This week I started a new part time job at mac, there is lots of training and organisation to be done before we open to the public on 1st May. My colleagues and I have been on a course called Train the Trainer - about making and delivering training to your team. At the end of the week I received praise on my training course - how refreshing to just be told that you do something well!
For the last two years I have been making work-in-progresses and taking critical feedback to progress my work - this has entirely been sought, but being given such straight-forward and positive commendation in my new job got me thinking about how much criticism we receive and expect to be able to take as artists.
I have always believed very strongly in constructive criticism and debate, and have always heavily analysed my own and others works. I'm now wondering if perhaps we all need a bit more of a boost rather than a critiquing. Most theatre artists analyise their work quite thoroughly themselves - perhaps my "I enjoyed this but..." approach isn't actually needed.
And so to test this out, I resolve for the next six months to give all my positive feedback on work, but not my negative (unless explicitly asked for), I will apply this across all art forms, even when I go to the cinema I will aim to highlight what I liked. I may get bored of not negatively critiquing, or maybe I will find a new and positive way of influencing how work develops. Whatever the outcome I am looking forward to supporting fellow makers and telling them what I DID like. I'll let you know how it goes...
