1. Again, the professor of horse anatomy line was more of a snarky joke than anything. If you think learning the anatomy is important, than anatomy is important to you when it comes to art, nothing wrong with that but it’s still subjective. I think his ponies are passable, but some people don’t, neither are wrong in this assessment.
    
2. Unfortunately in some way those hack jobs who sell blank canvases to rich pretentious idiots are producing art, it’s horrid and low effort, but it has a message and until the art elites recognize it for what it is, low effort garbage, we’re going to continue seeing buckets of feces being presented as some sort of grand achievement.
    
3. Fair points, I wasn’t saying getting in a comfort zone was good, it’s just what people tend to do it is all and I can excuse it. As I said, I think creativity is more about making something you want to make, and if an artist doesn’t think he needs to learn to do something to express their creativity, then they simply won’t.
    
4. Ultimately it is impossible to not be limited, it’s good to be optimistic and learn as much as possible, but art in all its forms is so multifaceted that its a fools errand thinking you could learn all of it. Following professional artist and reading books is all a good way of learning what somebody has already done, but I think there is value in happy accidents and an artist who is too critical of their own art and constantly correct it to be more in line with reality and others expectations could be snuffing out what’s really on their mind.

a professor in horse anatomy

The basics to art is you have to make something, that’s it

We don’t say a guitarist will stagnate if he doesn’t learn the drums, we don’t say an architect’s will stagnate unless she learns the ins and outs of Greek architecture, simply knowing how to do more things doesn’t improve your creativity, it may even impede it.

A working artist tends to be good at making one thing really good, they’re like actors in that all of them have a limited range unless they’re some sort of prodigy amongst men.