I base my own work's value by my own criteria. 99.9% of it fails, some miserably, some by an inch. Only an idiot would let someone else decide a work's value for them, well intended or not. This is why artists (photographers, sculptors, etc) have closed studios, and why you or I don't get in w/o an invite. All these different opinions are only confusing and essentially meaningless. Now if they come from another artist, that may be different. Maybe not. Depends.
I'll give you these examples. I once had been working on this large painting of a nude gal for some time, and thought it was going along pretty well. A very good artist friend came over one night, classically trained from London, and the first thing he said was "her feet are too small". He was right, they were. But it would have worked fine like it was too. It didn't need to be a perfect example of representative work, but that's what Brian painted, so that's what he saw. Another time someone else, not an artist, was in the studio for some other reason, and they said "I like that" about a piece I was working on. I said thanks, but it was far from finished. They then said "Yes, but it looks great as it is. It looks finished to me". From that point on I was unable to finish the work. You can't let other people get in your head when you're creating. There's only room for one mind up there, and it had best be yours, not someone else's. Creativity is like smoke and the wind. You can't capture it, but you can sure lose it for periods of time. Getting other people's stuff in your head when you're working is a good way to lose it. At some point we all need to look at our own work and say this works, this doesn't, and be done w/ it so we can go on to the next thing. It's a visual thing anyway, not verbal.
