[StephenLawson]

In my humble opinion art is 'creativity expressed.' Usually it is defined by its viewer according to his or her personal views and values. While its not a commodity to be weighted in the stock market, art sells because the viewer identifies with the expression. There is an artist who peeks in here that is also a well known collector of WWI art. This artist's achievements are noted in video and one of the most popular series of films to date. One soon to be released. He collects WWI replica aircraft, paintings and has commissioned another artist to do a large 3 panel rendering of a German Fokker D.VII Jasta and British Se 5a squadron locked in combat.

Whether its tatoos, cartoons, animae, Michaelangelo or Picaso I concur with PeterL that modeling is an art form. As always its best that we don't take ourselves too seriously and scream and yell over the correct colors of lozenge. But I must say, what was Techmode thinking? Ok, ok to be serious. Its great to be fact based. Its great to replicate a piece of history that previously you did not have. When it comes to dioramas judges first ask themselves is this probable? But when you provide a photo of the actual incident this lends credence to your work. This is a case where facts or real life is proven to be imitated by art In early times (Ginger can probably relate to this ) when cameras didn't exist they recreated battles in large format paintings. Today we recreate machines and men in plastic and resin. Anyone care to guess how much a doodle on a bistro napkin by Ernst Udet would go for?

In reality 'popular art' or mainstream you can hang in your front living room. Some other art forms are not quite so well accepted. I know a fellow who is a Batman fanatic. He spent real money on a vinyl Batman Costume and hands candy out to children at the local mall every year. He goes to hospitals and visits sick children. He has a room that he has had the walls rock faced (vinyl) and calls the Batcave. In this room he has about 75,000.00 USD worth of Batman memorabilia on display. His current project is converting a Corvette into...you guessed it, the Batmobile. Here at the 'drome we have had people that believe themselves to be the reincarnation of MvR his self. Most modelers don't go that far or deep. We model to satisfy ourselves. This satisfaction can be personal or the approaval of others and few of us build to sell. I just wish I could afford some of the art that is out there. I could spend $ on a print or paybills. Well if we're smart we pay the bills first...