The defining of art or craft is one that in todays society is very difficult at pinning down. The lines between the two have been severely blurred and smudged into two distinct thing nearly becoming one. So in todays society what is the best way to put the two in to the two different categories that they deserve? I recently interviewed a college student, Kenny Scarberry, and working artist on this subject in order to help more aptly apply a category to each.
Kenny contends that, “Art is the ability to transform beauty from what is seen to what can be re-seen and enjoyed in a non conventional way.” We can see that this holds true in any art piece created, we transform and translate beauty into some thing tangible, that can be seen (possibly interacted with) with some sort of implications that make it enjoyable. Likewise he contends ,“that craft is the process of making art,” adding that only once the piece is finished does it become art. Craft as we can see through this example is just the process of making with no sort of implications or meaning behind it as there would be once the piece is completed.
So with this what is the defining difference between an artist and a craftsman? Kenny comments that, “ a crafter would make something for only an absolute purpose (used) while an artist could create something to be observed.” These differences however narrow and sparse ring quite true; when someone makes a quilt it is meant to warm you in the cold but when someone makes a dress out of bible pages it is obviously not meant to be worn as in the conventional way but the intentions and meanings of the artist is allowed to shine through through observation. Of course the way we view these things (art and craft) is effected through these differences; Kenny claims that all these differences contribute to how they are viewed through “subject matter and medium.” Therefore, we can see that if the form created is used for an “absolute purpose” or to be merely observed and depending on the material used and the subject matter we can classify something as art or merely a craft.
Craft or art do we hold one in higher esteem than the other. One might say societally we think of art as quite prestigious and look highly at artists and think of craft as ships in a bottle and in most persons minds they would be correct in these generalizations. Kenny though, believes that there is no true distinction between the two he holds that, “ he doesn't draw a line between an artist or craftsman because when we study all artists of old we see that they were all craftsmen in their own right until they were deemed artists.” Following it up with, “Society has a strange view of arts and craft, if the public understands it it is usually considered craft while if the public does not understand it is considered an art.”
Art we can say is determined by a strict series of intentional decisions determined by the artist with a value applied. Craft likewise is a skill of just doing to reach a specific goal of completion. Da Vinci once said that “ Art is never finished it is just given up.” Kenny similarly has a value that matches up saying that, “to an artist the work is never finished because they can always see room for improvement to their piece.” This is a strict contradiction between the two, and possibly most defining of the differences. The attitudes of the end result specifically help round each subject into more well defined categories.
With these differences, especially with craft being an absolute purpose and an art being for viewing pleasure, and the fact that true art is never ending help each category form into a more defined shape. The line between the two is still ever cloudy with the ever marching forward of contemporary arts tendencies to use crafting techniques in their works, but with these more defined areas we can distinguish each from the other, art or craft, with much more ease.
