I’m not new to feeling and being misunderstood. There’s been times in life when this has really bothered me, and I’ve spent a lot of time & energy trying to make myself clear. Sometimes it has felt like a worthwhile trade-off, and other times, not so much.
So when someone on Reddit responded to a post I made (begging folks to make “bad art”) with insistence that most people can’t do that, because what I was talking about was rule-breaking mastery—the feeling of being misunderstood arose within me, but by no means felt new. I did indeed still feel that agitation, and questioned how they could misinterpret me, so far away from what I hold as truth.
Because that’s not what I mean when I use the term ‘bad art.’
So this post is going to be a deeper exploration of defining what I mean by ‘bad art’—not in an attempt to never be misunderstood again, but hopefully as a way to invite more people into this practice with artistic expression.
Why That Assumption Exists
I don’t believe everyone makes the assumption that by ‘bad art’ I mean rule-breaking mastery… but for those that do, I often wonder how tightly these folks are holding onto the binary of good vs. bad as a sort of ultimate truth within their perception of reality.
Good/bad, and even right/wrong binaries exist as a way to simplify certain things in our lives. They can be helpful, but they lack nuance—because we quickly learn that the world is not black and white. Despite that knowing, we often teach kids about right and wrong; but rarely do we as adults even have a consensus on what is good and what is bad, as it’s always a matter of perspective, which is largely shaped by our past experiences. And there’s nothing that’s ever 100% good or 100% bad.
Rule-breaking mastery requires time, education, money and access. It assumes familiarity with the elements of art (line, shape, form, value, colour, texture, space), the principles of design (balance, contrast, emphasis, movement, pattern, rhythm, unity), and technical fundamentals (like anatomy, perspective, composition, and lighting/shading).
This version of “bad art” is inherently exclusionary.
But assumptions are made that anyone attempting to make bad art, is an artist, schooled in these things.
What That Assumption Protects
What about the non-artists? The new artists? The hobby artists who are out of practice? The emerging artists still refining their own mastery?
When we assume that ‘bad art’ means to break the rules intentionally, we’re protecting the hierarchy of taste, of “talent”, and of legitimacy.
If you assume ‘bad art’ to mean rule-breaking, it protects artists (and non-artists) from the uncomfortable truth that art can be made by anyone and everyone.
And if anyone can make art: what happens to the idea that art’s value comes from exclusivity? That there are few rare talented artists in this world. What happens to the idea of talent itself?
What if instead art was about the expression, the process? Not it’s value as a ‘finished object’?
Who Gets to Break Rules Safely
It seems established artists are allowed “fail” publicly. There’s a certain expectation for the envelope to be pushed, when we as the audience see that they can do it “right” to begin with.
Yet, marginalized creators are evaluated harshly and since everyone has a platform—thanks to the birth of the Internet—to share their opinions, these evaluations are often public. And harshness can stem from the critic feeling safe behind their own keyboard and screen.
Permission to make ‘bad art’ is unevenly distributed.
So when I say ‘Bad Art’ it isn’t some rebellion from the top of the ladder. It’s permission to make without ever climbing it.
Why I Use the Word “Bad”
It’s provocative on purpose. I elected to call my blog and podcast The Bad Art Teacher because it interrupts politeness, and disrupts optimization.
Softer words failed, where ‘bad’ felt ‘right’. Using unfinished still felt like it upheld capitalist values of a finished product. The word amateur upholds the ladder itself, the hierarchical institutions that allow for us to evaluate and separate one other based on perceived skill or talent, and level of success. It’s classist, and didn’t actually reach what I wanted to say. Even the word messy feels like it supports the idea of aestheticized vs non-aesthetic art.
But “Bad”, well she refuses to be redeemed and we as humans tend to shy from anything labelled ‘bad’—so I selected this to be intentionally contrasting.
Who Bad Art Is For
In the context of The Bad Art Teacher, ‘bad art’ is for the people who stopped making, the people who were shamed or harshly evaluated in their past creations. It’s for neurodivergent folks, queer folks, the weirdos, and the rebels. It’s for adults who lost their creative spark somewhere along the way. And it’s for people whose hands stopped moving because someone was watching, or evaluation made you cease all together.
When I invite you to make ‘bad art’, I’m not aiming it at people wealthy in art-world permission.
Closing Definition
I hesitate to provide a fixed, concrete definition of ‘bad art’ when I use it, simply because this is a living, breathing concept. Bad art isn’t a style, it’s a refusal to audition. It doesn’t ever need to resolve into excellence… Nothing has to happen next if that’s what we as the maker, wants.
‘Bad art’ is what happens when we allow ourselves to make without conforming to the idea that we need to perform excellence. ‘Good art’ can happen this way too. But intentionally reaching for bad creates less pressure, and an openness to have an experience, instead of measuring a final output, which is only a moment in time anyways. Your art has lived hundreds or thousands of iterations—each new line, dot, or colour added is a new result where we could elect to stop and call it done. It would live on as that “final piece”. But that’s not all your art is, nor is it all it ever was. We’ve been trained to value the “final” output and finished product more than the journey. Capitalism wants this, but what about a pre- or post-capitalist world where our worth isn’t tied into our output?
Bad art refuses to conform to rigid rules that make visual art visually compelling, whether those are known and practiced by the artist, or not.
Bad art is art that doesn’t need to justify itself by becoming better.
Bad art isn’t about rejecting skill — it’s about refusing to make skill the price of entry.
And if these definitions feel relieving, instead of clarifying, know that a deeper part of you understands exactly what it needs to.