Where I went to art school, sculpture students were not allowed to save any of their sculptures for the first year. Every day you sculpt a clay portrait and/or figure; every Friday, you take it apart and put the clay back in the clay cans. After an entire year of study - making figures and portraits every day, and saving none of them - the second year sculpture student is allowed to fire or cast a "good one" every now and then. The older I get, the more I see the wisdom of this. The goal is learning, not cranking out a finished product. It's lethal to an artist to be focused on a goal other than bringing a work out of your imagination and into the real world. If you're focused on selling, that will be reflected clearly in your work, which will be commercial art, not fine art.
Commercial art has to be zappy and attention grabbing enough to stand out from the crowd. Being advertisement oriented, it has to get its point across immediately. Flashy photos and CGA are everywhere; they're a dime a dozen. They make sense to people who are increasingly living their lives on a screen. Fine art is a whole other thing. For one thing, it takes longer to appreciate and understand. The finer it is, the more is appreciated with every viewing. Fine art also takes longer to create than commercial art, usually a LOT longer. That's why there's so much less of it.
The cultural obsession on celebrities is really odd. Celebrities and their fame are fodder for the media and promoted relentlessly. It's as though people think that if you're famous, you must be rich, or happy, or both. Our culture is big on instant gratification. The world view promulgated by popular culture is that money is all you need: buy your way into success, health and happiness. The instant gratification idea is antithetical to really learning how to do something, because really learning how to do anything takes years of delayed gratification. Practice, practice, practice. Everything really worth doing in life takes discipline, hard work and usually some self sacrifice. And practice.
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