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| Shells, red and white chalk |
There are questions I will no longer take seriously and discussions I will no longer participate in: whether the Vietnam War was worth fighting; whether jazz is more creative than classical music; whether photography is Art, etc. The first five thousand times were OK, and now I'm done.
Similarly, there are things I won't do. I don't mean things like "I won't drink shots of tequila on my birthday", I mean things I won't do as an artist. I don't do commercial art. I don't exhibit my work in festivals or fairs. I don't show my work in any show that includes "crafts". You have to draw the line somewhere.
If you added up all the artists who ever lived from the first cave drawings to the present, you would have fewer total artists from the past than there are artists alive today. You would think that with this current planetary glut of artists, we'd have tons of great art. Statistically, we should. There are more than ten times as many artists per capita today (2%*) than there were in the Italian Renaissance (<.05%*) But great art is not what's happening, as it did in the Renaissance. What we have is a lot of advertising and a lot of people playing artist, but very few actually learning how to really draw, paint or sculpt. To do that, you have to pay your dues and learn your craft. And to do that, you have to give up stuff: time, energy, money, preconceived ideas. And that's hard.
My conclusion is that art should be illegal, punishable by arrest, imprisonment and fines. Two things would happen. First, the general public would buy more art if it's illegal. Look at Prohibition. And second, the people who really just want to play artist would stop wasting everyone's time and learn golf instead (they could still wear berets), and only those who are truly compelled to draw, paint and sculpt would still be practicing artists.
*Percentages from Wikipedia and I have no idea if they're right.
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