I have been a formal student in two different creative arts fields, first as a former (unfinished, I left for the rock and roll lifestyle of the English department) art major and then as a holder of an MFA in creative writing. What this means is that I have spent a significant part of my adult life receiving and giving criticism related to creative endeavors. Additionally, my professional background is in both academic and public libraries and I am currently working towards completing my MLIS. Which is to say, I also have opinions about documentation.
Today, as a member of the Order of the Pearl, Atlantia’s Grant level arts award, I have a responsibility to critique the efforts of artisans who have asked for feedback. I have slowly realized that giving good feedback, being an effective critiquer or fair judge is a skill that is learned and not something just inherently known to people, even high level artisans that have been recognized by the SCA. This makes sense of course, but needed saying anyway.
Additionally, receiving feedback is something that has to be learned as well. That part I knew, having gone through the growing pains of multiple critiques but I wanted to acknowledge it as well. It is difficult to put time and effort into a thing and then to ask people to tell you where you can improve. That takes courage and fortitude. An artisan isn’t necessarily equipped with these skills if they don’t have formal training and while displaying and competing in A&S in the SCA does give some experience to help learn these skills, there is not a formal, concerted effort to teach people specifically how to give and receive feedback. Hopefully that can change.
I have compiled a list of advice that I’ve learned over the years to help me both give and receive critique in a more effective way. I hope that someone finds it useful for their own journey. These are in no particular order of importance:
Don’t take it personal
The most important thing for receiving criticism is to understand that the feedback you are receiving is not directed at you, the artist. This is the hardest lesson to learn and must be the first learned. It is not about YOU, it is about the thing you produced. Yes, you might have poured your heart and soul into it and it FEELS like they are critiquing your heart and soul but I promise you, they are not. Or they should not be (more on that later). If we as artists have created something that we want the larger world to experience or evaluate, receiving feedback on how the consumer experiences our work is incredibly valuable to refining our output. But we have to be able to separate the art from ourselves. Hearing that you need to improve on a particular element can be difficult, but if you don’t get that feedback, you don’t know it needs to be fixed. You have to be able to hear the criticism with distance and objectivity, otherwise you won’t be able to move past your feelings into a space where you can ask yourself if what you’re hearing is useful.
Ask yourself if the feedback is relevant to you.
Not every piece of feedback is going to be relevant to you nor will every piece of feedback be given in good faith. You do, ultimately, have to use your own judgment about whether or not to receive criticism. You, as the creator of your art, know what your intention is. If someone is urging you to move in a different direction than the one you originally set your sights on, then their feedback may not be particularly useful for that project. If you hear similar feedback from multiple people, it may be that you need to reevaluate your goals with the piece in question. I once wrote an essay that was sweeping in scope and while I thought it was focused, when I received feedback on it, I realized it was not. My professor pointed out that one particular part was the heart of what I was writing about and all the rest of it was me working around and slowly towards that bit. In that instance, her feedback was incredibly useful. In another instance, I was writing a piece of genre fiction and working within the conventions of that genre. That same professor gave me feedback that was not particularly useful because she did not read or write in that genre and did not have a good basis for understanding the conventions I was working with. Sometimes the person giving you feedback may not be the most qualified to do so.
Be honest as a judge about your capacity to give feedback for a particular thing.
As people giving critiques, we need to be honest with the artists about our comfort and expertise with the material. You can say “This is outside of my wheelhouse, but as a lay observer, this is what did and did not work for me…” You can say “I cannot give feedback on the technique here, but I can give feedback on my overall impressions/the formatting of the display/the style of documentation/etc.” Just because you have been asked to judge something does not necessarily mean you are qualified to do so and we should be honest with both ourselves and the artist about that. I am not a Laurel, so I can’t say for sure, but I suspect no one is going to come snatch your leaves away if you admit that you are not qualified to give someone detailed feedback on a project done in a style and time that is far afield from your own focus. And if you have been asked to judge something that you are unqualified to judge, please say so rather than give the artist unearned marks, low OR high, because you don’t know what you’re looking at. I suppose what I’m asking for here is for people to be confident enough to say “I don’t know.” which I realize is a big ask but one which our high level artisans, GOA and above, should be able to do.
Don’t give hollow praise
When we do give feedback, we need to balance critique and support. As an artist, I have always hated feedback that is entirely supportive. Please don’t tell me everything you love and nothing that I can improve upon. That is useful only for my ego, not for my art. By all means, encourage and support and if someone does something particularly well, say so and be specific about what it is that is working. That is absolutely important. But if you can’t think of anything that the artist might be able to improve upon, then maybe you shouldn’t be giving critique in this instance. If you are not sure, but you THINK that something could be improved upon, say so and also explicitly say that the suggestion is coming from a general observer’s place, not a specialist’s.
Your documentation is more important than you realize
Documentation has to do a lot of heavy lifting in a display or competition, so if you are submitting something for evaluation, make sure your documentation is in order. As an academic, I like the convenience of particular style of documentation such as APA or MLA, but as an evaluator, I want to know why you did what you did, what the historical record has to say about it, where I can find that information and I care very little about if you’ve used correct Chicago Style or not. As long as I can find what I need to find, I don’t care if you use a formal citation style or not. But the key is whether or not your non-specific style of documentation is accessible. If I have been asked to evaluate something that is outside of my wheelhouse, the only way I can give fair and useful feedback is if I can look at the documentation and the process to see the work that went into it. For example, if a scribe has displayed something and asked for feedback and they have very little in the way of documentation about their process or the extant examples that influenced the piece, I’m not going to be able to give very good feedback. “This looks cool but I have no idea about the historical basis for it.” is not useful feedback for an artist to receive. Document your process and cite your sources. I’m probably not going to check those sources (unless I have reason to believe a source has been misinterpreted or something is particularly intriguing) but knowing that they are there and available for checking tells me that you’ve done your research. Now, if it’s a major competition, such as a kingdom level competition, then I’m going to check sources as best I can. If I’m engaging with a candidate on the Pearl watchlist, then I’m going to check sources. But if I’m giving feedback for a display or a low-stakes competition (meaning anything below kingdom level) then what I’m looking for is that the documentation is present and accessible and tells me what I need to know with a casual engagement in order to give meaningful feedback. What documentation allows is for the person giving feedback to engage with pieces outside of their area in a meaningful way, which means your documentation is potentially doing a HEAVY lift so it better be in order.
Sometimes negative feedback has to happen. Don’t be a Sith about it.
I am an angry person who often has strong opinions. In the course of my MFA, I encountered a short story that enraged me on so many levels. It wasn’t particularly well written, but that’s something you encounter and can work with. The problem was that the story itself was bad. Not just in the sense that it didn’t make sense (it didn’t) but that it engaged in gross generalizations of people from the African continent, dabbled in White Savior and Noble Savage tropes and was generally an offensive hot mess. My first pass at critique was essentially me ripping this short story apart with righteous indignation but then I took a beat and sat for a while with my feelings and examined my goals. If my goal was to let this writer know that what he had written was offensive and lazy, then my first pass accomplished that. But if my goal was for him to hear me and understand what the problems were so that in the future he could avoid those and possibly do better, then my angry diatribe was not effective. Ultimately, I rewrote my critique. I did not pull punches but I did approach it with the assumption of good faith from him rather than assuming he knew he was being a lazy racist with that story. He did not enjoy my feedback but it was offered in good faith instead of anger and that makes a difference.
Which is a long story to say that sometimes you encounter stuff that’s just bad. It’s not well done or the research is thin or missing entirely, it’s something that has no historical basis or even something that is offensive (looking at you Snartemo V). As the person giving critique, you have two options. You can assume the worst of the artist and approach it with righteous anger or you can assume ignorance and approach it as a teachable moment. If you choose the teachable moment, you are potentially correcting an issue that left to itself could fester. If you choose anger, you potentially alienate someone who could do better if they knew better.
Giving feedback in a creative setting is not the same as engaging with trolls online. In the online world, your emotional labor to educate someone and offer them a better path forward is likely to go unheard and is likely unwanted. This is not that. If you are in a position of giving feedback to a person, they have sought that feedback out and you have an obligation to address an issue you encounter. PLQs should not be the sole purview of the Peerages, meaning taking the time to engage with and attempt to correct something that’s wrong is important and your obligation in this scenario. If you are giving someone feedback, you are accepting that you may need to do some emotional labor to educate someone who has something badly wrong and you have a responsibility to do so in a way that is useful rather than angry. “Useful” does not necessarily mean you pull your punches. I think it’s perfectly acceptable to be straightforward with your feedback, but you need to be careful to avoid making it personal, which then makes it mean. The goal, particularly with difficult feedback, is to be useful. Give the recipient actionable advice. If they choose to ignore it and continue doing the thing, then you know something about them and their willingness to grow as an artisan and improve their art (spoiler: it’s not a positive thing).
Know how to protect your peace.
Additionally, know when it’s time to step away from something. If you are unable to fairly judge something by someone you dislike, or you find yourself in distress trying to engage with something that you find disturbing or offensive, walk away. Your obligation as a judge only goes so far. This is a hobby and your emotional distress should not be something you pay to play it.
Know when to walk away.
Also as an artist, know when to walk away. If the thing you’re focusing on continues to get negative feedback, then maybe it’s time to consider if your pet project is appropriate for the SCA. If there is no historical evidence for the practice or the evidence suggests it was a later invention, it may be that you need to let it go as an SCA project. If you love doing it, that’s great. Please keep doing it! But it may be that it is not appropriate to display it or enter it into competitions.