From the Betty Page obit thread, speaking of pinup pictures such as Betty was famous for: "The need to keep the pretence up that these things were art really did give them a kind of innocence..."

Where do you draw the boundaries of "art"? I wouldn't consider those pinups to be "great art"; actually, I had never given a moments thought as to whether to define them as art or not. Now I begin to think this is just about as loaded as "what is folk". The time was when most "artists" insisted that no photography could be considered to be art.

If one could say for a fact that no pinup photographer has ever felt any motivation whatever apart from producing something marketable, that might remove them totally from the definition of art in my mind. But, let him once say "there, that's beautiful" sincerely when working with a model...

I've been referred to a "one artist with a taste for the bizzare" in a local paper, and introduced once as "a wildly creative artist". I do some things which I give myself credit for as decent quality art, and some things which I just do for a little fun .

How do you distinguish art from non-art?
                     Dean