“If you allow approval to define you, you will have no choice but to allow disapproval to define you when it comes.”

This comes from their wonderful book, On Connection.

“If you allow approval to define you, you will have no choice but to allow disapproval to define you when it comes. If you can be swayed by other people’s opinions, if you are desperate for other people’s acceptance, if you crave a position to boost yourself above your insecurities, deep creative connection will remind you that none of these things define you and actually none of this stuff is important. If you need approval to bolster your conviction, it is not conviction, it’s an affectation. And it will melt away under the faintest scrutiny.”

As someone who calls himself an artist, this strikes a very deep chord with me. For years (problably since leaving school) I’ve constantly made work for other people. This work got changed, tweaked, pushed around, bashed up and down until the client was happy. There’d be frequent disagreements, noses out-of joint, and the occassional tempermental artistic fit. By and large my professional career has been this to-and-fro from the start and continues to this day. I’m still not immune from a client saying “this isn’t what we’re after” but I’m a little better at taking it on the chin than I used to be.

When it comes to my art, though, that’s a different story. I’m the creator. I sometimes see the finished product in my head well before it’s actually made - both the photograph and the book. Why then am I strangely susceptible to the opinions, and even indifference, of others to my work? When I make work I’ve been saying, here it is, what do you think? When really, I should be saying, simply, here it is.

Rick Rubin can have the final word:

The only advice I would have is to not listen to anyone, to do what you love, to make what you love, whatever it is. Make your favourite things. You be the audience. Make the thing for you the audience. It doesn’t really matter what anyone thinks. If you have to get a job to support yourself so that you can make your art, that’s fine. You can’t make art for someone else in mind.