The art world is molting - some would say melting. Galleries are closing; museums are scaling back.

I love art dealers. In some ways, they're my favorite people in the art world. Really. I love that they put their money where their taste is, create their own aesthetic universes, support artists, employ people, and do all of this while letting us see art for free. Many are visionaries.

Lucian Freud's career affirms that the only thing an artist can do is remain true to whatever vision, (lack of) talent, or ideas that happened to pick them in order to be made known to the world.

Nearly a half-century on from feminism, simply being a woman artist is still a revolutionary act. And getting one's work shown continues to be met by enormous inbuilt resistance.

Kinkade estimated that one of his paintings hung in every twenty homes in America. Yet the art world unanimously ignores or reviles him. Me included.

Being critical of art is a way of showing art respect. No sports writer would say, "Well the Yankees had a great season this year." No food critic would get a bad meal and say, "Oh, it was so lovely." It always strikes me as odd when people say, "Why do you write negatively about any art?" I think that everybody has mixed feelings about everything - even Goya. I mean, I look at Rembrandt sometimes and I hear a voice in my head go, "It's pretty brown."

Recessions are hard on people, but they are not hard on Art.