ART = Everything

Had a chat with a photographer friend of mine today - he reported that he was getting mixed responses to his online work.... He's a big fan of black and white photos, in digital, but no photo editing. Anyhoo, the online audience seemed to have a greater preference for his colour photography over the b+w photos....
I recently wrote a Note about this on Facebook - the public will often see me working in pencil, or see a showing of pencil compositions, and ask if I work in colour as well. Interestingly enough, they see the colour work and prefer the 'greyscale' stuff instead.
In photography, people expect to see photo-realistic imagery perhaps enhanced digitally, and of course, the colours can be tweaked or left for Mother Nature to decide. In my genre, and in my own personal tastes, any colour work is often 2D and flat, like a cartoon, without a lot of colour mixing.
I think for most of the public, when they think of a composition in colour, (or asking for a portrait) they're thinking of a photo-realistic image and colouring - and yes, for the majority that I have asked, that is exactly what they're thinking of.
The trends in the media and modern society have started to blend the lines between the different mediums and techniques not only in the art world but also in the design world. While it is one thing for a designer to call themselves an artist (as a musician, dancer, poet, writer would also do) it is another thing for an artist to call themselves a designer (or a musician, dancer, poet or writer.) As a result, the lay-public now have a belief that as an artist, I am capable of rendering any form of art in any medium with any result.
If the art industry is currently suffering a trend of 'bad' art investing and purchasing, perhaps it is partly due to the social desire to call everything 'art' and thus removing significance from the different arenas AND the skills and disciplines of those arenas. If you throw everything under the one banner in the one basket, no one will ever be able to say that there was a skill or discipline involved. And art itself will become pinned to the fridge with a magnet.