Only a bad artist thinks he has a good idea. A good artist does not need anything.
We all name ourselves. We call ourselves artists. Nobody asks us. Nobody says you are or you aren't.
The only and one way to say what abstract art or art-as-art is, is to say what it is not.
As for a picture, if it isn't worth a thousand words, the hell with it.
Art is art. Everything else is everything else.
Now almost every artist outside of New York is connected with some school or some museum school, and even in New York the majority are. That's an interesting fact when you take the idea of making money, making a living selling paintings. Only a dozen or two painters do that.