The Art of Self-Critique: When Every Evaluation Whispers 'Validate Me'

How do you evaluate your own art and why?
I recently hung three new artworks I made last week in a group, which led me to reflect on the process of evaluating our own creations. This evaluation, I've realized, happens on multiple levels - some practical, others more emotional and complex.

Distance Reveals Details
Sometimes it's technical - you see things from far away you don't notice up close. [Which feels annoying - once I have stopped working on a piece it is hard to enter back into it and trying to fix something often opens a can of worms. Sigh.]

The Search for "The One"
But there's this other way I evaluate that might be a problem. There seems to be this sort of "searching for the way" that I am evaluating them for.

Which one is best?
Which one is true?
Which one should I riff off of?
Is any of these "right"?
Which one is "me"?
Which one should I choose?

It is beyond editing and adjusting and curating. There is this searching - are you The One? Will you complete me?

The Quest for Validation
I know part of it is looking for something iterative - that is good. But there is a "look at me mommy" feeling about it, underneath. Which one will get me what I want? Which one can I use for approval, to sell, for attention? Which one proves I have value? How is value defined?

Do I have value, really?

Moving Towards a Lifelong Process
I want to move away from treating each piece as a first date and make it more of a lifelong process that I just DO. I know this intellectually, I think we all do, but we are tricky about it. We give ourselves (we hope) a safe time-space for being creative, and then when we come out of it we evaluate what we've done for its value to others.

I don't feel like I am doing it right, it feels distorted. But I'm working on asking deeper questions, and that makes this process rich and meaningful.

The Ongoing Journey
As artists, how can we view our work as part of an ongoing journey rather than pieces to be judged?

If you're struggling to connect with or find meaning in your creations, I have a tool that might help.
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