Earlier this week, someone threw a shoe at me.
“WTF?” you’re thinking.* “What sort of person throws shoes at people?”
Of course, it wasn’t a real shoe. It was that kind of shoe throwing described by the wonderful, wacky, wise Havi Brooks. It was “a particularly condescending remark about something” I did, and at the same time “a total asshat response” that made “no sense because how could they not know that this something would be completely disastrous” for me. And it hurt. Ouch.
Here’s what happened.
Someone I knew many years ago at elementary school, friended me on Facebook. Cool, I thought, I haven’t heard from them in years.
A week later, I fired up the laptop one morning to find this message:
Whoa – you are the Queen of Depressing! Can’t handle it. Bubbye. You shouldn’t wallow in self pity so much. Do you still have some mental issues??
YUCK.
I read it. I read it again. And I thought, “WTF?”
Because it came completely out of the blue and smacked me upside the head. Just like a thrown shoe.
My immediate reaction was, of course, the same as yours: “What the hell sort of person throws shoes like that at people? What is wrong with this person?”
I felt sick. I felt shaky. To be honest, I felt like I was 12 again, and all the cool kids had decided I wasn’t cool enough and were laughing at me and refusing to let me sit with them. Because, if you follow me on Twitter, you know that I do post the (almost) Daily Bitch – a tongue-in-cheek bitch about something that is more or less relevant to what I’m doing on the day. It makes me laugh. It’s supposed to make you laugh too. It’s not supposed to be depressing. At all.
So I went to my favourite cheerleaders, the people I know always have my back, and said exactly that: “What is WRONG with this person? Why do people do that?” And they agreed that it really was most unacceptable and Not At All Cool to be sending that kind of message out of the blue. Which made me feel better. Because I saw that the message was about the other person, not about me. Whatever had triggered it, it was about how they interpreted my posts, not about how I intended them.
So I went back to Facebook and posted a status update:
Just got a message out of the blue: “Whoa – you are the Queen of Depressing! Can’t handle it. Bubbye. You shouldn’t wallow in self pity so much. Do you still have some mental issues?? YUCK.”
— Why yes, yes I do. Chief among them is no tolerance for people who missed out on the Irony Gene while swimming in the Gene Pool. Don’t let the door hit your arse on the way out, sweetie.
No, it wasn’t big and it wasn’t clever, but now you know that my inner 12-year-old is a sassy little bitch too.
And then I remembered Havi’s shoe-throwing post and went back to read it again. And bugger me if my own reaction isn’t right there in black and white: the “It’s all about them” reaction. Bollocks. I am so unenlightened.
But what does this have to do with being an artist?
Well, as I thought about the whole thing, I realised that in the past, when someone has thrown a shoe about my work (eg, “She just copied a photograph” or “That would be good in a child’s bedroom.”), I’ve immediately jumped to the first reaction: the “It’s all about me” reaction.
Immediately my mind goes into, “Omigod, it’s awful. It’s total crap. I used a photograph for research after all. I should’ve done it totally from imagination. It’s too Walt Disney. It’s too nice and cute and omigod why do I even bother? Everybody hates it.”
Insecure? Who me?
There should be a moral to this story. At this point I should be able to tell you how I learned to be all mature and enlightened and consciously recognise that the shoe-throwing has nothing to do with my art at all. But I haven’t got there yet. I am working on it. I’ll keep you posted.
*My more refined, gentle and sheltered readers may not recognise this abbreviation. Be advised, dear readers, that WTF? is the current vernacular for What The F**k?
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
“There should be a moral to this story. At this point I should be able to tell you how I learned to be all mature and enlightened and consciously recognise that the shoe-throwing has nothing to do with my art at all. But I haven’t got there yet. I am working on it. I’ll keep you posted.”
I am so pleased to read that you aren’t mature and elightened yet and that you continue to work on it. Whew! Otherwise, I might get frustrated that I don’t have it figured out yet. I am working on this reaction to my art as well. (In my case, performance art as opposed to visiual.)
Thank you for sharing this story!
Hey Elizabeth! Thank you for confirming that it’s not just me with a way to go before we can get to Havi’s advanced enlightened response: “There is no shoe”.
Love it! Thanks for brightening my day.
I’m still wondering what IS the correct response to the comment “Oh, you just copied a photograph”…? (As if it is more noble to be inspired by a real tree than to be inspired by a photo of a tree. Or in my case a Tiger Shark…. how the hell else am I going to see one? Sure not about to take a trip to Galapagos for a scuba lesson.) Maybe the mature thing to do is ignore the person. My sassy inner 12 yr old would have left it at “F you”. But somehow as I approach 40 I feel like I should have something more powerful and/or clever to say. As of this moment my only response has been. “Yep. That’s all I did. Care to give it a try?”
Oooo, that’s a good one, Kate!
Or we could try something like, “Actually it was a kit. You too can make one just like it for £49.99… .” But what’s sad there is that they might think you’re serious.
Lovely to have another sassy little bitch drop by!
Wow. What an incredibly unpleasant thing to get from someone you used to be friends with. Ick ick ick. And *ow*. I’m so sorry you had this shoe-throwing in your life.
And I also want to say that I thought this post was so lovely!
I especially am impressed by all the things you were able to do during the shoe-throwing experience.
Like how you were able to … notice your reaction, not make it be about you, dump the person who isn’t supportive instead of assuming that they’re right, give your own reaction legitimacy and then find the connection to where you do this to yourself in your art.
(I mean, wow. It’s like you noticed that — at least when it’s art — sometimes you throw the shoe before someone else can. HUGE.)
Anyway, it’s such a terrific example of “hi, this is me in the process of working on my stuff” … which is so completely *useful*.
And I definitely agree with Elizabeth — it’s a lot harder to learn from someone perfect (or someone who comes across that way). And not fun.
Good for you for not putting up with the shoes.
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