The Rudeness Army Marches On
Hi All!
This is an article all about standing up for yourself because no one else will do it for you.You should find this amusing, I sure did!
Recently I had the opportunity to do a portrait for a nice young family who wanted to commemorate the first birthday of their only son, Aris. Seems Aris was a bit of a miracle baby and his parents wanted to remember the end of his first year in a very special fashion.
I answered their ad for a portrait painter on the buy and sell website KiJiJi. It wasn’t a lot of money, at least not what I would have liked, but they couldn’t afford more and I was game regardless.
I have to tell you, I really enjoyed doing the piece and seeing as how the subject matter is a little less fantastical than I’m used to I think I did a pretty good job as far as portraits go. I haven’t done one since I was in University, well over a decade now.
I thought, since I had such a good time doing it, I would offer up my services as a portrait painter on KiJiJi, see if I could drum up a few more commissions, make a few more dollars.
The very first reply I received about my ad actually came twice and it was from some tool who didn’t think my painting was very good and that I would benefit from taking classes with him. Here’s what he wrote:
“Hey bro ,the idea is not bad but why the portrait you paint is so ugly? I suggest you should become a better painter first or try to sell your art on Halloween. My really friendly advise to you : Come to my studio ,I’ll give you a couple of lessons . Not for free of course .$50 each lesson”
Now, put yourself in my shoes. He called your painting ugly, so ugly in fact that it should only be shown on Halloween (little does he know, you love Halloween). He suggested that you should become a better painter. In all honesty you could stand to improve a little, but couldn’t we all?
After examining the e-mail I realized that it was a misguided attempt to sell me painting lessons at his studio. I believe he could have phrased his sales pitch a little better.
What would your reaction be to such rudeness? Would you feel hurt? Would you believe his rhetoric and call him immediately to sign up for his classes? or… Would you write him back and tell him what a douchebag he is? Can you guess what I opted to do? Here’s what I wrote back:
“Thank you for the vote of non-confidence. If my ego wasn’t as solid as it is I might take offence from your ignorance. As it is, your e-mail made me laugh so thank you for bringing a smile to my face
I checked out your website. Your work shows a mediocre amount of talent and a total lack of imagination. I suppose that’s okay if you’re into that kind of thing. Frankly I’m not surprised you found my work to be ’ugly’.Next time you contact me make sure its for a painting you want produced. Until then, bite me.
Thanks very much for your non-interest,
Sean”
Okay, so I didn’t call him a douche but he totally deserved it. I was a little sarcastic to be sure but I tried to keep it civil — this time. Based on the quality of the English that he used I was guessing that his first language was something else. There’s a possibility that ‘ugly’ for him means something completely different in his native tongue. Who’s to say?
I did check out his website before writing back. Even though I didn’t want to approach my rebuttle from an egocentric viewpoint I had to do a comparison. I know I can’t make an impartial decision about who’s work is technically ‘better’ but I tried to understand his stance in this situation. ’Better’ will always be a subjective designation and I’ll forever be biased towards my own work. If I wasn’t, I’d paint something else. As it stands I have a preference for the macabre and surrealistic. That’s why I paint what I paint. Sue me.
His work was pretty bland. It had some technical precision but no real passion. Portraits, still lifes and crowd scenes of a distinctly religious nature populated his site and most of them were dull to look at. He obviously pulled from a classical method of painting, shrugging off the present to live unprogressively in the past. If you saw his artworks in a gallery you’d say “Those are well done.” and then forget that you saw them.
At this point Cath asked me why I bothered to engage. While I found the situation to be comical, Cath had her back up a bit and was a little steamed that someone would act this rudely. I of course had to retort that I actually have a lot of fun shooting jokers like this down. I love the back and forth. I love the suspense and anticipation. Although I try to keep my own ego out of situations like this I like to tweak other peoples ego’s just a little, see if they’ll get back to me, see if they’ll let me continue to toy with them. I guess I’m a bit of a troll. Tee hee! The suspense didn’t last long….
“I just wanted to help ,honestly. Didn’t meant to offend you dear. My imagination is one story and works demanded by clients is another, this is why many works are almost the same. I sold all of them for a thousands $$$ each. Listen buddy, to me all artists are brothers and sisters. But if you respond to my kind offer by trying to put me down …. well , you just loosing your face because I know who I am and what others think about me . I’m not angry at you ,I guess you are an emerging artist or just don’t understand some ethical and philosophical aspects of art or both . All the best”
If you think I laughed about his first e-mail his second one left me in stitches. Apparently now I’m his ‘bro’ and his ‘buddy’. It seems the aim or his original e-mail was to bring him and I together in a spirit of artistic comradery and his demarcation of my artwork as ‘ugly’ was meant to endear me to him not repel me. For him, I seemed to have missed the point of his ‘kind offer’ (the one that would make me a better painter for just $50 a pop) and maybe, just maybe with a few more years of experience in the art world I’ll be able to understand the deep ethical and philosophical aspects of art and his e-mail. What?! This was too good to be true! I released another salvo across his bow:
“Your offer wasn’t kind, that’s why I bothered to write back to you. You called my work ‘ugly’. How is that kind? You need to work on your sales pitch because it’s terrible. Have someone with some empathy read over your next e-mail before you send it.
As for your classes, I don’t need them. Thank you but no thank you. I too know who I am and what people think about my talent and neither of these things needs to change. I’m comfortable the way I am. You should be comfortable with the way I am too.
Hope this helps,
Sean”
I kinda figured that said it all. I laid out everything that I found wrong with his logic and made my feelings about it quite clear. No sarcasm. No bile.
I figured that I’d reached him. I figured that now he understood. I couldn’t have put it more plainly. Okay maybe I could have chosen a smaller word than empathy but I shouldn’t have to speak ’idiot’ just because he’s one. That’s when he showed me just how much he’d learned from my last e-mail as he sent me this gem:
“OK,OK ((((( peace. all the best bro ,but the portrait is still ugly, honestly, ask anyone . lol .good bye (((((((((((((((((”
Well, I never! Actually that’s not true. I’ve run into many people who have difficulties with my artistic endeavours but never when the subject matter has been so unprovocative. A baby! A little helpless baby and this guy has to attack it! That certainly speaks to his maturity. Who’s the big tough man now? Older artistic douchebag vs. helpless little baby? Please!
After seeing how everything that I’d said had absolutely no effect on this rock of a man I had only two words to say:
“Eat it.”
And that’s exactly what I should have said right from the get go. Actually what I should have said was “Go fuck yourself” but I couldn’t resist getting into a verbal foray with the man. I had to feel out just how pathetic he was and, like a total moron he opened his floodgates wide and let his whole stupidity spill out. “…the portrait is still ugly, honestly, ask anyone”. Sheesh! Why don’t I ask Aris’ mother, the good lady who was overjoyed with my portrait, paid good money for it and gave me a hug when I made the delivery? She fits into the ‘anyone’ group doesn’t she?
Now for the point.
I wrote this article for two reasons:
1. To tell you that you shouldn’t take attacks like this personally. Don’t let bullies and loudmouths get under your skin. Sure, in this instance the criticism is focused on a painting that I did and that could have made the attack personal, had I let it affect me thus. But I didn’t. What do I care if some faceless dickhead has a problem with my artwork? It sounds to me like he feels a little threatened by the new guy on the block. Now he’s lashing out in fear in a misguided attempt to defend his own artwork or heaven forbid, solicit business out of me(?). Personally I saw the whole discourse as field research for a new article. He gave me all the material I needed 
Truthfully like any bully, the only power they have over you is the power that you give them. Attacks like this are not well thought out, they’re not justified and they’re easily debunked. If you make it personal, if you cower before them or give in to self-righteous anger and lash out, then you play right into their hands.
I’ve had some experience in situations like this before. Most of the time you can’t change a bully’s mind about the way that he or she feels but that doesn’t mean you have to put up with their shit. It’s your life. Defend it. Which leads me to point number two.
2. Stand up for yourself. You don’t have to get sad or mad when unconstructive criticism comes your way. You also don’t have to put up with it especially when it’s not warranted. After all, its just someone’s opinion. Who the hell made him or her “King of the Art World”? Even if he or she was considered ‘the King’ why should you care about their opinion?
Yours is the only one that should really matter. If you’re self-assured in your own opinion about yourself then all others will appear trivial by comparison.
Many people would probably say don’t engage, just turn your back on the problem and walk away. Chances are your Mother gave you this exact advice at some time in your life. This was no doubt said in an attempt to stop you from doing something that might get you physically beaten, or worse. Now that I’m an adult I say screw that! An individual like this needs correction. If he doesn’t know that what he did was wrong, then he will never learn and chances are he’ll turn around and do it to someone else. He was flat out rude to send me that e-mail and he needed to be told. That being said…
Approach unnecessary criticism from a logical and stoic standpoint. Don’t get angry or self-righteous. You’ll fall prey to your lurking emotions. They’ll want to cause your tongue to waggle in a furious and incoherent manner and you’ll just be fuelling a bully’s attack. Analyze and punch holes in his argument and throw it right back in his face. This is the best way to steal a bully’s power. Once you knock the legs out from under him he’ll have nothing left to fall back on because figuratively speaking, he’ll be on his ass already.
Then, chances are he’ll become frustrated and fall prey to his own emotions and his attack will turn inward and start feeding on himself. Bully’s are not particularly bright or well adjusted. If they were then they wouldn’t have to make themselves feel better by making negative comments in the first place. That’s when you can walk away with a smug little smile on your face and continue on with your day without giving him or her a second thought.
Don’t get mad. Use your brain to defend yourself and put rudeness in it’s place – the trashcan.
Now, I purposefully left out the artist’s name who wrote the original e-mail and his website. I’m not interested in getting into a flame war with the man or give him any free promotion but, if you’d like to know who he is so you can check out his work and see if he was justified in his attack then please contact me and I’ll forward you his information.
For now, that is all. Goodnight.
