the woman at the craft fair who told me she could paint the same thing with her kid's watercolors

I had a booth at a local craft fair Saturday and a woman picked up one of my acrylic landscapes, looked at it for a good minute, and said "oh this is nice, I could probably do this with my daughter's $5 watercolor set."

And I just stood there like... okay. So do it then? I'd love to see you mix titanium white into a puddle of Crayola paint and get that kind of coverage on canvas. Please. Film it.

I didn't say any of that of course. I smiled and said "you should give it a try, it's really relaxing!" and she moved on. My husband said I was too nice and I probably was but also what's the point. People who think art supplies are all the same are not people you're going to convince in one conversation at a folding table.

Still felt like packing up my easel and going home though.

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Niall Doherty·1w

Ah sure you were nicer than I'd have been, I'll say that much. I get this at markets too, someone picking up a linocut I've spent the best part of a week carving and proofing, and they'll say "ah sure I could do that with a potato." And you just stand there with your print in your hand, thinking grand, well off you go so, show us the potato print when it's done.

The thing is, they never do. Because they couldn't. And they know it, somewhere. That's what gets me, it's not that they think they could do it, it's that they need to say it out loud to make themselves feel like they're not impressed. Like admiring something costs them something.

Anyway you handled it well. More restraint than I've got. I'd have been rooting in my bag for a business card going "send me a photo when you've the watercolours out, I'd genuinely love to see it."

Tomáš Havel·1w

The potato thing is beautiful. I think what they're doing is less about believing they could do it and more about needing to take the thing down a peg before it makes them feel small. If they can reduce it to something ordinary, they don't have to sit with the fact that someone made something they couldn't. It's a kind of self-defense. Pathetic when you see it clearly, but not really about you or your work.

Karen WesselOP·1w

Yeah I think you're right. It's not even that they think they could actually do it, it's that they need to say something that levels the playing field so they don't have to feel impressed. Which I get on some level, we all do that thing where something good makes us feel small. But man, keep it in your head maybe lol.

Karen WesselOP·1w

The potato comment! I'm dying. That's even worse honestly because at least with painting people think "oh it's just putting color on a surface" but carving? People have no idea the time that goes into it.

You're right though, it's about them needing to not be impressed. Which is so weird to me, I love being impressed by things, it's the best part of going to a fair. Finding something someone made with their actual hands. Why would you want to pretend that's not cool?

Camille Laurent·1w

Oh, this is such a familiar feeling. I don't do craft fairs myself but I've had versions of this conversation too many times to count, the one where someone needs to let you know they could do what you do, as if that's the point.

The thing she missed, obviously, is that having the materials and making the thing are two different planets. My daughter could hold my brush, doesn't mean she'd paint what I paint. But you know that.

I think you handled it better than I would have. I tend to go quiet and flat in those moments, which probably reads as ruder than your polite smile. Your way was kinder. Your husband's not wrong either though. Both things can be true.

Margaret Hsu·1w

You're both right, but I think you have slightly more patience than I would in your position. That kind of comment says everything about the person making it and nothing about your work. The impulse to level the playing field rather than simply say "that's lovely" is exhausting, and it's always the people who have never seriously tried to make anything.

I've had students show me their first attempts at botanical work after watching me do it, thinking they understood what it took. Most of them are very apologetic by the third class. There's no substitute for the hours.

Karen WesselOP·1w

That's a good point about the students. I think people watch someone who's been doing it for years and genuinely don't see the hours because the end result looks so... inevitable? Like of course that's how the petals go, of course that's how the light hits. They don't see the twenty paintings that led to that one.

I've had that experience from the other side too actually, watched a potter at a fair throw a vase in like two minutes and thought "that looks easy" until I sat down at a wheel myself and produced a lumpy disaster. Humility finds us all eventually 😅

Karen WesselOP·1w

Yeah exactly. It's not even about being offended for me, it's just... why say it out loud? What's the goal there?

I think the "go quiet and flat" approach probably stings more than my fake smile honestly 😅 At least she walked away thinking I was nice. Quiet you probably made her sit in it a little.