brushes with death.

[Pyraxis]

Except I already know how to account for people as dead as you, and will enjoy my journey as it is.

[DirtDawg]

I do believe I'm better than the vast majority of people, and my experiences have tended to reinforce it.

What you're seeing with my work is related but not the same. For as long as I can remember, I've been an artist. There was never a point where I thought I would do something other with my life than art and writing. I'm obviously not perfect, but when I was little, I was better enough than the people around me that I was constantly told how good it was. Because they were untrained in art themselves, they saw it as better than it actually was, and told me so. I won most competitions that I entered, to the point where (when I was 13) I started refusing to enter at all. By the time I was 17, I was well aware of how little raw skill actually mattered, beyond a certain level that most contestants had already reached, and so how it depended instead on the personal taste, mood, and philosophy of each judge. I decided the whole thing was pointless. I went to a fairly prestigious art college on a full-tuition scholarship that didn't officially exist - but when I had walked in on campus tour day and showed my portfolio and told the admissions counsellors that I couldn't afford to go with their existing scholarships, they pulled strings for me.

So I've got past experience against which the opinions of a few people on a website don't sway the balance at all.

Fascinating! I did not know you were an artist. Maybe I should go find some of your old threads, eh? I suppose if you looked at some of my fractals you would laugh out loud at my unlikely color combinations and impossible shadings done by someone with no training or education of any kind. I am humbled.

[richard]

has anyone here had any near death expieriances?

[Pyraxis]

Fascinating! I did not know you were an artist. Maybe I should go find some of your old threads, eh? I suppose if you looked at some of my fractals you would laugh out loud at my unlikely color combinations and impossible shadings done by someone with no training or education of any kind. I am humbled.

This is sarcasm, right?

[Calandale]

It didn't seem like it. Still, I'm shocked that he
wouldn't know.

[Pyraxis]

Either way, I don't see any reason to go searching through my old threads; I don't talk about it much for a reason.

[odeon]

Except I already know how to account for people as dead as you, and will enjoy my journey as it is.

I'm... dead?

[Pyraxis]

  Well if it's not you, that rotting corpse smell must be coming from somewhere....

*starts prying up floorboards*

[odeon]

That's my socks.

[Litigious]

That's my socks.

Does that mean that you're a sockpuppet? 

[renaeden]

has anyone here had any near death expieriances?

I already wrote of mine.

[DirtDawg]

Fascinating! I did not know you were an artist. Maybe I should go find some of your old threads, eh? I suppose if you looked at some of my fractals you would laugh out loud at my unlikely color combinations and impossible shadings done by someone with no training or education of any kind. I am humbled.

This is sarcasm, right?

Sarcasm? Hardly. I have only been aware of you for about a couple of months and half of that time I was pissed at you and didn't read much.
Of course I knew you did some artwork from your "...interesting" thread, but I did not undestand that you were a scholarship student. That implies some recognizable talent on your part. I simply missed that detail, until now. Your remarks about image software could as easily have made you a coder as an artist.

As you know, "everyone" does some artwork. No big deal, really. If I was trying to be sarcastic to get under your skin, I can think of several more effective ways to try rather than trying to acknowledge that I am impressed at your having the mettle to make a career out of something you truly enjoy.

That "looking at old threads" remark was an admission that I really don't know much about some of the people I "talk to" online.

[purposefulinsanity]

Thanks Pyraxis for sharing where you get your confidence from and for seeming to read my post as it was intended (curious but not having a go).  I guess I've had very different experiences in my life, especially during my childhood/teenage years.  I'm constantly telling myself that everyone is laughing at my efforts and even at the idea that I'd even bother trying.

As an illustration as just how negative I am towards myself I'm even telling myself that I shouldn't be complaining about my lack of self-confidence in case I come across as looking like I think I'm anything other than below average.

OK Emo time over.

[Pyraxis]

Sarcasm? Hardly. I have only been aware of you for about a couple of months and half of that time I was pissed at you and didn't read much.

You were pissed at me?  Somehow that went right over my head. Now I'm curious what I did to piss you off. I'm decidedly not pissed at you. You get things.

If I was trying to be sarcastic to get under your skin, I can think of several more effective ways to try rather than trying to acknowledge that I am impressed at your having the mettle to make a career out of something you truly enjoy.

Fair enough. (PI, btw, this is what my lack of confidence can look like when it manifests.)

I kept away from your fractals for the same reason I kept away from PI's writing. They're clearly hobbies you guys do for fun, not like you're looking for professional publication or a commercial product or something. I would have loved to turn the Submissions forum into a really brutal, no-holds-barred critique forum, but I just don't think it's going to happen here. People's areas of expertise are too divergent and people aren't serious enough about their work to really want or benefit from it. Though I did get some pretty cool comments about those two decoy pieces I put up. (Especially DD's, which were dead on target, and the one about how the contest one was bland - it was - and I suspect that's why it won, because it could be mistaken for patriotic and was nice and politically safe. LOL, it was called Tribute but nobody ever asked me what it was a tribute to.) So it's possible it could work.

[DirtDawg]

Maybe we need a new thread in the Submissions Forum: "Sew my leaky asshole up and rip me a new one" or something specifically for no-holds-barred critique.

You're right, though, not many would want that, as you were trying to demonstrate with your decoys (which went over my head at first). I am one of those who DOES enjoy to hear honest and well founded opinions, when they are offered. But, it is a hobby and no amount of criticism will affect my enjoyment. I feel safe putting them up here and the reality is that other people seemed to enjoy them, too. It is is enough for me that no one has told me to stop posting them, yet.

Of course, that supports your point that no one would actually benefit from "expert critique".