Category: feedback

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What mastery does for you

If you’ve learned to do one thing well, you can apply that technique to anything else you want to do.
Abstraction, by Carol L. Douglas. My hair looks a lot like this.
Those who know me will be surprised to learn that I occasionally brush my hair. I like it long, but it has more than a little ‘fro in it, which makes it hard to maintain. Earlier this year I went to a new hairdresser. Kim spent a great deal of time teaching me how to shape my hair without a hairdryer. When she was done, I looked smashing—until the next day, when it was back to its usual, out-of-control, self.
My first reaction was to just let it go, even though I hate it looking like a bottle brush. “But wait,” I thought. “If Kim could make this work, it means it’s possible. She showed me how; what I have to do is practice.” And so, I practiced. And while I’m still not as good at it as she is, somedays it doesn’t look half bad.
My friend Jane, by Carol L. Douglas. She’s taught me a lot of things over the years.
I see a physical therapist twice a week to work on my back. She’s very young, and she’s very tough. Every visit, she adds something new, kinky (in the pretzel sense) and too complex for me. “Now, remember to breathe,” she admonishes after she’s just given me eighteen other orders. I can’t seem to activate my back, contort my extremities, and draw air all at the same time. Every week, I leave feeling confused.
Yet I go home and try again, because I promised her that I’d practice three times a week. The first time is always awkward and messy. By the time I go back to my next appointment, though, I’ve got it more or less mastered. Three months ago, Krista told me, “Age is just a number.” I laughed; she’s my youngest daughter’s age. Now I’m starting to believe her. The improvement has been life-changing.
Listening in church, by Carol L. Douglas. Part of learning to paint is incessant drawing.
By the time we’re adults, we’ve all pretty well mastered something— CrĂȘpes Suzette, tax preparation, Greek diacritics, Morris dancing
 the list is as infinite and varied as humans ourselves. Here are some things I’ve mastered:
  1. Making pies;
  2. Cleaning;
  3. Numerical computations in my head;
  4. Driving;
  5. Folding laundry.

What about you? What are you good at?

For most people, it’s easier to enumerate our shortcomings than our successes, but that’s a mistake, as I wrote here. I certainly have things I’m not good at, starting with cookery. But I’m a bad cook because I have absolutely no interest in food.
That’s the first difference between success and failure: we succeed at what we love; we fail at what we dislike. “You could do it if you just tried,” I heard as a kid, and now I know it was true. Our failures represent disinterest far more than incompetence.
Bailiff in County Court, by Carol L. Douglas. Draw, draw, everywhere, even in court.
Thinking about our masteries is not a feel-good exercise; it’s an invitation to look at our learning process and figure out how it worked. I made my first pies in 4H. I found better recipes and techniques, other bakers gave me tips, and I’m still looking for ways to up my game.
It’s exactly the same with more complex activities like art, music and higher mathematics. Your successes determine the method you’ll use to keep developing. Other masteries not only tell you that you have the intellectual tools necessary to take on the challenge, but that you have a method of learning that works.
Notice that I’ve not said a word about talent here. It’s the most overrated quality in success. Thomas Edison was entirely right when he said, “Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration.” Now get to work!

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The pernicious practice of ‘feedback’

Ditch it, says a business consultant. We artists could learn something from him.
Blizzard, by Carol L. Douglas. We all want to be outside, so my students painted out the windows yesterday. I’ve done that a few times myself!

One of my students just came back from wintering in Australia. We’ve been practicing formal analysis in her absence. That means we consider a painting on the basis of its formal structure. This isn’t a like-vs-dislike process, but rather an objective one, talking about how the painter uses various techniques to advance his goals.

The protocol for criticism in my studio has always been the sandwich rule. We begin by pointing out something the person did well. We then discuss what might have been handled differently. We finish by pointing out something else that the person did well, so that each session ends on a positive note.
Snow squall, by Carol L. Douglas
This method has been mocked as “fluffy bun—meat—fluffy bun,” but that misses the point. Most people are all too aware of their failures and not aware of their strengths. Catch them doing something right and they’re likely to repeat it.
Since I hadn’t given my wanderer adequate instruction, she was lost. It didn’t help that the painting we were analyzing (by another student) was a stunner. It was all too easy to gush.
There’s nothing wrong with that, and we’ll continue to use the sandwich rule for our critique sessions. My goal in practicing academic criticism with them was different. I wanted to them to start seeing how form, shape, repetition and rhythm work together in painting. But I also wanted to take the judgment out of looking at art.
Tree line, by Carol L. Douglas
The Feedback Fallacy—an article that’s about to be released as a book—takes aim at the pernicious practice of feedback. Marcus Buckinghamwrites for a business audience, but what he has to say is applicable to the arts, in schools, and in families. He says our culture of criticism as based on three lies: 

  • The best way to help you is to show you something you’re too blind to see for yourself;
  • Learning is like filling an empty vessel—you lack abilities and it’s up to someone else to teach you;
  • Great performance is universal and measurable. Once defined, it can be transferred from one person to another, regardless of the recipient’s strengths and weaknesses. 

Focusing on an imaginary standard of greatness—and how we fall short—doesn’t enable learning. In fact, it shuts it right down. Learning happens when we see how we might do something better, not when our errors are pointed out to us. I can tell a student a hundred times to not dab, but it isn’t until I pick up his brush and show him how to make a proper mark that he will understand what “not dabbing” means. And it won’t be until he has made great marks—uniquely, idiosyncratically his own, with power and confidence—that he will have mastered mark-making.
My backyard, by Carol L. Douglas

Positive reaction, done right, is harder than negative criticism. You need to catch a person doing something right before you can comment. That means constant vigilance and a rock-solid understanding of process. It requires being able to differentiate between idiosyncrasy, style, and the real technical issues that can cause a painting to fail. Above all, it requires confidence. Nobody is supportive from a position of weakness.
We live in a corrosive culture, and it affects all our interactions. But one thing we can do is ditch the unnecessary feedback in the studio. If you’re ever wondering whether a ‘bit of advice’ to another painter is a good idea, just don’t.
Note: my next eight-week session in Rockport starts March 12. I think I’m full up, but if you want to be wait-listed, email me. Details on my classes are here.