It is clear that we have inherited a conception of art as something removed from other
forms of social activity. Art is seen as the antithesis of work. It is mythologized as an
oasis of creativity in the desert of alienated mass-production capitalism. It is idealized as
the inspired product of a few gifted and privileged people, constructed on we know not
what principles and existing in a kind of other-worldly limbo. It is credited with the
ability to transcend the “real world”… (Barrett 309)