The plastic arts are the materialisation of thought and feeling, united by whatever two- or three-dimensional basic material the artist chooses to work with. Unlike painting and sculpture- art forms that saw a break away from the stigma of manual labour during the Renaissance period, placing the status of the artist on a par with that of the intellectual- medals are still considered an inferior art form, more a product of craft-work than a vehicle for the expression of aesthetic thought and feeling, capable of making its own social statement.
Evidently this is not a question of the size of a medal - quite the opposite. It is quality, not quantity, that is of the essence here. What counts in medal-making is the relationship between the product itself and its public in the wider sense of the word. In other words, it is a question of taste, which is itself steeped in and influenced by the history of art and the development of ideas and aesthetics.
Having thought a great deal about this, both as an artist and a theorist, I have come to the conclusion that the problem lies in the lack of theoretical reflection regarding medals, a lack that exists despite the existence of medal-making as one of many valid artistic genres within the plastic arts. Although integrally connected to its sister forms - painting and sculpture - it is still very much the poor relation, the Cinderella of the visual arts.

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