Tom - I was just using Kinkaid as an example of an accomplished artist that most know the name of. As to the sweatshop thing, I never heard of that. Though I HAVE seen $800 giclee canvas prints that had paint or clear thick stuff added to them to make them LOOK like real paintings. Maybe these are the "sweatshop workers"? That isn't good!...."IMO".... :-) As to mentioning him in the same context as "art" - well that's a subjective thing based on OPINION, I reckon. I, personally, think his stuff is really pretty but that doesn't mean it appeals or HAS or SHOULD to appeal to another person. Which is a normal thing - "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder", as the saying goes. Where trouble starts is when one person is offended because another person likes something that they don't. Something in there about ego, I reckon. It's like saying, "brussels sprouts are great" instead of the best, IMHO, way to say it which would be "I like brussels sprouts", I think. One way maybe subtly insinuates that some other person's fave veggie ISN'T great and the other way merely states that brussels sprouts are great - FOR ME - which doesn't have the same connotation as the first staement. Waxing philosophical, I think of the billions of people killed needlessly (IMO) in wars because the populaces were stirred up because one side didn't look or maybe think like the other "nation". (read a thing somewhere in the Bible where God said "all nations are vanity" or something like that) We may be our "brother's keeper" but we certainly don't need to be our neighbor's keeper and should worry about keeping ourselves and our own families straight. But, then again, the wars have always been because one nation's rich people wanted the stuff of the other nation's rich people and things like appearance, religion and life-styles are just tools to stir up people so they can have someone to beat up on and "de-humanize", forget their own plight, and so the rich folks of that country can keep their power and protect us poor folks from the "evildoerssss". There is nothing "holy" nor "civil" about war, IMHO....and it really doesn't get my "boxers in a bunch" - lol - if someone else hates "brussels sprouts" or loves them or burns them in a pogrom as long as I can have some for dinner every now and then. In the immortal words of George Thoroughgood - "...it don't confront me none..." LOL - sorry, this is getting WAY off the thread and not even about art so I'll shut up. And, it's all just my "opinion" anyhow. Sunday....:-) Rick