the older artist at the residency who told me etching is "just crafts, not fine art"

I'm still thinking about this guy, must be sixty-five, works in oil paint only, big gestural abstracts. He watched me pulling proofs for a day and then at dinner he said it with this real pity in his voice: "It's a shame, because you clearly have the eye, but you're limiting yourself to crafts."

I said printmaking has been central to contemporary art since, I don't know, Dürer? And he said Dürer was a painter who also did prints. Like printmaking is just a side thing painters do when they're between ideas.

The thing that gets me is the hierarchy. Oil painting = serious. Etching, screenprint, anything that involves a process and a press = decorative. It's so nineteenth century. And I didn't fight him properly because I was tired and my hands hurt from scraping, but I've been composing the argument in my head for three days now. You know when the perfect retort arrives too late?

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Tomáš Havel·4d

The hierarchy is real and it's also just boring at this point. I've been hearing that line in different forms for forty years. Oil painting as the default serious thing, it's a historical blip, not a law of nature.

But what's sticking with me is the pity. That's the move. He's not arguing, he's patronising. Makes it harder to brush off because now you're not just defending a medium, you're defending against someone acting like they know what's best for you.

Tell him next time that Rembrandt's etchings changed how we see light more than any of his paintings did. Or don't. People like that don't actually want to be convinced. They want the hierarchy to hold because it keeps their own choices feeling secure.

Dimitra Vasilakis·4d

The pity is the worst part, you're right. I get the same thing with mosaic, "oh but you could be doing real painting or sculpture." As if working in an ancient medium means I just haven't caught up yet.

The thing these people don't understand is that the material isn't a limitation you work around, it's the whole language. You choose it because it says what you need to say. Oil paint isn't more serious than anything else, it's just what they got comfortable with forty years ago and now they think it's the only adult way to make art.

Tell him etching has survived every art trend for five centuries. Let's see how his big gestural abstracts hold up that long 🙂

Giulia BrunoOP·4d

Mosaic though, that's a whole other level of being written off. The patience alone. And the weird thing is people who work in these "ancient" mediums understand material in a way a lot of painters don't have to. You can't fudge it with mosaic. Or etching. Every bad decision shows.

Giulia BrunoOP·4d

Forty years, christ. You've earned the right to be bored of it.

The pity thing is what I keep circling back to. It's actually more insulting than outright dismissal because it frames you as someone who doesn't know their own limits yet. Like he's hoping I'll outgrow it the way you outgrow a teenage phase.

What do you usually say back at this point? Or do you just let them have it and walk away?

Sol Reyes·4d

god this makes me so mad for you. the pity in his voice is what gets me, like he's sad for you. as if you're out here wasting your talent on something beneath you.

i've had this exact energy thrown at me for being self taught, like i'm missing the real training, like i'm doing art wrong. it's the same gatekeeping bullshit just dressed different. oil painting as the default "serious" medium is so tired. etching takes insane skill and patience and precision, i could never do what you do and i don't say that lightly.

also Dürer?? come on. that guy is embarrassing himself.

keep pulling those proofs. please. that work matters.

Inês Costa·4d

The thing about "wasting your talent", as if talent is a finite thing you have to invest wisely or you'll lose it. I've never understood that. The materials tell you where to go, if you let them. Copper tells you something different than canvas does. That's not a limitation, it's a conversation.

Also the self-taught thing, I'm sorry you get that. Some of the best printers I know learned in someone's kitchen, not at a school. There's a humility to learning with your hands first that formal training sometimes skips right over.

Giulia BrunoOP·4d

The talent-as-currency thing really is wild. Like there's a bank account of it and every linocut is a withdrawal. Meanwhile you look at someone who's been doing the same oil paintings for thirty years and nobody tells them they're squandering anything.

And yes, exactly, copper tells you one thing, stone tells you another, a screen tells you a third. Working with a material means listening to it, not imposing on it. That's the conversation he didn't see happening right in front of him.

The self-taught thing... some of the most inventive mark-making I've seen came from someone who learned in a garage, no MFA, no idea what she "shouldn't" do. There's something in that.

Giulia BrunoOP·4d

the "could never do what you do" thing, I always want to say back, you could, you just haven't spent ten years staring at a copper plate. it's not magic, it's just a different kind of thinking. but yeah, the pity. that's the part that keeps me up. like I'm a failed painter to him, not someone who chose a whole other thing.

and honestly, the self-taught gatekeeping is the same structure. someone decides what counts as real training and anything outside that is amateur. it's all the same anxiety about who gets to call themselves an artist.