This is in response to Professor Jed Jackson’s letter defending Michael Beam’s obvious lack of talent, taste and academic advisement illustrated by doing little more than adding that special something omitted by the original.

His claim legitimizes making art by merely adding restroom graffiti as being perfectly normal. Professor Jackson should be more concerned with teaching Beam a marketable skill rather than practicing law by suggesting that Beam hide behind the First Amendment.

Beam’s work leaves me wondering about his inspiration. Was it a deeper, mystical vision? A true insight? Was it that since the genitals were not more artistically presented, we should be made more aware of Mauldin’s oversights in the original? My guess is that he thought to himself:Hey, I’ll borrow someone else’s work (lack of originality), play a juvenile prank, show that I can use design equipment, make my statement (duh), submit it for a grade and then hide behind my professors.

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Although I agree with Professor Jackson’s claim that this poor excuse for a doormat is protected under the Constitution, it’s only because I can’t argue that its message is inflammatory speech.

The only messages that I got from the work were that the artist had no real message and is simply not talented enough to produce an original piece worthy of some patron’s hard-earned money.

The public must answer two important questions. Would you pay good money for this work and let it hang on your wall? Why are your taxes squandered to instructors and programs that do not produce people able to support themselves by using their gifts? We consumers are the ultimate critics and I know my taxes have been grossly misappropriated.

As a suggestion, the School of Art and Design should clean its house and maybe start adopting the drawing test found in many magazines (Can you draw me?) as a prerequisite for enrollment. There are too many starving artists out there, so maybe Beam should take Clinical Anatomy and quit looking for inspiration on the restroom wall. Sadly, he could end up a poet and not know it.