PA’s note:  from the lovely and wise consultingpiskies:

From the great Robert Shaw (longtime director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus and champion of the amateur):

To be an amateur artist means, I suppose, to be unwilling or unable to set a price upon the effort and love which attends the creation of beauty. When you get right down to it, to be an artist is to be an amateur. One can no more think of being a professional musician than he can of being a professional person. To be an artist is to arrive at some sort of resolution of the mind and matter struggle. It’s a yea to the proposition that there are ideal human values lasting beyond one’s own mortal limits, and that it is a necessary part of being human to seek, enjoy and transmit these values. To be an artist is not the privilege of a few but the necessity of us all.

And also from him. Included because I would love to eradicate every derogatory connotation of the word amateur:

The word “amateur” comes to us from the Latin amo, amoris—the English equivalent which is L-O-V-E—and am-a-tor: one who loves.

Mr. Shaw was from a different discipline, but I believe his words hold true for visual artists and writers as well, and particular those involved with fandoms. What else are we but “ones who love”? We are amateurs in a truly wonderful sense, and it is a title I wear proudly.