I've been working pretty hard on my portfolio -- expanding my range and trying new things. And from time to time I submit my work to an online community for comment and critique. The comments, almost without exception are brutal. BRUTAL.
At first the comments were crushing. I worked so hard and saw so much progress in the work that I submitted. I would have to walk away from my computer, watch a movie, clean the bathroom, and make a stab at curing cancer before I could go back and review the comments. Things like, "you have no business behind the camera" and "did you use a cell phone?" would seep through my eyeballs and ricochet around in my brain for hours. Then I would try to break the comments down into
usable bites. I'd literally copy and paste the comments and go sentence by sentence, deleting everything that seemed to be written out some sort of deep personal trauma and keeping that which actually was a valid technical critique.
Then I would look at the commenter's work and compare it to mine; not in a qualitative way necessarily, but in more in an attempt to understand they're perspective. Once I did that, sometimes I agreed with their assessment and sometimes I did not. But I always felt like I learned something.
Then I would pick up a Vanity Fair, or a Vogue and apply the same critiques to those shots. It was horrifying and disappointing. Many, many of the photos in those publications and almost all others would not meet the specifications laid out in that online community. Not to put too fine a point on it, but some of the work of some of the world's top fashion photographers, in some of the world's top fashion magazines, is crap!
And at the end of my analytic cycle, what I would come away with was deep depression and disappointment. There would be variations on a theme, but I would be trapped in a recurring loop of a "You suck!"
Until I remembered my career as an actor...
Without naming names, I have seen many actors who were weak on stage, who were personally difficult, who were sloppy and lazy at their craft, go on to very
distinguished careers. I mean, award-winning careers. I mean multi-million dollar pay days. And I personally know actors who are brilliant, who can be depended upon to give gut-wrenching, nuanced performances that make the audience weep, laugh, and reflect upon the meaning of life -- and all while trying to drown out the rattle of the Red Line. Some of these actors' annual salaries don't even reach the minimum poverty line. If you're in the theatre, you know exactly what I'm talking about.
I have spent years trying to figure out why that is. Dismissing it simply as luck is too easy. After a decade of analysis, I'm convinced there is no such thing as luck. What the people who are achieving
notoriety and riches have that my less financially secure artist friends do not is tenacity, confidence, and stamina. They're still crappy actors -- and one or two of them actually know it -- but they didn't let lack of quality stand in their way. They took every opportunity and turned it to their advantage. Some of them took criticism and grew from it. Some of them -- and I'm sorry to say, the most successful of them -- didn't give a rat's ass about what most of the world thought of them or their work.
From this realization I draw an immense amount of comfort and inspiration. Now I can look at my own work with a critical eye and appreciate what's good in it. Is my work flawless? Absolutely not. But those flaws are not going to stop me. And they won't always be there. The real work is to learn from those flaws.
It's all about stamina and staying the course. The destination is an afterthought.
The first show I did in college was The Crucible. I had wanted to play Reverend Paris, and somehow managed to get the role. It was a gorgeous set, I had an incredible costume, and from what I remember it was a fine production -- although I don't recall myself as being especially outstanding.
