Two words for your friend, Andy Warhol! What has effort got to do with Art? The thing that most people fail to realize unless they are an artist, is that there is a fundamental difference between an Artists and a Craftsman and an Arts&Crafter. A Metal Sculpter can weld and use wire work to express what his mind sees as an art form. For him, the medium is a means to the end, not the end itself in raw form. A Welder is not always an artist, he follows plans laid out for him, guidelines that are strictly inforced and rarely does anything to 'express' himself in the medium. To him, the medium is the product. An Arts&Crafter is neither. This is someone follows the directions of an artist or a craftsman to reproduce a simple piece of work but has no concept of the design or expression aspect nor do they really understand the medium beyond the scope of that single project. Often these people continue to reproduce the same FleaMarket bait over and over with only minor variations in color and rhinestones. Unfortunately the only people who seems to realize the difference between these classifications are the Artists, which unfortunately makes us seem egotistical or arrogant, when in truth it is a simple fact. A Medium is just a Medium, it does not define the end results as being Art, Craft or Junk. Your friend obviously was trained in art and understands the concepts. However I would mention that about 50-75% of all teachers at a university or like program are by most industry standards the ones who couldn't make in the real world so they fell back on the only thing they could do with their degree besides flip burgers, stayed at school until they could get work there. Remeber the old addage: Those that can't, Teach! They're jaded and generally rather arrogant in their presentation of the facts to their impressionable young minds and as a result the students tend to come out much the same way, pre-programmed with a jaded view on the current accepted practices and very full of themselves and their pre-programmed opions. Now I'm not saying that all teachers are like that, but it was a rare day in the Engineering or Art Colleges that I attended that I didn't have at least one of these washed-up wanna-bes leading a class of head nodders through the hoops of their own personal vendettas and opinions until they had to parrot it back to them to pass the class. Four years of that is enough to break most students to fit the mold and stop thinking for themselves. Your friend may very well be one of them. He's never actually stepped past 'Craftsman' or 'Arts&Crafts' and into 'Artist'. My thought would be if he thinks he knows so much, give him a picture you just finished in all its glory and gesture for him to sit down at your computer and duplicate it using only what you had to start with. When he fails, smile sagely and pat him on his little head and say, "When you get past the Arts&Crafts books, come talk to me. I'll be intrested to hear your views on 'Real Art'." Puts down her stick after a couple of whacks ;) Littlefox