Hi Lee
It is obvious that my comments have caused a stir and I apologise to you for taking the thread off track, but not for what I said, as I said it and the results are as they are. May be I looked at the situation incorrectly may be not, may be it was not important enough to even look into or comment about.
Some have agreed with me privately in relation to my comments and some not, with the latter telling me or indicating that my comments were rude and offensive, again this is for each to judge as individual readers of my comments and the situation. I just say what at times I feel, however I also have to take into account that this may offend and look at this as I am use to things of a much stronger nature than my comments to cause me offence, but again I should take this into account.
I did not indicate anywhere that people should say they like your piece if they did not.
This would be wrong, what I said at that particular time, feeling in the particular way that I did was in relation to how rude I personally thought it was for so many people not to congratulate or even "acknowledge" you Lee on your achievement of your first article in woodturning magazine. There had been enough views. Me calling it beautiful was my personal thoughts on your item and I did not infer nor did expect others to flood you with dishonest comments.
As has been mentioned in Nev's thread about the "community", to me as such other members of a "community" may have perhaps passed comment/congratulated or at least acknowledge you "as a member of the community" on this, and or the piece, whether they liked the piece or not was not the relevant point of what I said. So I commented as I did with the same distain to what I saw at a particular time in relation to the other community members, whether it be right or wrong and whether I read it rightly or wrongly.
Your piece here I thought was interesting in relation to this situation as an apperceptive piece of work.
I have not commented to each individual person in this thread or the others that have taken time to reply in the open forum, as each will have posted at the time relating to how they felt and thought in relation to what I said. If I did keep replying and quoting it just becomes a tennis match of possibly ever degrading personal comments as people in the heat of the moment at times say things that if sat having a drink together would not, so I felt it counterproductive to do so or to comment until now.
It is possible with comments such as mine for a person to be wholly judged on just a few sentences, especially if the reader feels defensive in some way or offended about them, I know I fall into this at times. If this is the case then I cannot do anything about this but will think about this in the future as to if I will comment or not and how.
So all the best with each and all's turning, I can tell you that I will not offer any form of comment that may or may not be possibly offensive in this forum again, I would not want to be destructive to those that want to learn/progress.
Finally everyone has just as much right to comment as to what they do or do not like of a piece, we all decide if we like something when we go to buy it at the shops and we do not have to be art critics to do this or be qualified, it is our own thoughts, others can agree or not. Just because of a perception of where I may or may not be, does not make me right, wrong or outside the realm of imperfection, or all knowing, if only !!.
"Opinions are formed in a process of "open" discussion and public debate, and where no opportunity for the forming of opinions exists, there may be moods -- moods of the masses and moods of individuals, the latter no less fickle and unreliable than the former -- but no opinion." - Hannah Arendt
Congratulations one last time Lee on your achievement.