I think secretly that many art critics actually think of themselves as artists, and imagine that they are actually part of a mystic process by which art is brought into the world by other people who actually do the real work, and that somehow by the critics "participation" in that process that they think they become artists too. They think of themselves from that point on as actually responsible for the work.

The fact that I took a large number of philosophy courses and then studied the history of art doesn't make me an expert if I can't draw something more recognizable than a stick figure. In point of fact being able to draw well proves that one can observe the world and knows a bit about how it works as well as knowing how the process of doing art works. Like I said, art is not a theoretical exercise despite what a professor said.

In America people would rather read about art than make it or look at it and form their own opinions about it. We love received ideas. TV, for example is one great big received set of ideas, mostly about selling stuff. Universities specialize in received ideas and are greatly responsible for fostering this amazingly idiotic way of looking at received things and calling them important and academic. They do this by studying texts that have been written by others. Thereby assuring that, as a rule, schools exist as a place where one can go to see art reduced to desiccated husk and made into an adjunct category in the philosophic study of texts. Sadly some of the graduates of these schools go on to become art critics or even teachers themselves.

So when I do teach art, it is in this critical atmosphere where learning art is hard and filled with emotional danger for the folks that are interested in doing it. That's why they ask so carefully. They have become afraid. It's that fear they have to unlearn in order to learn to draw or paint as adults.