Spoiler Alert: I've seen Fresh and it is a good movie but...If you love dogs I don't recommend seeing it.

Wow! This was a loaded subject! I feel that the sins manifest themselves when the artist solely creates art for self-gain rather than to connect with others and express themselves. Thus, "selling out". The consequence is the artist may end up sacrificing your authenticity and eventually get burned out or worse.

Hi Guys. Thank you for always giving us things to ponder. I’m still very new in my art path, perhaps not at all sophisticated in my tastes, and this episode left me with more questions than answers. Regarding the work of Thomas Kinkade (if the story is true), I wonder are we even asking the right questions? Rather than is it art? or is it good art? art for undeveloped tastes? or deciding that asking people what they want to see in a piece of art is a pitfall of pandering – I wonder, is it filling a psychological need? There’s a large body of work on the psychological impact of colors, so could researching and answering the desired colors and themes in the work be viewed as a kind of healing or therapy for the viewers/buyers. Just as we make choices of music to support or alter our emotional states with music (the music we dance to, the music we use for workouts, the music for waking up, for meditating, for experiencing awe, for wooing, for relaxation, for work – it’s all music. Don’t we make use of art in the same way? Isn’t it okay to have something in my living room that helps me relax or feel joy rather than having a piece of artwork that demands I probe the deepest secrets of the universe, or my psyche? And is that piece of comforting work serving an important need on a personal, or perhaps even cultural level? The analogy with fast food doesn’t really hold up for me. Didacticism…I’m curious about the work of students you encounter in the Art departments, @Marshall Vandruff that comes across as polemic/preachy. Why are they creating such work? Do they feel they have an obligation to society to bring viewers around to their point of view in order to justify being an artist, like they are fulfilling some kind of higher purpose? So much is happening, especially online, to influence our behavior below the level of our conscious awareness, sometimes directness can be refreshing. Do these young artists just need to have more finesse in their approach? Is that part of the role of the teachers? The other day I saw some ukio-e style woodblock prints in downtown Kyoto depicting contemporary scenes (including a very NSFW piece in the backroom) by WAKAKI Kurumi that express a very different point of view to my own, but were powerful, impactful, and have me asking a lot of questions.