Never Apologize For Your Art

But Be Prepared…

Never apologize for your art. That was on a button someone gave me once. I think on some level I always knew how profound that statement was, but never as clearly as I do now. For the purpose of this post, I’m approaching this from a subject matter angle.

Art is an expression of thoughts and ideas. As artists, we are not limited to expression by speaking. We have the gift of communicating through our art and as is most often the case, a picture is more impactful than a thousand words. In other words, our art has the potential to make a much more powerful statement. However, from a legal standpoint in the U.S., expression is protected by the Freedom of Speech Act.

So never apologize for your art but be prepared because that last bit goes both ways. Yes, you may get all kinds of flak from people who disagree with you, but you are within your rights to express yourself just as those who disagree with you are free to express themselves. We’re each entitled to our opinions, including your critics. You can defend your work or state where you were coming from when you created it, but you shouldn’t apologize.

There will always be critics. (Photo Credit: 123RF.com Copyright : Ion Chiosea)

Look at it this way…

You’re entitled to express yourself, right? Your critics are free to express their opinions as well, right? Would you demand an apology from someone based on what they feel? Feelings are honest. Sometimes they’re well thought out and other times they’re based on limited information, or what we might call snap judgements. Don’t pretend like you never made one.

Another way to look at it is this…your work was powerful enough that it evoked a response from people. Do you know how many people go through countless days without their work being recognized one way or the other? Their work blends into the constant tide of hundreds of thousands of other artists’ works and eventually disappears into obscurity. At this point, you have to ask yourself if you’d rather have affected people with your work or not. Obscurity is also an option.

As far as the quality of your work goes, which people will also feel free to criticize, most of those types of comments will come from people who are not artists, who have no education about art whatsoever, and who wouldn’t know good art if it bit them in the butt. Don’t give them a second thought and feel free to use the block feature on your social media.

You can’t please everyone anyway.

Further Reading

Criticism