Incidentally, I am really thinking of starting my comic idea again... the cartoon strip, that is. As for John K, it is typical of artists in general, I think, to apply their own biases as if these biases were the only clear definition of art.
I met a girl who argued until she was blue in the face with me about the value of copying master works. (You have probably noticed the Titian copy hanging in my room) She argued vehemently that it was not art or useful to copy someone else's work. It must be expressive of self! It must have your own unique stamp!
This is a very American idea. We are obsessed with self expression to a fault, until all self expression becomes lost and meaningless in a sea of people "expressing" themselves for the sake and duty of expression itself. She could not understand that I learned a great deal about technique through imitation, a technique that I could then go on to use in my own paintings. For her, however, such an idea could not fit with her extremely narrow and self involved definition of art.
Incidentally, after I got her drunk on wine and shagged her, she came around the next morning, but this is an entirely different story!
