Sol Nte wrote: > > BTW - I must confess to being a smoker with no interest in quitting....then > again I believe that America as a nation is against smoking unlike Europe > where smoking is considered a wonderful thing. I've heard that in Greece > many people smoke while swimming in the sea and holding one hand out of the > water to hold their cigarettes!! > > Reed wrote: > > >The most unfortunate part of participating in Fluxlist is that professional > artists are allowed to participate also.< > > I think any division into professional and non-professional in art is > ultimately fruitless. I agree. > Reed, I've seen your work and you're very professional > in your methods..I also know you to carefully consider your work and > practice self-criticism in order to maintain a high standard...this is > professional practice..whilst you may not be making your living as an artist > your approach is professional.... Yes, and in this way I differ from many mail artists who are staunch "non-artists" or "not-an-artists" or "networkers" Though I do feel a definite affinity with the third group. > if we remove money all labels have a little > more meaning and serve as better descriptors of what actually is. Yes, I suppose that's true, then the situation can be looked at more from a "facts-about- actvities" viewpoint, i.e. in terms of work/play done or apart from economic considerations like income derived from art and how that affects aesthetic considerations. Still, many artists play to a captive audience of the converted made by the art industry and this kind of art I dislike intensely because it deliberately ignores certain classes of people, like the art-illiterate, or the poor, or the working class etc. it is not democratic or based on equalities. I see what you're saying about my mimicking professional art practices but I usually do it only to be different than the mail art crowd and as far as being critical of my own work- I've always thought that mail art shared certain similarities with conceptual art in that since there is no jury or criticism the mail artist takes up the responsibility of criticising his/her own work and being his/her own critical apparatus. RA
