[ot-caption title=”The Bones (via Alina Carey)” url=”https://pcpawprint.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/the-bones.jpg”]

Most people know me as “that artist girl.” However, the only reason I am “that artist girl” is because I can draw pictures from images. This does not include images of memories. So, when I look back on it, it was a pretty bad decision to go out in the 98 degree heat and start drafting some drawings from memory. There on the side of the road, plopped on the small strip of grass next to my apartment building, I began drawing in my sketch book.

To put it simply, the art didn’t come out the way I expected. In other words, it looked like an elephant had picked up a pencil and drew all over my sketch book. However, I was okay with this. I liked the way the lights and darks merged together and contrasted in the abstract art work. While I was enjoying the outcome of my experiment, a girl and her father came walking by on the sidewalk. I’m guessing the girl did art because her father leaned over to her and whispered, “Is she any good?” and she replied, “No, she isn’t.” WHAT did she just say? This girl is some random pedestrian who doesn’t know me, doesn’t know my story, and she’s judging my artwork? Uh-uh.

I was so steamed up about the whole thing that that night, I told the story over dinner. That’s when one of our family friends, Bobby, replied to me with the most frustrating yet truthful diction I have ever heard: “You are wrong.” Well, his reply was a bit longer than that, but he essentially said that I was looking at the situation all wrong.

“Everyone looks at the world differently. Art is a representation of the world, so how can you get mad if someone does not see the world the same way you see it?,” he said.

I contemplated this. Before I had asked myself the question: Does a random stranger really have the right to judge whether or not my artwork is good? Then, I realized I needed to ask myself the same question, but in a different light: Is each piece of artwork good or bad on a universal scale, or is the quality of artwork individual to each person viewing it? I realized I had made a huge mistake. That night when I got home, I saw my light-dark abstract art piece in a new light. The piece gave an individual the opportunity to have his or her own view on art. Even if criticism came along with that benefit, I was a-okay with the way it turned out.