How Off-The-Mark Criticism Taught Me to Meet My Inner Artist Where She Is

<p>When I stopped being the one investing all the effort into relationships and started matching their energy, my &ldquo;friends&rdquo; disappeared.</p> <p>Now I&rsquo;m like the new kid on the playground, wondering if there&rsquo;s a spot for her at the monkey bars.</p> <p>To build new connections, I created an account on&nbsp;<a href="https://meetup.com/" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">Meetup.com</a>&nbsp;and started attending events. No one can be my friend if they don&rsquo;t know I exist.</p> <p><strong>One meetup, a virtual draw-together event hosted by a visual arts school, sticks out in my mind like an itchy scab.&nbsp;</strong>Social stuff has always baffled me, but I was committed to bumbling through the session to find my place in the local arts community.</p> <p>On the day of the event, I sucked in a breath, squeezed my eyes shut, and forced myself to click the terrifying button that would plaster my face onto Zoom.</p> <p>At the beginning of the 1-hour get-together, the group leader gave us a reference photo of an attendee&rsquo;s pet tortoise.</p> <p>She said we could use anything we wanted to create an art piece from the photo, so I whipped out my iPad. I started as a traditional artist, but since moving into a 300-square-foot space, I&rsquo;ve learned to love creating digital art with the&nbsp;<a href="https://procreate.com/" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">ProCreate app</a>.</p> <p>I noticed the attendees were older than me, and I was eager to learn from experienced artists.</p> <p><a href="https://medium.com/@nicolepdotme/how-off-the-mark-criticism-taught-me-to-meet-my-inner-artist-where-she-is-4ccbdbfd3854"><strong>Website</strong></a></p>
Tags: Mark Criticism