ABSTRACT
Until now I have tried not to bring specific styles, aesthetics, or techniques into the discussion. One trend within the arts has done so much to undermine the very premises of subsidized nonfunctional art, however, that I feel the need to address it. More damning than any other criticism of subsidized art is the idea that artists are simply charlatans
out to bilk our patrons with aesthetic snake oil. In earlier times when craft was a more overt component of a piece of art, this critique did not really exist. The notion of an art that is purely conceptual, however, opened this floodgate.
