cecily brown on getting artistic approval on instagram (vulture):

“When I first started, I was private. I knew my followers, so then I might post, half in jest, “Better before?” I’d say, “Should I stop?” People would be like, “No, go on.” Others would be like, “Stop!” It’s like when you invite your friends over and you’re not sure if something is finished, and you find out whether it is by who you actually want to listen to. I totally know what your friend means. Now I’m public, just recently, so I have lots of followers who are young artists, and they’ll be like, “Gorgeous!” Yeah, you could just sit there letting your head get bigger because some random person in Australia or Iran says that’s a beautiful painting. But in the end, you can’t take it as serious criticism. The image is teeny-tiny. Everything looks good on there. The scary thing is it often looks better. I had my German dealer come over, and she was like, “Where’s that one you posted?” I was pointing at it, and she’s like, “Oh.” But real life is real life — you see the history, where the paint didn’t dry right. Real life is warts and all. On Instagram, everything is glossy and gorgeous.”