People cannot be blamed for not understanding about any secret differences that exist between the meanings of eternal, infinite and perpetual. For thousands of years scholars have written complicated theories about that issue and many great thinkers were executed, imprisoned, or placed into exile for their efforts. Nonetheless, the matter has now become one of global human survival concern. Simple explanations, instead of complicated conspiracy speculations, are long overdue.

The molecule of emotion was discovered by Dr Candace Pert in 1972. Because of that discovery we can see why these secret differences have caused so much emotional chaos throughout history. The molecules evolve emotion by increasing the speed of their molecular movement. As well as evolving emotion, they also evolve the functioning of the endocrine system. This is essential for maintaining a healthy adaptation to a perpetual change of environmental reality. Platonic-Fullerene medical chemistry has now been rigorously established from the fractal logic of the ancient Greek Science for Ethical Ends. Based upon the physics principles of Sir Isaac Newton’s unpublished Heresy Papers, the new chemistry reveals the electromagnetic difference between aesthetics and ethics. The former functions within an entropic quantum mechanical environment to produce cerebral recognition of evolving survival information through the process of quantum biological entanglement.

The molecular speeding up process can be shown to be obeying a property of fractal logic belonging to the functioning of an infinite universe. Accepted modern science realises that fractal logic can extend to infinity, but it is unable to associate that process with the living process. This is because the existing general understanding of the second law of thermodynamics, now governing all accepted science, holds that all life in the universe must be destroyed when the universe descends into a thermodynamic Armageddon. Under entropic law, it is just as impossible to make a perpetual motion machine as it is to make perpetual peace on earth. Newton’s heresy was to balance mechanical decay with an evolving infinity, belonging to his infinite universe theories.

By revealing the secret confusion in society between concepts of eternity and infinity we become free from the merciless entropic yoke that has been imposed upon civilisation by entropic law.

The process of universal change is obvious, infinity becomes definable as perpetual change, while eternal religious lore imposes upon civilisation a fixed fictitious Armageddon of universal entropic death and destruction. Once again, science has been contaminated by the Church as it was when the earth was forbidden to revolve around the sun. All life sciences were forced to be only about a species moving toward total universal death and destruction for the religious objective of providing a fictitious redemption for an immortal soul deemed unfit for an infinite evolutionary purpose.

Scholars such as the 15th Century Nicholas of Cusa, tried to explain these matters about the Philosophy of the Infinite to the Vatican and developed profound mathematical theories about such matters, but he was later imprisoned and exiled for doing so. His work led on to the 18th Century electromagnetic theories of Immanuel Kant, of a God like perpetual peace on Earth. Kant’s electromagnetic ethic was banished from science, while his Aesthetics art appreciation theory went on to become the basis of Western Moral Jurisprudence Law for perpetual economic growth to sustain civilisation.

The love of beauty can be considered part of the evolutionary process and its fractal logic functioning within the cerebral functioning is now understood in terms of quantum biology. The ancient Platonic concept of Wisdom Through Beauty is considered to be an electromagnetic phenomena. It is now morally essential that WesternMoral Jurisprudence Law be rewritten to accommodate Immanuel Kant’s theories about perpetual peace. By modifying the existing moral law from its entropic disposition by exposing the secret social difference between eternal and infinite we might then be able to legally make sure that the world becomes a better, healthier place.

Professor Robert Pope ©

Truly, parenting is mankind’s greatest responsibility, expending maximum effort to nurture progeny toward greater potential and accomplishment. In this great endeavor, the wise make every effort to instill the enviable societal values of ethics, ethos, and personal productivity. The magic of music is our foremost partner. Music is the quintessence of spirituality; in fact, music is a worship medium in many church assemblies. Therefore, music cannot be separated from its uplifting qualities in mind development, pleasure, and spirituality.

Music cannot of itself make your child a genius and therefore a success outside music genre; however, mental dexterity is a consequence of musical accomplishment. Brain development, to accomplish multiple tasks, is a direct result of the dexterity necessary to read music, sense rhythm, realize tone, and to coordinate eye, foot, ear, voice, hand, arm and finger senses. Really, creating music is a little more difficult than walking and chewing gum at the same time; yet, music is one of our most natural inclinations.

Listening to music and learning to reproduce its inherent appeal gives participants the opportunity to develop different levels of appreciation for music genre and understanding for the rhythms thus developed. Through skills developed, we expand the quality of character, enlarge cell capacity for future intellect, and even command the inherence of lifelong enjoyment. Above the entrance portal of a now abandoned, for over forty years, rural school building in Oklahoma, still shines an oratorical encouragement carved in granite, “Knowledge once gained casts a light beyond its most immediate boundaries.” No more profound words could ever be carved into young student consciousness. Musical knowledge casts such a light. Parents would do well to instill these words into their own and progeny consciousness.

Fortunate indeed, is the parent who can transform the boredom of public education into the excitement of anticipated teamwork, the thrill of harmony, and to thus create a sense of school fun. Excellence in music, as with any other outstanding attribute, is not only another source of scholarship, but is far-reaching in societal interactions and career outlook. Confidence is a shining example of music influence and its accompanying need to know, to push the envelope. Thus, knowledge as an intellectual incidence emerged as contributory of music.

Music education can be a challenge in many school districts, where the focus is core academics, to the neglect of art and music. Several studies, across America, show the effect of music participation will assist students to connect with self and the world at large. Music fellowship gives children sharper skills and increased confidence and helps to master other difficult subjects, particularly mathematics. Parents should insist music be a part of curriculum. If such is out of the question, then private study is an alternative — which agency should be a part of extra curricular activity anyway.

Allegedly, Albert Einstein, a violinist, said of Special Relativity: “It occurred to me by intuition, and music was the driving force behind that intuition. My discovery was the result of musical perception.” What better accolade to music than this incentive to greatness?

Music opens opportunity to children from differing backgrounds. Schools without art and music offer an incomplete curriculum, neglecting a universal language. Music contributes literacy, numeracy, discipline, teamwork and creativity — keys to the love of learning — striking sparks of illumination from the country school portal holding those immortal words.

Clearly, music instruction result in higher test scores, in every survey. It is in incentives to knowledge and investigation where we find the great minds of science and philosophy busily engaged. Almost all are accomplished musicians. Thus, in physics, in metaphysics, in the intuition of music, we evaluate the impact and worthiness of modern religion, we find influence from music opening the mind to developed exegesis and intuition to effect new found denouement of biblical cabal.

Roads to success lie outside the rut of indolence and nonperformance — we can enrich our secular and spiritual life through adventures in music. Today is the day to enlarge your life.

The All Seeing Eye of ancient Egypt, depicted upon the Great Seal of America, represents a fractal logic concept of political Liberty that is now re-emerging into a new global understanding. The ancient concept revealed its lost mystery when the science of quantum mechanics was extended into the evolutionary life-science of quantum biology. There is now an obvious advantage that various religious denominations and secular institutions, might gain, by sharing a moderate rigorous ethical understanding of the optic principles upholding spiritual reality, existing within a holographic universe.

The ancient Mystery Schools of Babylon and Egypt shared a common denominator with other ancient Eastern philosophies, which helped bring Western Classical Greek life-science into existence. This essay focusses upon the ancient civilisations of Egypt and Greece, but it is relevant to a multitude of global spiritual aspirations, based upon that common denominator. It is namely, an intuition to employ fractal logic reasoning in spiritual matters. That intuition is now re-emerging as a fundamental aspect of the new quantum biology science of life.

During the Egyptian 1st Kingdom, geometrical knowledge was needed to resurvey boundaries of rich fertile farms, lost during the the annual flooding of the Nile. Another, separate sacred geometry existed, one that extended its logic into the infinite world of fanciful immortal Egyptian gods. During the 2nd Kingdom, this ancient fractal geometrical logic became the basis for integrating concepts of mercy, compassion and justice into Egyptian political law. When the Greek philosopher Pythagoras, went to study political ethics at the Mystery Schools of ancient Egypt, he successfully devised an experiment in harmonics, known as the Comma of Pythagoras. This aspect of the Pythagorian Music of the Spheres discoveries, associated ‘Liberty’ with the political mathematics belonging to The Eye of Horus, the All Seeing Eye.

The only geometrical logic known to extend to infinity is now recognised by science to be fractal logic. Since the 5th Century until now, the Western religious World-view prohibited any life-science to be linked to such pagan logic. This was shown to be superstitious ignorance when optical nanotechnology revealed the Platonic fractal optics to be functioning within the human DNA. The NASA High Energy Astrophysics Division has published papers arguing that the Classical Greek Era’s science of life was based upon fractal logic. The fractal concept of political liberty is depicted on the American one dollar bill, and it refers to the Comma of Pythagoras experiment. However, at the time of the drafting of the Constitution of the United States of America, a grave scientific error occurred, resulting in an unbalanced scientific confusion.

One of the founding fathers of the Constitution, Alexander Hamilton, explained this problem. He did indeed, write that Liberty was associated with physics and geometrical principles. However, the Constitution was based upon Sir Isaac Newton’s published physics principles. Newton’s unpublished Heresy papers were not discovered until last century. Sir Isaac Newton’s conviction of the existence of a “more profound natural philosophy to balance the mechanical description of the universe…”was based upon Platonic physics and mathematical principles.

The Christian Church outlawed the balanced World-view political liberty concept during the 5th Century, some thirteen hundred years before the drafting of the American Constitution, Newton’s balancing fractal World-view, now at the cutting edge of quantum biological politician science, had been omitted, leaving a confused understanding of Pythagoras’ mathematical proof, which concerned itself with human liberty within a material universe balanced by the functioning of a spiritual or holographic reality. The relevant technologies are now known to be essential prerequisites for healthy biological growth and development through space-time

During the reign of Pope Cyril of Alexandria during the 5th Century, a Christian mob burnt several centuries of fractal logic research scrolls at the Great Library of Alexandria, raping and murdering it’s custodian, the mathematician Hypatia. St Augustine, at that time, officially recorded that her fractal logic mathematics was the work of the Devil. In his book The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon wrote that Hypatia’s death marked the beginning of Western Civilisations’ Dark Ages.

Western civilisation is only now beginning to emerge from the Dark Age corruption of Plato’s spiritual optical mathematics (revised for physics by the father of optics Ibn Al Haytham during the 11th Century). That lost logic is now an indisputable component of the new Platonic-Fullerene Chemistry of fractal quantum biological medical science, now emerging throughout Europe and America. Fullerene Chemisty, is based upon the holographic engineering principles of Plato’s spiritual optics as is noted by Harvard University’s Novartis Chair, Professor Amy Edmonson, in her online essay The Fuller Explanation.

The Christian Church hierarchy, long a sworn enemy of political democracy concepts being based upon spiritual fractal logic science, has not yet relinquished its role in the corruption of such physics logic. This attitude denies open debate in the affairs of global politics. in complete contempt of the 3rd Century BC Platonic Science of Universal Love, of which the Knights Templar and later Freemasonry (rightly or wrongly) linked to the teachings of Jesus Christ, as in the Jefferson Bible, held within the American Congressional Library.

Civilisation can be seen to be still in the Christian Dark Ages, This is collaborated by the fact that Cambridge University, since 1932 up until the present time, internationally requires the basis of fundamental student Core Curriculum studies, to be linked to the essay by the philosopher F M Cornford. entitled Before and After Socrates. This essay contains the ridiculous claim that Plato can be considered to be one of the greatest fathers of the Church, when his fractal logic spiritual mathematics was cursed by St Augustine as being the work of the Devil.

To add insult to injury, Western culture forbids the linking of life science to fractal logic because 20th Century science was governed by an inadequate understanding of the second law of thermodynamics, which demands the complete destruction of all life in the universe, forbidding any Platonic fractal-life science to exist. That law, still governing modern science, was derived from the Church’s 13th Century unethical (later witch burning) policies of St Thomas Aquinas. Reverend Thomas Malthus used Aquinas’ policies as the basis of the East India Company’s ruthless economic policies, which, during the 18th Century, were cited by Charles Darwin as being synonymous with the second law of thermodynamics, now enforcing a financial Hell on Earth.

During the 1980s the Science-Art Research Centre of Australia used ancient geometrical logic to prove the existence of new life-science physics laws associated with the Pythagorean Music of the Spheres. The proof mathematics were reprinted from Italy’s leading scientific journal, Il Nuovo Cimento, as an important discovery of the 20th Century by the world’s largest technological research institute, IEEE Milestone Series in Washington. Despite that published fact, most scientists refused to consider the claim that the work was based upon the forbidden fractal life-science logic.

However, in the eminent science book, The Beauty of Fractals-Images of Complex Dynamical Systems, by H Peitgen and P Richter, a chapter about extending quantum mechanics to quantum biology is entitled Freedom, Science, and Aesthetics, written by Professor Gert Eilenberger, the Director of a German scientific institute. Within his profound article he wrote about the bridging of “rational scientific insight” with “emotional aesthetic appeal” through optical fractal logic. This appears to echo the ancient geometrical fractal reasoning of Pythagoras, when he associated the All Seeing Eye optical mathematics with the concept of political freedom.

The Church surely, is now honour bound to cease its corruption of science practices. The earth does revolve around the sun and was never the centre of the universe. Spiritual reality now refers to ethical or God-like holographic reality and we can all pay homage to the devout Christian scientists who were later punished for trying to explain about the Platonic Science of Universal Love, once taught throughout Italy during the1st Century BC, as recorded by the historian Cicero.

Professor Robert Pope © 2011

It has been observed that an inadequate understanding of the fundamental difference between aesthetics and ethics brings about an inevitable collapse of cultures. This ignorance, in part, has been forced upon the general Western populace through an illogical mixture of religious and politically organised core curriculum studies that dominate the philosophies of Western scientific culture. Spin doctoring to present illogical aesthetics as passionately held ethical beliefs, brings about an unsustainable concept of the living process, leading to social disintegration.

Because of this problem, the fate of global civilisation now hangs in the balance. Although the difference between aesthetics and ethics is now measurable, the present panic obsession with failing global economic rationalism prevents genuine investigation on this issue. However, the newly emerging chemistry of quantum biology as a medical science, is revealing the nature of the technologies needed for the healthy or ethical betterment of the global human condition.

Quantum mechanics includes the property called ‘Observer Participancy’. It is necessary for someone looking through a powerful microscope at a very small part of the fabric of the material universe to use light in order to see it. Because the light can alter the structure of the small fabric being looked at, the observer is considered to be participating in the structure of the universe. Quantum biology is about how the energies of the material universe entangle with the optics of Plato’s spiritual, or holographic reality in order for creative consciousness to evolve.

It is quite acceptable to associate ethics with this process of evolving consciousness. That idea was basic to the ancient Greek life-science called the ‘Science for Ethical Ends’, which was also associated with the 3rd Century BCE Greek ‘Science of universal Love’. Recently, a new chemistry of life was discovered, which its three Nobel laureates in Chemistry discoverers refer to as Fullerene Chemistry. Pagan Platonic ethical science is now fundamental to the discovery of their new medical science, because Buckminster Fuller derived his life-science engineering principles from it.

Harvard University’s Novatis Professor, Amy Edmonson, in her online book titled ‘A Fuller Explanation-The Synergetic Geometry of R. Buckminster Fuller’, published in 1987, explains that Fullerene chemistry is directly associated with Platonic ethics. On page 36 of her book, Professor Edmonson writes that Fuller derived his human survival mathematics from ancient Greece. On the following page is a subtitle, ‘Plato’s Discovery’ in which the ancient mathematics used by Fuller are presented in detail.

The foundation of Western culture’s ethical disposition was constructed upon the aesthetics postulated by Immanuel Kant. This can no longer be considered to be a logical concept. Several independent corrections to Kant’s logic have taken place, in which the upgrading of his ‘Aesthetics’ resulted in quantum mechanics being advanced into the quantum biology. One of the scientists who pioneered this process was the 19th Century mathematician Bernard Bolzano, considered to be one of the world’s greatest logicians.

Edmund Husserl, in his ‘Prolegomena to a pure logic’ in 1900, was familiar with Bolzano’s ‘Theory of science’, which was a correction to Kant’s ‘Aesthetics’. Bolzano’s logic led to the discovery of fractal logic ethics. The people who helped to frame 20th Century science such as Benoit Mandelbrot, Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein were quite unable to grasp Bolzano’s genius understanding about fractal ethics. Now that Bolzano’s logic is an integral part of the now accepted universal Platonic-Fullerene holographic reality, the nature of incredible new human survival technologies have become obvious.

In 1972 Dr Candace Pert discovered the Molecule of Emotion, from which the nature of the entanglement of the material universe with the spiritual holographic reality can be readily deduced. The original Western life-science was correct, ethics belongs as a force to generate healthy biological growth and development through space-time. Proof of this fact was discovered during the 1980s by the science-Art Centre in Australia. Its discovery of a life-force governing optimum biological growth and development through space-time was reprinted in 1990 from the 20th Century World literature by the world’s largest technological research institute, IEEE Milestone Series in Washington. Immanuel Kant’s ‘Aesthetics’ can only generate ethical intuitions that provide inspiration to make practical use of ethical information, generated through evolving space-time,for the betterment of the human condition.

It is now possible to realise how aesthetics can be used to create cultural chaos. For example, the aesthetics of Thanksgiving Day when families come together to celebrate family life, is an accepted inspirational concept. However, thanking a God for receiving food, when millions of inarticulate children throughout the world are starving, implies a rather unethical understanding of the Classical Greek science of universal love.

Religious politicians use aesthetic spin doctoring in order to claim that their aesthetic reasoning is the basis of fundamental ethical knowledge. An example of this is Cambridge University’s continual reprinting since 1932 of the philosopher, F M Cornford’s, essay, titled ‘Before and after Socrates’, in which Plato is considered to be one of the greatest fathers of the church. That concept remained in use as prescribed core curriculum student studies throughout the world up until the present time. It is unethical nonsense, because Platonic mathematics was outlawed by the Church, as the work of the Devil, under the governorship of Pope Cyril of Alexandria in 415, and that has never been repealed.

Copyright © Professor Robert Pope 2011

I first met Rochleigh Z. Wholfe at Freida L. Wheaton Salon 53 grand opening “Home is where the art is” and fell in love with her bold work, spirit-infused life, and clear view of art as a business.

Janet: Rochleigh, what does the “Z” stand for in your name? Not too many of those around.

RZW: “Z” stands for motivation towards receiving true information. My name was given to me based on an ancient system of astrology and numerology from one of my first spiritual mentors in Los Angeles in 1975.

THE QUESTION OF PLACE: ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI TO ASHEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA

Janet: Rochleigh, you came to St. Louis from the Washington D.C. metropolitan area in May 2005. Can you say what this time-about two and a half years-has been like for you?

RZW: Janet, my move back to St. Louis was a return…a 360 degree turn from where I began…where I was born and raised. I needed to do some ancestoral work in St. Louis and take care of my father’s estate.

However my assignment here in St. Louis is completed. My creative spirit is calling me to expand and to move out to continue my exploration of the world. I’m ready to share the gifts that I have received here in St. Louis and well as my previous gifts that I received from my experiences in graduate school at New College of California in San Francisco.

I’ve closed the book on this part of my life, and going to Asheville is opening a brand new chapter in a brand new book.

Janet: You have strong ties and feelings about St. Louis and you’ve powerfully expressed some of these in your painting “Revisioning St. Louis.” How did this painting come about and what response have you gotten from it?

RZW: This piece was in a show last year called “The Girls of Summer.” It came out of a meditative experience focused on the healing of St. Louis. Through this healing arose this healing angel who helps bring unity throughout the metropolitan St. Louis community. I see it as embracing the diverse religious, ethnic, racial, cultural groups that call St. Louis home.

Quite often the paint brush takes on a life of its own. As I am creating images, it appears I am creating one thing and when I am finished something totally different appears on the canvas. This is what happened in “Revisioning St. Louis.” I thought I was going to be painting the skyline of Downtown St. Louis with the arch in the background. That is part of the painting, but there is also Cahokia Mounds to the left and Forest Park to the right with the universal symbols arched over like a rainbow.That was not what I originally envisioned.

People asked if the angel was me or not. I said, “No, rather the angel is part of the Collective Consciousness here in St. Louis that represents our need for healing and unity.” Quite often people say they can feel the spirit in my work.

PREGNANT WITH NEW WORK: THREE VISIONARY BODIES TO BE BORN

Janet: Rochleigh, you’ve said that you feel new work coming, and some of this work may be in the form of installations. Women artists often voice this feeling as being pregnant with a body of work. Could you tell us how this feels for you and how you’ll pursue it once you get settled in your new home?

RZW: Recently I had a conversation with an artist friend in Washington D.C. Januwa Moja, a well-known textile artist who designed many of the costumes for Sweet Honey and the Rock. We spoke about what it means to be at this stage in our lives, which I refer to as “The Empress.” Women in there 40s, 50s, and 60s begin to be aware of a new power within them and we talked about Legacy Mode and what that really means for us at this time. What kind of legacy as women are we going to leave to the world? It’s a realization that not only have we have arrived at this place of power and knowing, and we take we’re involved in more seriously. That’s how I am feeling now.

I’m pregnant with three bodies of work: “Gullah Woman,” “Seven Women,” and “The Legacy of the Dress.”

A friend in Rock Hill, South Carolina just recently opened a gallery; the focus of the work in this gallery will be about women and the power and beauty that women have brought and offered to the world. She too is an artist and we have talked about working collaboratively on a show called “Gullah Woman.”

The second body of work “Seven Women” springs in part from thinking about a workshop I attended at St. Mary’s College in Oakland, California in 2003 where Barbara Ann Holmes, author of Race and Cosmology. She read a poem at the end of her presentation about a lesser-known Biblical Woman named Rispa (Samuel II) who was a concubine of Saul.

Because of Rispa’s humility, integrity and courage, she influenced the decision of a king. Rispa sat from April until October at the site where the bodies of her two sons had been left hanging and were denied proper burial by King David. Rispa sat there day and night graciously dealing with the elements, fighting the wild beasts from the air and the ground to protect the remains of her two dead sons. All she had was a sack cloth to sit on during the day to cover her at night. King David was so moved by Rispa’s dedication that he ordered her sons to be removed and given proper burial. Rispa is is one of the women who I’ll include in the installation I’m planning called “Seven Women.”

The third body of work is “The Legacy of the Dress” which could be subtitled, “If this dress could talk.” Can you imagine a dress worn by Princess Diana? Can you imagine what a dress might have felt and seen from being on the body of phenomenal women worldwide? I’m currently researching women who aren’t well-known, but have made major influences all over the world.

Janet: And to be on the verge of creating this work…how does that feel?

RZW: It’s very humbling and exciting at the same time. Whenever new creative ideas come to me that invoke critical thinking, it’s like becoming pregnant that you have to take care of this baby, this embryo, and bring it forth, bring it to life. It has to be well researched, meditated on. I have to concentrate on how I want to present these concepts to the world in a way that truly honors who these women were.

Janet: Your work is rich with African, especially Egyptian, images. Where does this come from?

RZW: I’m an initiated priestess in the Temple of Isis out of Geyserville, California and a priestess of the Temple of Het Nefer out of New York City. Since I can remember I’ve been interested in ancient cultures including India, Egypt, West Africa, and Asia.

INTERTWINING ART FORMS: LIKE A GOURMET DESSERT

Janet: You are an all-around creative person having been trained in theater and having a strong career there before plunging into painting in 2001. I also know you’re fascinated by music. How do the arts intertwine for you?

RZW: Janet, that is one of the main goals of the work that I am doing now: to incorporate and bring together all these disciplines within my work. After being in theater for 25 years and working with world-class jazz musicians, I find that each genre its own special gifts to offer.

When they are intertwined, it is like receiving a gourmet dessert.

I’ve done this incorporation on a small scale with pieces I’ve performed. But the one I feel I’ve had the most success with to date is my “Chautaqua: My Name is Harriet.” The three faces of courage, integrity, and grace. This piece is about Harriet Tubman, Harriet Jacobs, and Harriet Powers. It was presented at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. in 2004. It included 8 original paintings, and my performance portraying all three Harriets. I wrote, directed, and performed the show.

CAREER ADVICE FOR EMERGING ARTISTS BUILDING CAREERS

Janet: You’re extremely active and effective at building your career. Some of this has been good timing and connections like the story you told me about a friend of yours who is a docent at the Smithsonian Museum who referred you to just the right person at just the right moment that led to your presentation of “My Name is Harriet.” But I know there’s also an enormous amount of effort and strategy involved. What advice do you have for emerging artists as they find a way to make their work more visible?

RZW: First of all they need to have a clear idea of where it is they want to go. And then get your name out there. Then, strategically, get you work into galleries where your work can be seen by those who can help make a difference in your career. I suggest that you do as many shows and exhibits as possible in major art cities.

Read as much as you can about the business of art. Art is a business. You have to understand this. Some refer to it as “The Industrial Arts Complex.” This came home to me last December in Miami, Florida, at Art Basel, the most prestigious art event in the USA. Four hundred million dollars worth of art was sold in three days. Artists were being represented from all over the world by top galleries who paid fifty thousand dollars per booth for the privilege of displaying the work of the artists they represented.

I believe that it’s important to follow the careers of recently successful contemporary artists such as Julie Mehrtu, Kerry James Marshall, and Kara Walker. These three African-American artists have been awarded the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship. This demonstrates that the art world has become more open and receptive of innovative contemporary African-American artists. A small work of Julie Mehrtu’s recently was sold and appraised for $850,000. She has only been in the public eye for around 15 years or less.

Second, you must believe in yourself. And know what you have to offer is of great value. You must do whatever you need to expand and enhance your skills. That is a lifetime journey.