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Jim, with all due respect for your excellent work and training, it is hard to believe that you have never seen the politics in art shows. Perhaps, and I say this respectfully, you are too close to the forest to see the trees. I also cannot believe that a man of your education cannot see that most of our schools are lacking in solid art education.
You can read in the October 2001 edition of the American Artist Magazine where Steven Doherty, editor in chief of the magazine, writes of the "lack of solid academic education in most universities, colleges and art schools, and of reports of students frustrated by programs that don't adequately teach drawing, anatomy, composition, color theory and painting techniques." And that is just the higher education. Our secondary schools have never taught fundamentals to children other than crayola moments. THAT is where the fundamentals should be introduced.
Our country has a very very weak understanding of art for the most part. IMO, dumbing down is not even applicable to our society - it was never art-smart to begin with! There are so very few people in this country who know what you know about art. You are a part of a very, very small and fortunate minority. I agree that it is valuable to learn from galleries. I wish there were some in my community worth attending.
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