A critique that helped or harmed the creative process.

Describe a time that you felt a critique either helped or harmed your art-making progress. This happened recently. I had been working in the studio for about two weeks on a couple of paintings thinking that I had finally had a breakthrough and found my voice. My goal was to use the sound and vibration of jazz to create a painting. The studio head whose opinion I had come to respect and two of his peers entered and began giving me a critique that harmed the art-making process in my opinion. Their comments were constructive but worded in negative ways. As an artist, one should have a thick skin but it is difficult to receive comments that tear apart work you have passionately poured time and resources into. A written review is one that can be managed a little better. A written critique can be torn to shreds and tossed in the trash or deleted if it's digital. A harsh verbal critique while standing next to one's work was harder than being punched in the face during a karate sparring session. This critique was so devastating that my mind froze. My creative juices and excitement came to a screeching halt and died. For about two weeks after that, I found it difficult to be creative, think abstractly and have enthusiasm for creating art. Sketching in my sketchbook stopped happening as frequently and finding inspiration to draw became uninteresting. The harshness of the critique shattered my confidence. I am still in recovery from that critique. Concentrating on art became difficult and I found myself becoming more easily distracted from the art-making process. Many hours were spent feeling inadequate as an artist and thinking that maybe I do not have a voice worth hearing. Since then, I've learned to lock myself in the studio and drown myself in inspiration from artists, films and music.