"It's BAZ. Utterly predictable.

"Don't trouble yourself with Silly. His contributions are self serving and pedestrian. Collaboration is not in his karma. One plus one for him is never more than two and always less than two. This is not a flame about TCA but about what we see and what he does. It is so often topical things and not about aesthics and what things look like.

"

Silly was the name of my cat. He died in 1999. The e-mail address remains.

This is not a flame about TCA? Hate the sin, not the sinner? Bullshit. This IS a flame about TCA. It sure as hell ain't constructive criticism. Quoth Bob Dylan ''Why don’t you just come out once and scream it?'' On second thought, you're probably telling the truth because it's hard to hate someone you've never met. You and I have never shared a handshake in the flesh--I intend to keep it that way.

Collaboration is not in my karma? Maybe I'm a member of the French Resistance. That would be quite an embarrassment to our new friend JIT. Death to collaborators! ;-)

"

"

I'm a failure as an artist, you're a failure as a professor. It's all a matter of opinion. Who knows? We could both be wrong."

And I in amazement respond:

You’re talking to me? I was giving my low down 'bout y'all to JIT to counter your unnecessary preaching which had a stink of treacle to it. Ah well, you are not a student and I am not your prof. I am at times a critic, but not a diagnostic or constructive one outside the academic world. My description and interpretation of much of your contributions is in line with your own assessment of what you add and subtract here to the final appearance of a grid level. What’s the beef? You and I agree about your talents. I value collaboration. It takes me outside myself, leading to new directions. So often I find your work appears to only lead back to your concerns and damn to other leads given to how pictures work.

Criticism of art seen online is so banal. So much of “I like it” and such nice nice. Students need to be encouraged but we are way beyond that aren’t we? This is an open question. I realize it's better that a critic ignore the work they find lacking. In a collaborative setting that is not productive of better results, results that can actually make a difference in the world given a chance.

Sorry about the cat.