educated/uneducated artist

Well their are a lot of things to discuss on here. One of them is Motivation. What is my motivation? To tell you the truth..... I would have to say that it is the endless possibilities that painting provides. One could be a color painter, or value painter, possibly Chiaroscuro, photo realistic, impressionistic. Especially in these modern times of art any one and their dog does any type of painting they would like.
Because we are talking about art anything is up in the air. You don't need to know how to paint or draw to become an artist especially in the art world. People in the..... normal... no.... lets say consumer world (everyone else not in the art world) thinks that you have to know how to paint or draw to become an artist. The fact of the matter is that we have artists that have no idea on how to use a pencil or paint. Carolee Schneemann a great performance artist for feminism does a piece with her pulling a scroll out of her vagina in the piece entitled "Interior Scroll" Shock value seemed to be more important than execution of an image. Art has become concept based, who ever can think about a new idea and get it out into the world gets the giant golden coin. Skill has no merit in the world of Academic art, people don't care they want to see an image that sucks, but entertains their intellect.
Speaking of intellect why is it that most academic artists brains shut down when they see a representative painting? If the painting is executed and painted well, the academic artist says, "what you see is what you get!" Then they move on to the next painting. If the artist has a ton of meaning placed in their painting then the academic artist needs to have mystery through shotty painting or badly executed paint. On the other hand their are a lot of artists that are just doing paintings of wall furniture. They might be painted well but they contain no life or mystery. I am sure their is a way to be able to live in both worlds at the same time. Not as if one needs to be loved by both worlds but it would be nice to be accepted to a certain degree. But then again acceptance is only a word, why is it that we as social beings need to be accepted to anything?
I have a few friends that are exceptional artists, but as far as meaning goes...... well their is none. They might be making a great living right now (which makes other artists jealous) but in the end are they going to be like the artists we know of in the history books, or are they going to just fall through the cracks like most artists? Another tangent, Artist.... an over used word. At times I consider myself an artists, other times, I am just a painter of pictures.