My experience with a Narcissism Workshop.

On Saturday I took a Narcissism workshop offered by artist Paul Shortt at the Lexington Art League as part of the Approach performance art exhibition. (you can learn more about Paul's work here). 

I don't consider myself much of a narcissist, in fact, I try very hard NOT to be.  I don't want to seem cocky or full of myself or that my stuff doesn't stink just like everyone else's.  Unfortunately the way the world works these days, and the fact that I am an artist, I have to promote myself and my work. I'm uncomfortable with it most of the time but it's a necessary evil.  Anyway, I decided to take the workshop because I thought it sounded interesting and it would be an opportunity to get out of my comfort zone. 

The first thing you do when you arrive is you pick a tag, a condition of narcissism, that most represents you: 

My tag said something like:

 I react to criticism with rage, shame, and something something internally
(dang, why didn't I keep my tag?)

Several participants made up a second tag with another statement. My second one said:

I use social media to help me
 feel better about myself.
 And I hate it.

Once everyone was settled we had a short discussion about narcissism in society today, which centered mainly around Facebook (imagine that). Then we made a list of the 5 best things about ourselves and went around introducing ourselves to each other and telling them one of the awesome things. So you'd go up to someone and you'd say, "Hi! My name is Laurie and I have a nice rack." and they'd reply, "Hi! My name is Christine and I am a fabulous painter." 

For the next activity we busted out the crayons, markers, and pencils to draw a self-portrait: 

Yes, believe it or not, I actually did graduate from art school. At one point I might have been able to draw a decent portrait but obviously I am a little out of practice. Instead it looks like a 4th grader drew me. That's not insulting to 4th graders, is it? 

Then we had to post 5 pictures to Facebook with either cocky or mundane captions. Here's one of my 5: 

I think my work is awesome!

I guess it isn't as cocky as I could have been. I could have said, "My work is the BEST" but I know it's not THE best artwork in the world. This is where Heath says I am pessimistic and I say I am being realistic...I really love my work but is it THE BEST art in the world? No.  I probably had the hardest time with this portion of the workshop just because I knew that people would see it on Facebook. (I probably should have made another name tag that said, "I care too much about what others think)

The last activity of the day was to make an award for ourselves and then write a corresponding speech for someone to read about us as we accepted our own award. Here I am reading Christine's speech:

And then it was time for me to accept my award for All Around Cool Chick: 

Don't we all wish we could be as cool as her?

That's right.

The workshop was a lot fun.  As Paul said, a chance for us to pat ourselves on the back, since most people don't suffer from Narcissistic personality disorder and generally aren't all that narcissistic. After all, we should all show ourselves some love every once in a while, right?