Downsides of sharing your art

Sharing your art is integral to being able to improve your art skills. But more often than not, you are going to need to pay for feedback. This is why people goto art schools. Unless you have plenty of skill from meaningful practice, you may run into some downsides of sharing your art.

Sharing your art with those around you is mostly a no go. Just don't do it. Whether you do it for the purpose of art or for a living, many may be dismissive. Personally whenever I have shared anything I made with those around me, I get negative feedback. People telling me I am wasting my time. More often than not, I don't share.

Lets say you are around supportive people. You may not get honest feedback from them. Teachers, professionals in the field, and those experienced giving critique is where you can mostly get honest feedback. Sharing with social media is highly biased. More often than not your work will get lost in the algorithm void. Instead it looks for popular things. People look at existing popular things as the only things they can make to reach anyone. What about the art the artist wanted to make.

Downsides is that many may not have money for education. If you want to be indepenent, you could find many ways online. If you want to be official you will likely need to get in large debt. I did not do this from the art side, but the tech side. I hate to be dismissive, but it is increasingly difficult. School in general is just not affordable. You eventually have to pay back that debt. Getting a job is difficult enough. The days are rough I hate to say. Find a niche and stick to it? Even my favorite artist Dr. Seuss made the art he wanted to make during the late hours of the night. His midnight paintings when he had the time.

No one wants to talk about making a living. Maybe you don't have to. I have realized that many people who I am around don't have to work. America is a rich country. Many people have generational wealth or some fund that provides a soft landing. Not everyone can afford to fail. In addition to that, you can't leave college without being economically devastated. You don't get credit unless you have completed everything for your major.

I had grown up around people who had been able to pay for college by working for a summer job. They were able to support a family, cars, vacations, plenty of money in the end. The american dream. The american nightmare is the opposite. Living paycheck to paycheck, in debt, food scarcity, lack of housing, long travel times from work. Long hours. Low pay. So those around you give you a reality check. Being in the arts isn't something for those who are trying to survive. You can't be a starving artist unless you have something to fall back on.

Finding a local art community or an online one, say discord could be a good alternative. But go into it looking to improve you art. Be ready to share whatever you make. Don't be afraid. They ain't family. Family mostly tries to help you. But you have to understand that the world doesn't work the same way. People expect how they grew up is the status quo. The reality is that the normal is chaos.

Artists today can't just do one thing. They need to do many things. Back then, more jobs existed. Now one person does three or more jobs. If you don't, you will likely inherit more in the future. Often if you share an art piece you made that isn't polished online, you will get negative feedback. This had to do a lot with everyone being connected to everyone else all the time.

Poor people make poor decisions. Remember that. Crabs in the bucket is another saying. People will pull you down often if they feel bad about themself. I have had people around me that have pushed me towards chasing things that are clearly scams rather than skill. Social media pushes garbage. Spent time on it and you will see. At the current time, it goes like this. Johnny Mc. Scam makes a video saying they made millions of dollars by doing insert scam here. Doesn't help that social media pushes the same garbage again and again. Remember when you login to anything connected to the internet it is mostly a slop trough. You may have made something good,but you get negative feedback. Please remember that social media algorithms tend to share content that makes people angry for engagement. These social media will not stop because they make plenty of money from showing advertisements between things that make people mad. Be aware of this.

Many social media also have a black box algorithm. The algorithm may want to push art about still life when you are a figure painter. You will never know. You don't own the algorithm neither can you peer into it to see how it works. Or how it weights information. Maybe post your art on your personal website or blog?

It is a rough world. Always has been. Keep making the art you want to make. Don't let the world stop you. Many artist don't become known until long after they are dead. Not encouraging you to die. Don't! This is commonly known in the art world. Perhaps this is because this artists work can never be made again.

Many people I grew up around always made fun of art. They got mad at anything art related. It was all about pushing science, technology, engineering, and math, aka stem. Why? I would say the purpose was to get everyone into it to drive down salaries. Many fields known for being well paid in the past have become just another $50,000 job that one person can barely live on these days. I grew up in the days of people saying learn to code, and in school participating in the hour of code school program. No one gets grants or paid unless it benefits the greater good in some way.

Discouraging people from getting into art is complex. It is discouraged by the population with many people saying you will never reach a level you can make a living. You should become an cog for a corporation instead. Then you can live everyday wanted to die. In addition to our school system being structured like working in a factory model environment. This served a purpose for the time, but has since become deprecated. It is interesting that I grew up with these legacy institutions. Considering how my school didn't even teach anything programming. We just have like one nine weeks course of learning how to type and use Microsoft Word. That was it. I have relatives who learned how to program in school. But they stayed the hell away from my field. This is because they realized this means saturation of the job in the market.

Art demeaned as a mere side hobby is another problem. Being bad at art is one thing. I have a lot to improve myself. Do you ever think to yourself your art is more than just a hobby. In our society anything that does not make money is considered a waste of time. Is the purpose of everything we do for the purpose of money? It is great if you can make money with your art. Who wouldn't say that. But not the end all be all purpose. Perhaps the price of the dead artists masters caused this effect. Or rather the art market. If we made all art for the purpose of being sold and not for the purpose of art, I am sure that would shine through.

Maybe just share your art and enjoy it? Maybe becareful with who you share it with? Your employer? They probably wouldn't be happy. Worse they would make fun of you? Even worse, they think you are going to become popular and they try to put you in your place. Best case, maybe they commission you? But then money is involved again. A blessing and a curse.

Upsides of sharing your art

Hard to come by, but some exist. More if you are on the younger side. You have to know the right art teacher. Or run into the right one. By the time you are old, you are most likely never going to ge praise in anyway. On the downside, you may run into harsh criticism instead. Someone may end up recommending you a local art class. Or even personal instruction. It could be beneficial to take local art classes if they exist in you area.

Maybe don't listen to me. When I was young, I got good feedback on my art. It was kind of funny. I sold a friends art. His name was Roman. I was in second grade. Then when I reached third grade, I was doing designs and some fellow classmates offered to buy my art. I drew these overlapping two dimensional staircases in full color. Haha. I also received good feedback when I worked with clay sculptures around that time. It wasn't until I stopped touching that for years after going through the education system wringer. I did receive bad feedback when I was painting in 11th grade. In short, no one ever taught me to do an underdrawing before a painting. It was bad. The teacher didn't like it then started applying her own colors on my canvas. My confidence destroyed. Haha. I was never a fan of painting anyways. I liked drawing more. I need to get better technical skills.

Periodically you should probably share your work to get some feedback. Or pay for feedback from an art instructor. If you can afford it. For all the downsides and upsides, I guess you will have to make a decision.

About Lars Barnabee 🐝 hey that's me