Critique for Piercers

Critique! Simultaneously one of the most useful things for growth for us as people and piercers, and also one of the hardest things to hear. Critique is essential no matter what field you work in, what job you do, how long you’ve ben doing it, even just as a person critique is an important factor in growth. It also something most people struggle with hearing. It’s incredibly hard to hear critique, and learning to become good at hearing it (and giving it) is almost as hard as learning from it. Today I want to talk about critique, how to give it, how to take it, and how to make the most of it.

Before I was a piercer I was a fine arts major. And in art school, critique is the word of the say every day. I had one professor who stood out to me greatly- Professor Adams. I took a summer course in figure drawing with him. The first day he told us to be relaxed, this was just about warming up and assessing our skills. Our gestures were all loose and easy, we were talking and laughing. He gave a little instruction here and there but mostly felt out where we were at. After break, the mood changed. He came around with a red paint pen and absolutely obliterated every last students work. Crossed out what was bad, redrew what was off, tore all of us to pieces. Many of us, myself included, cried. At the end he told us, his class was listed as figure drawing, but it would end up being a class on critique. He said if we couldn’t learn to handle hearing what was wrong and what needed to be improved about our work, we would never make it as an artist. And if we couldn’t separate our work from ourselves, we would never learn to take critique. His class was hard, and I often went home and cried. But I also learned so much about critique, how to take it, and why it was necessary.

Taking Critique