I think a sincere desire to honor both Nimoy with the memorial, and to honor the fans who helped make Nimoy who he was as an actor, as they made the portrait of him, was a rather brilliant and good thought. It didn’t have to be high art. It was just kind.
As for art for the artists, I rather like that art isn’t confined to those who can get approval to be in museums or galleries. I love that people have tools to express their visions. As for the viewers, Google images sure makes it easy to sort through all the visions of all the people and pull out to enjoy just the individual, unapproved images that just hit something right inside you.
I was forced into one quarter of Bosch and Bruegel by my advisor, an expert in those artists, and I suffered that quarter. I’d much rather choose some of the amateur Trek artists’ work over seeing those two acclaimed artists every day for 3 months.
I don’t limit myself to art in galleries. Today, galleries only select non objective art and usually with a anti religious or anti establishment content message.
But, having an open mind to amateur artists does not require one to listen to every clumsy high schooler playing (or attempting to play) Stairway to Heaven, even if he is well motivated.
If Shattner had offered some tiny element of originality I would not have made the comment.