Let me first tell you that you are the BEST art website on the internet. I love every part of your website and I visit it often for inspiration, knowledge, empowerment and critique. I am a figurative realist painter that studied in a State institution. Even though I studied under Julie Heffernan (not quite a typical classical painter but she expands in another different direction from realism), and Robert Yarber who had respect for the classics I really don't feel like there was much support for me to study naturalism and realism in traditional art. They were at least the good professors. The rest of my professors were more amused by people drawing with spit on a wall than what I was doing. I even looked into going to an academy following college and it was terribly refuted by my professors. All that brainwashing has had a terrible effect on me even to this day. I am still afraid of treading on past artists for the fear of being derivative. I have come a long way and I feel that I am beginning to embrace my spirit as a painter. Your website is very inspiring to me because of this struggle. Thank you. You are wonderful people for doing so. [...] Thank you again for making a difference in this world.
Sincerely,
Eric Armusik
