withmunicipalprogramcoordinatorsandbureaucratsS.-4 learnedabout the of publiclyfunded art, and the bureaucracyinvolved pitfalls creating with puttingthe workon the wall. He learnedto workwithin bureaucrat- icallycrafteddefinitionsof communitythat did not necessarilyserveall membersof the community.He also had to deal with the fact that cre- ative was often subordinatedto fundingrequirementsin these expression of S-4 learnedto adapthis skillsand his creativitywhile at types projects. school. He was able to negotiate the politics of community-basedand publicart.
J-5'sattitudetowardthe artworldwasmoreremovedthanthatof the other He did not want to be presentduringpublic scrutiny participants. of his work,so was a satisfyingvehiclefor anonymouslyexhibiting graffiti his art. He was involved with the Keith Haring exhibition at the Art
Galleryof Ontario,anexperiencethatseemedto confirmhisperception thatartinstitutionsareremovedfromwhatis reallyhappeningwithinthe city. He found that the people inside the galleryknew very little about artistsoutsidethe galleryor how theyworked.As a visitingartistin the school system,he was surprisedto discoverhow little informationadoles- centshadabouttheworldoutsidetheirschools.He thoughtthatyoung studentsshouldlearnaboutdiverse,alternativeapproachesto art,someof which be outside the mainstream. followedhis own path and might J-5 wasnot interestedin subculturegatheringsandconnections.
P-6 embracedthe art world with some skepticism.Like R-1, he was concernedabouttheelitism,superficialitya,ndinaccessibilitythattheart worldrepresentedto groupsof peoplewho did not haveformalarttrain- ing. He claimedthat artshouldconnectwith peopleon manylevels,and that some art be understandableoutside the gallerycontext. He realized that much of his college-obtainedknowledgeregardingapproachesto art wouldbe understoodonlywithinthe artworld,andnot be accessibleto the public. P-6 intended to addressthese concernsby creatingart that could be understoodby people from a varietyof culturesand socioeco- nomic backgrounds.
A PublicAudience Severalinterviewquestionsin the studyaddressedthe issueof the audi- ence.Thesequestionsweredirectlyinfluencedby Becker's(1996) investi- gation of art students and their perceptionsof an audience. Beckers's mainconcernwasthatyoungartistsdonotconsidertheeffectstheirwork have when viewed by others nor do they understandthe consequences possiblewhen individualsdo not understandthe contextsof the works. She found that studentswere not preparedfor the dialoguethat occurs when showingworkin the publicdomain.