In my May/June Design Culture column titled “Stages of Support,” I asked CA readers to respond to my query: “How has support (or lack thereof) affected the different stages of your career? And how has your support affected the work of others?”

Readers’ responses were mostly positive anecdotes about people who have helped them, or ways in which they have helped others. As I read these e-mails, I found myself thinking, perhaps it’s not useful for readers to hear more positive stories. Perhaps, instead, it is more beneficial to discuss the ways in which we need to strengthen ourselves against a lack of support—against criticisms that are doled out lightly but cripple our passion, or negligence that leaves a prolonged bitterness.

That may sound negative, but I believe that one of the most important—and difficult—goals in one’s career (dare I say life) is to be clear about what you want and hope for, and to seek people and an atmosphere that will support those desires. As I said in my earlier column, I am not advocating wimpiness; on the contrary, I am advocating the strength to find all the ways that you can declare, defend and pursue what you want. Sometimes this means identifying that which holds you back, and seeing how insidious lack of support, in all its guises, can be.

The most egregious examples are the situations that take advantage of vulnerability. Sometimes they are so subtle that we barely know it, and we unknowingly or naïvely contribute to our own erosion of confidence.

Here is one experience that will sound familiar to many of you: A young woman in art school had an instructor who showed a lot of interest in her work, praising her inventiveness. She was eager to please, and hungry for every bit of extra advice, until one day the “advice” came in the dark computer lab. She pulled back and consequently began to receive much less attention. His praise dried up, and so did her confidence.

The links between ambition and sex are obvious: They are about wanting power, having power and the bargains that are made between the two. What I want to illuminate is something more subtle: the link between hope and vulnerability. When you have passion and great hope to do good work, you’re in a particularly vulnerable state. When you look to authority figures for validation, you tend to give their actions and remarks much more weight and consideration than they did when they delivered them.

Sometimes, ironically, lack of support comes from a person who is devoted to you and your well-being.

When you turn to people close to you for support, it’s likely that they will advise you according to their own point of view, needs and/or beliefs. It is rare—maybe even impossible—for someone to advise you based totally on what you need. Parents’ advice may be protective, driven by the wish for you to choose an easier path. Or they may think you are capable of more—that is, more from their perspective—and thus criticize you for not doing enough. A husband or wife may see your desires as conflicting with their own, or have a definition of success that differs from yours. In such cases, these people who are close to you are not seeing the habits and conditions that are deeply necessary to you and that cannot, must not, be cut short.

As I have often said, when I try to figure out, and then try to do, what someone else wants, I fail. But when I focus on what I want, and how I want to do it, I succeed. If you’re lucky enough to have people who care about you, it makes sense for you to develop your ability to articulate and express your needs, even if you simply agree to disagree.

Then there is the general, atmospheric lack of support that comes in a much less personal form: society. This is especially true in the United States, where the arts are so undervalued as a profession. How many parents do you know, when faced with their child’s question, “Should I go to medical school or art school?” would really recommend art school? I have a friend who has two daughters: one is pre-med and the other is pursuing an MFA. The majority of people he knows say of the med school daughter: “How lucky you are, what an accomplished young woman.” Fortunately, he is equally proud and supportive of both daughters—although society is not—probably because he is a designer and an artist himself.

I find this particularly subtle. People in the arts get a continuous, unconscious message that their work is unimportant, self-indulgent and certainly unworthy of financial support. (Unless you consider art as a commodity that, like stock, is purchased for its potential to be sold at a higher price.) This negative atmosphere manifests itself in a creative blockage. It’s like sleeping on a bad mattress night after night, and wondering why your back hurts. To be perceived a failure, even when that perception is not directed at you personally, can still erode your passion and ability to produce. At the very least, the amount of energy it takes to negate it is substantial.

We have different needs in terms of support and, by the same token, we have different ways in which we are vulnerable. We are all supporters and supportees, and often there is not a perfect match. As much as I try to be supportive, there are many people who do not benefit from my perspective. As my co-teacher and friend once said when we discussed how many students we were able to help, “You can’t reach every one of them.” However, we both agreed that no matter what, we should do our best to clear the runway of obstacles.

One of the first things that a medical student learns is the Latin phrase Primum non nocere, which means “First, do no harm.” Perhaps those of us in the visual arts should find the equivalent phrase for “First, accept no harm.”

© 2007 W. Richmond