TO KNOW ME IS TO LOVE ME

I believe that it is a sacred moment, as yesterday, when someone takes you into their confidence and shows you their artistic work. It takes balls. It is a reaching out to you, and an acceptance of you in itself. It demands respect.
For me, it is a moment which shows a wonderful acceptance of me and my views, and an expectation that my responses will be honest to me and can be trusted to be without hurt to the artist. So I think my first duty is to be as ruthlessly honest as I can be in my responses. This requires concentration.
By ruthlessly honest, I do not mean giving the work a slating. I mean making the effort to understand it and to appreciate its qualities. I mean rising above personal taste to look at qualities as they stand, and as they stand in relation to the artist's intention.
I find it a similar process to that which I try and promote within teams, and between people. That is, to appreciate the qualities, their genesis and place within a unique creation. In an artistic setting, that's the art. In a team setting, it's the person. I look to promote appreciation, not in a schmolzy, untrue way, but wth a concentration which is born of a genuine desire to understand the other and their qualities. By that, inter personal problems in teams often fall away, replaced with an understanding which makes small irritations lovable, and greater differences tolerable.
It is a way of peace, of love even.
And it repays with a reciprocal inner peace.
As you realise that if you were that artist, you would have produced that art, with those exact qualities, so you also realise that, if you were that person, with their upbringing, awareness and experiences, so you too would walk, talk, behave exactly as they do. You experience a deep compassion towards that person which calms you. You realise that you and he, or she, are interchangeable, separated only by your different experiences.
Promoting such exchanges has become, through serendipitous evolution, my job. But anyone can practice it anywhere - crowded streets, shopping centres, parks and anywhere else where your fellow man congregates. All you need to do is fix each passer by in your eyes and thought, and know "if I had grown as you, I would do as you do."
You need say nothing. Perhaps, in the calm of that thought, radiating through your body, it will transmit to the passer by. I believe it does. And that person will pass on their way the better, the happier for it.
Try it out for yourself.
Let me know how it goes.