A Critic Looks at His Own Early Artwork, 35 Years Later

This slide show is a follow-up to [0]. I'd argue the context is more interesting than the content. The original article is a kind of counterweight to survivorship bias. What happens when an artist in his early twenties gets some glimmers of potential success as a professional artist, and then goes down the rabbit hole for about a decade only to find that their work is seen as mediocre?

From the article:

Soon, I went to get Roberta. I told her the news [about rediscovering his art] and asked her to come see. She came into my office and started looking. For a long time. Longer than I had. One by one. Studying, not saying a word. After a while she turned to me and said, “They’re okay.” Stricken, I said, “Okay?! What do you mean ‘okay’? I think they’re beautiful. Aren’t they great?” She turned back to the drawings, looked a little longer, and finally said, “They’re generic. And impersonal. No one would know what these are about. And what’s with the triangles? Are they supposed to be women?” I shot back, “No! They’re Hell!” She talked about how many artists “never get better than their first work.” And just like that, I was right back to where I was when I quit: crushed, in crisis, frozen, panicky.

[0] http://www.vulture.com/2017/04/jerry-saltz-my-life-as-a-fail...