I read this article by John Smith...what are your thoughts?
DO WE RESPECT OUR SOUTH AFRICAN ARTISTS?
By John Smith
Perhaps this is peculiar to baby boomers and those that came before, but I have always had this great respect for skilled artists, and that includes my peers, but am I alone in this now, because there no longer appears to be much respect for people who excel in the things that really matter like maths and science and the arts

Sadly now many great and skilled artists fall mainly into the poorly rewarded category, whereas the equivalents of the visual furniture or décor artists are handsomely rewarded by society. One needs to stop here and think about this – why is it so?
Has our society become shallow and myopic? I think in the main it has. ...http://sasartists.blogspot.com/p/interesting-articles.html


I think the root of the problem possibly lies in the fact that artists, especially visual artists, have little respect for themselves, and if this is the case then one can hardly expect anyone else to have respect for them. It seems the public have scant regard for artists in general now.