One of the highlights of my youth was seeing a demolition derby at a county fair in Western Maryland. As the gun went off, dust flew and the sounds of cars crunching and kids cheering filled the air. At the bitter end, two drivers kept screaming at each other and smashing into their opponent’s driver side door, which is a BIG no-no in the derby world. The announcer yelled out on the speakers, “If you two boys don’t stop fightin’ right now we gonna hose ya down like dogs!” They kept fighting. So, to our great joy, the firemen standing by turned on their hoses and blasted them apart. I’d never seen adults physically disciplined for their bad behavior and it was awesome. The shocked, soaking wet drivers walked off with their heads hanging low.

 

In my senior year of high school, I had an art teacher who stressed the importance of finishing your work by a certain deadline. During a portfolio critique of students heading to art college, he silently took any of the work that was unfinished off of the wall and tossed it out the second floor window of the school as we all stood there wide-eyed. Harsh, I know. But we certainly got our assignments in on time for the rest of the year and carried on that lesson to higher education.

 

Fast forward about 10 years and I am in a portrait painting group in Colorado, overworking a piece with tiny brushes. As I noodle away, I see a wrinkled old hand reach out from the corner of my eye and smack my hand away from the canvas. “You were done 20 minutes ago. Stop painting!” I know my jaw dropped because I honestly couldn’t remember a time that another adult had smacked me. But it worked. I put down that brush.

 

I have a small group of artist friends who give me the brutally honest feedback when it’s needed. And I appreciate it. Hell, I even buy them beers for it. Sometimes it’s hard to hear but the feedback pushes me to grow as an artist faster than I could on my own. A little hand-holding is great at the beginning as artists begin to grasp the basic concepts and learn ways to manipulate the media. But after we have achieved a certain level of proficiency, what do we actually learn by being coddled? I have found that the lessons that smack you upside the head are often the most effective.