeting them for dinner. I couldn’t resist stopping to photograph this scene. Click on the images to enlarge.
themuddypalette 
Hello. It is hard to silence the “Heather” but it is always a key to recognize that you have compassion and love for those you know. It’s easy to make fun of strangers, and always a good habit to recognize–and quash–the mean girl. I can really hear your voice in the writing. And I love the Whack-a-Mole game.
Hi Kristin! Good food for thought, thanks for sharing it. I can definitely relate to a lot of the sentiment you have expressed here. Something that grinds my gears as someone who is also an “amateur” but also with years of practice and a decent amount of formal training in the arts is the harsh and immediate judgments of art critics, both those with a formal art history background (who seem to think all art is supposed to look the same or imitate the techniques of the “masters”) or those who sneer at amateur artists in general, as if to discourage people from trying to be creative if they aren’t good at something right from the get-go (like the WaPo reviewers at Artomatic who referred to a lot of the material there as “dreck,” presumably after experiencing art fatigue after viewing half of two floors).
And of course it is a lot easier to dismiss someone’s work when you lack the talent, dedication or patience to create something yourself, or when the artist herself is not present to defend the work from the critiques of onlookers. So what if a painting doesn’t belong in the MOMA? Does that mean it wasn’t worth making at all? And for what it’s worth, there’s plenty of dreck in museums too! Just because you happen to be a burnt-out professor with a degree in art history, that doesn’t mean your opinion should never be questioned, and maybe it just means you’re prone to being stuck in old, boring, uncreative ways.
One thing I have learned from practicing ceramics is it really does take a long time to become good at something really worthwhile, and the journey has its own rewards much greater than any single product or piece of art that might result from it “in the end.” In order to get good, you have to be willing to be bad first, and you have to be willing to show your not so good beginner work to others so they can offer suggestions and improvements. It helps to be thick-skinned, but it also helps to have good friends and teachers who are willing to be honest with you but also continue to support you in your chosen endeavors and have faith in your progress. Speaking of which, I have my own take on the arbitrary criticisms of others, narrated in pictorial form here: http://thepartisanartisan.com/2012/05/22/iteration-repetition/ Check it out and hope you enjoy my photos!
Cheers,
Jeremy
A snippet from ‘Anna Karenina’:
“He knew it was impossible to forbid Vronsky to toy with painting; he knew that he and all the dilettantes had every right to paint whatever they liked, but he found it unpleasant. It was impossible to forbid a man to make a big wax doll and kiss it. But if this man with the doll came and sat in front of a man in love and began to caress his doll the way the man in love caressed his beloved, the man in love would find it unpleasant. Mikhailov experienced the same unpleasant feeling at the sight of Vronsky’s painting; he felt it ridiculous, vexing, pathetic and offensive.”