Somehow the artists among us dont seem to get very much respect.

Society needs to lay off the artists.

All throughout high school and most of college, anyone who exhibited any interest in art was branded as weird by a lot of other people. Im sure most of the art majors at this school have experienced that.

I find these double standards very annoying. After all, I have seen these same people sit there and ogle at the artwork on CD covers, and many people still like to hang classic art replicas of the Mona Lisa and Starry Night on their walls. Yet somehow the artists among us dont seem to get very much respect.

Before I go any further, let me make it clear: I automatically hate pretentious artists/art scene people.

A few months ago I went to an exhibit at the Cleveland Museum of Art, and as I was passing a painting by Salvador Dali, a woman nearby asked her companion what she thought of Dalis postmodern ideas.

What annoyed me first was that she used such a ridiculously clichéd term of the art scene; what annoyed me second was that she applied the term post-modern to something that was painted long before anyone even came up with the concept.

When art becomes a tool for people to make themselves look more intelligent or deep, it annoys me. I have a problem with hypocrites and I consider them to be the worst kind: hypocrites who use the work of others as some kind of self affirmation.

With the destruction of The Triumph of David by Ottavio Vannini at the Milwaukee Art Museum last week, I am disappointed “ yet somehow not very surprised either.

Our society seems to live in a culture of intellectual laziness, which requires a person to not really care about anything except getting drunk and hooking up as often as possible. This would be bad enough if it were limited to people in our generation. However, even people three times our age lose it when they see a naked statue.

For example, a few years ago, former Attorney General John Ashcroft had drapes installed in the Justice Department to cover up two scantily clad statues. One of them, the Spirit of Justice, is a partially nude female whose breasts seem to be situated directly above the podium used for press conferences.

Supposedly, Ashcroft was annoyed that so many pictures of him kept showing up in newspapers with a pair of breasts over his head; but that doesnt excuse censorship. Instead of looking into options for relocation, he simply used $8,000 in taxpayer money to cover up the statue. Why? Because it both offended him and made him look stupid (personally I think he does a fine job of that on his own).

Last but not least, we come to the schools. Unless youve been living under a rock for the past 10 years, you are aware that schools across the country are having funding for arts programs slashed in favor of more practical classes like math and science.

I agree they are needed, but those teach skills, and arts programs teach people to think. The optimist in me likes to believe that thinking is more important than being able to solve a geometry problem.

The paranoid person in me probably thinks that this is some weird tactic to keep the number of intelligent people down to a minimum.

I suppose I have two points here: First of all, art is a great tool for personal expression and can be very therapeutic and I think a lot of people would be better off if they explored their artistic side. Second, its time that we stop treating art as a commodity.

Using art terms like post-modern usually only makes the people who use them seem pretentious. Finally, censoring art, whether by tossing drapes in front of statues or trying to nip the problem in the bud (in a roundabout way), or by cutting off funding to it is wrong no matter what. Artists are very valuable members of society, and its time that they get the acceptance and respect that they deserve. Period.

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