Amen I used to join artists' groups and exhibit with them, locally. Since I painted mostly in Acrylics, in a realistic, very detailed style, and framed my work as carefully as I'd painted it, I was snickered at by the majority of the other artists. It seems that putting up a dirty piece of cardboard with thumbtacks and scrawling an obscenity across it in DayGlo paints is "real" art. The cafe where I had many large one-woman shows was a fascinating place to observe human nature. For the price of a cup of coffee, I could anonymously listen in on the viewers' comments (for better or worse!). But you know, for every table of black-clad, self-described 'intelligentsia' who found my work 'superficial' and 'technically showy' there was a person who came in several times a week to just sit near a favorite painting and lose themselves in it for an hour. And the remarks of the self-described 'real' artists stung a lot less when I remembered those folks. The purpose of art is communication. There will always be those who are too insecure or too lazy to attempt that most difficult of human skills. They are the ones most anxious to denigrate other artists' efforts and the ones most threatened by careful workmanship. And they are not the reason I keep on keepin' on.......!