Well by all means the smut can super continue if hamlet demands it, but it doesn't have to be furry smut.
I mean, I'd rather look at normal smut than furry smut, yes, but ngl, furry IS a very profitable genre. Furs tend to have above-average disposable income, high demand for art, low impulse control, and no families to save money for. That makes them a perfect audience for smut peddling, so if like Furrman you
enjoy furry and are
willing to draw furbutts, that's actually one of the more sensible and fiscally-responsible avenues you can pursue as an artist.
A source of great shame, maybe, but
"it's a dirty job and someone's got to do it".
Also the phrase 'highbrow art' is just an artefact of the conversation john and the clown were having-- and thus probably isn't a real term artists use but I wouldn't know.
"Highbrow" isn't usually used, but "high art" and "low art" can be, and the term "highbrow" is certainly understood, and describes a real phenomenon that art school types will be well-acquainted with. Academic artists also draw a distinction between "fine art" and "illustration" (boils down to almost the same thing), with most of what's being posted here in this thread qualifying as "illustration". Illustration is taken somewhat seriously and is often accepted as a day job, but it's
definitely viewed as a lesser discipline to "real" art.
Elitist artists are people I'd just like to avoid in general anyway and in the contemporary scene where shitting colors across a canvas at random, or painting nothing, or nailing a single screw into a piece of wood is considered high tier art-- there is no shortage of them.
I can't see the enjoyment to grossly overvaluing useless garbage with no message or purpose or even attractive qualities so I'm pretty sure contemporary artists are actually just fucking insane and the only reason contemporary art has a place in the world is because people are stupid enough to buy it just to say they did or something, again, rich assholes being rich assholes.
Sometimes, sure. I'm not that fond of many contemporary artists myself, so please don't take this as me defending them, BUT - in fairness, highly-valued contemporary art generally
does have a message. Even if the message is something you'd find trite or ridiculous, like "this screw in a block of wood asks the question,
what is art?", fine art is very much focused on having messages and "conversations", so much so that the presence of a message is the primary thing which defines it against, say, mere illustration. Being able to write up a convincing art statement that conforms to the artschool elements of style - or at least, being able to convince an art dealer, gallery owner, historian, or collector that your art has a message and that message is totally smart and not dumb - is a big part of the process, and one of the things that art school will teach, but which you will certainly struggle with if you try to learn it on your own.
But, I am speaking from a very practical point of view so maybe there's a reason people enjoy contemporary art enough to buy it for the insane prices people charge for it. Because apparently a blank canvas is worth thousands of dollars when sold by this one artist?
It's mostly helping friends and getting tax write-offs. I know that might sound dismissive, and I'm not trying to belittle fine art here, but it
really is true, at least according to the professors I know who've actually worked as fine art dealers in major cities. Art is an appealing commodity, because besides looking nice (sometimes?) and generating discussion at dinner parties, its market value is HIGHLY subjective; a given work of art can be worth anything people are willing to pay, from thousands, to even millions of dollars. As such, rich dudes can (and will) use fine art to play with the market, making investments and stashing equity away for a rainy day.
Consider something pleby, like vintage computers or Pokemon cards. You can certainly collect these things; fun hobby, conversation pieces, all that stuff right? However, vintage hardware and trading cards have fairly non-volatile value that is defined by the purchasing interests of millions of other (usually nearly broke) nerds. If you want to buy a Yawning Squirtle card, say, there's only so much that card is going to be worth to the market. If its book value is currently fifty dollars, you can't just up and declare your card is worth fifty thousand - which may not be an issue for poor people, but IS an issue for the rich. Sometimes, if you're rich, you want to put fifty thousand into a single, easy to manage asset, rather than deal with a giant crate of Yawning Squirtle cards.
So let's say you know some cool artist who hangs out in Manhattan, and he's got a lot buzz from the fine art community, then - yeah! OK. Let's say he's selling a blank canvas today? Bold, subversive, cheeky! Since it's a one-of-a-kind piece, and you're here first, you get to decide what it's worth. Say it's worth a few thousand? Buy it up, BOOM. Worth a few thousand, easy. Now you've got this expensive piece of blank-canvas art hanging in your boardroom or whatever.
The value of art is defined by its market, and in the case of fine art, its market is dominated by rich people like this. You get enough powerful people interested in your art, and the value of your art skyrockets. Take someone like, I dunno, Basquiat let's say - there was a time when Basquiat was selling postcards in Central Park for a couple dollars. At that time, a couple dollars was all his art was worth, because that's all people were willing to pay. But he eventually caught the eye of some gallery curators, got famous, and had the good sense to die young and tragically. Now people in the art world love him! This painting, for example, was sold to a Japanese billionaire for over $110 million:
Is it worth a couple dollars? Is it worth $110 million? It's worth whatever the buyers are willing to pay for it, really, and if you or one of your artschool friends can convince a billionaire to invest in your artwork, then sure! Sell that blank canvas for thousands, or even millions. Shine on you crazy diamond.
"ART WORLD" 
