Famous artist in the house

Celebrated LA visual artist Synthia Saint James spoke yesterday in Washington State University. Doctor St. James was sporting one of her many Chinese silk jackets: this one was  a lovely turquoise blue with rich embroidery.  Great painter with an impeccable instinct for shape and color, she is also a uber-ninja of self-promotion. Excited public went "awww" after every announcement of her next progressively humanitarian and socially important project. It's funny how being in a spirit of doing good and making positive change in the world makes an artist unmistakably trendy.

I am sure that she's a perfectly nice lady and I know that she is an exceptionally talented artist with bold, unique vision, but I couldn't help but wonder: is she ever do something that wasn't aiming for Nobel peace prize? And does any speaker needs to be presented not by one, not two, but three people?And it wasn't helping that everybody, including people in the documentary they shown us, spoke about Ms. St James achievements in terms of quantity: she created this many book covers, made this and that many projects, won this and that award etc. And what with all the name-dropping: starting with people and ending with countries? Maybe I shouldn't be that sarcastic, but instead learn how to do marketing from a real master.