This should help settle the art vs. craft debate

[LatakiaLover]

First, listen to this. An excellent example of craftsman-like performance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWsO41YkYpY


Then, listen to an ARTISTIC performance of exactly the same song, played in the same key, at the same tempo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsgMbxy ... e=youtu.be


The difference is reasonably easy for the trained ear to detect, and even possible for an un-trained listener with a bit of concentration.

[wdteipen]

I had to really concentrate to hear the difference but I finally got it. So, now that I can clearly see the difference between craft and art, your example raises other questions; especially and more specifically what defines good and bad art.

[RobEsArt]

That was hilarious George.

Wayne,
Taste defines good or bad art.

Immanuel Kant believed in the objectivity of taste as a principle or potential, and he postulated his belief on what he called a sensus communis, a sense or faculty that all human beings exercised similarly in esthetic experience. [Greenberg]

[scotties22]

Heath just cruised past the computer shaking his head. "This is STILL being talked about?"

Then he says this:

"A craftsman is someone who is capable of a task. An artist is someone who has mastered the task. "

His example:

"Anybody can learn to sell cars (become a car sales craftsman). When you walk onto a car lot and meet a car sales artist you KNOW IT. The craftsman must learn the task. An artist just knows how to do it...they were born with the ability."

[d.huber]

I'm visiting family in Minneapolis right now and yesterday we went for coffee with a few of my Father -in-law's friends. I started up this conversation for fun and we spent a few hours talking about it.

The gem of the conversation for me was an illustration of art and craft as being a continuum. If we chart this on a straight line with one end as neither craft nor art and the other end as the highest art attainable the question was posed, "where along this line does art occur?"

Everyone chooses a place on this line where something becomes art to them. For some, this all occurs much later than for others, yet, as we get closer to the high art end, the number of people whose threshold we haven't passed gets smaller and smaller. Heading the other direction, the audience who accepts a lower threshold gets larger and larger.

I really like the illustration because it can be so widely applied and effectively explains the myriad thoughts and opinions out there.

[Sasquatch]

Okay, first, fuck you George, for further damaging my already damaged ears. I may never be right now. That was a dirty trick (and I hope everyone else falls for it too!).

Scottie, I'm not sure I buy Heath's definition.

I build lots of fences. I've probably built 10,000 feet of fence in this life. I have a method, tools, experience. I'm the fence master. Not one person in the world builds a fence better than me because it can't be done. Laser straight, last forever. Concrete in every hole and a hole for all the concrete. General Fencissimo they call me. And I'll tell you one thing: it ain't art. Not even close. It's goddam hard work, mostly, and I'm a real fussy little bitch on the level. Everyone who works with me on fences hates me. It's just performing a task to a certain competency, and following a certain tried-and-true method. I invented none of the techniques or tools I use. It means nothing to me but a paycheck. (The guy I use for Bobcat service..... he's an artist in that machine...but I bet he doesn't see it that way - just super duper competent) There is no creative process. There is a check for the slope of the land. There is not a visceral "I... felt I had to make that, for humanity..." Nothing. There is screws. 3500 of 'em sometimes. Drills that have to be swapped out for the heat. Assembly, panel by panel.

I have mastered building wooden decks. I mean, it's a thing where if homeowners leave me alone, I'll for sure 100% build a better product than if they interfere in any way other than to tell me where they want the stairs and how wide they want them. I am the deck guru, head Kahuna, and General. I make good carpenters look like hacks and bad carpenters look like mentally handicapped children with tools.

It's STILL not art though, it's just a deck. A nice one. I think you could MAKE it art, or artier, if you start saying "okay the garden goes here, the little bridge over the pond goes HERE, and then we'll connect this at THAT angle, and bring the color of the cedar into the railing..." Creative process with an aesthetic goal.

Pipes move into that kind of territory, for most of us, and I think most of us feel that it's those things that make art arty rather than crafty or tasky. Interestingly, pipes are my "arty" venture, the rest of my day being made up of trying to correctly measure cuts on drywall or order the right amount of studs for any particular set of walls. Even more interestingly, Ernie Markle told me he sees me more as a craftsman of pipes than an artist, per se*, and I didn't disagree with him, although I can also see that as being a subjective judgment, based on one's own level of .... well, what, artisanship? Circular reasoning here.

So I think I agree about the concept of a sort of line, with maybe machine-like production on one end, and pure aesthetics on the other, and most of what we and other artists or artisans if you prefer do is somewhere on that line. One could probably plot on a number of axes: technical difficulty, subjective appeal, intent, mastery of craft, etc, and plot out people in different areas.





*Ernie's actual words were more like "Wow, you're such a hack I can't believe anybody buys your pipes. One born every minute I guess. Oh and quit creeping my wife on facebook, we'll get a restraining order if we have to, and sue your fucking ass off to boot." But he meant it in a brotherly I reckon.

[scotties22]

It isn't the fence that is art....rather the process you use to install the fence.

- Heath

[Sasquatch]

No, see, that's "craft". That's craftsmanship. That's simply knowing a set of rules that leads to acceptable product. I am, in fact, nothing more than an organic fence-building machine. That's not art in any way. My product is not fundamentally different than a product made by a giant alien fence-building spacecraft (you could take this further, and imagine a craft that left perfect fences as a by-product of it's combustion, and anywhere it landed, it left 50 feet of perfect fence purely as "ash"). I just happen to be able to direct my machinery a little more accurately than such a machine. It is craft in it's purest form, artless because it is without meaning to me, or anyone else. No emotional content, no real aesthetic content - "Wow, that's really level." is not praise for art.

To address Heath's comment directly: "Wow, you really have a nice method" is also not praise for art. If someone painted a picture and you said that to them, they'd bash you over the head. "Wow, your really hold that brush right." "What?"

[wdteipen]

Today a coworker said to me, "Hey, I didn't know you were an artist. Someone showed me your website. (yadda, yadda, yadda)"

So I guess it turns out I am an artist to someone if not you jerks. That's good enough for me.

[Literaryworkshop]

An excellent billiard is craft.

An excellent blowfish is art.

[LatakiaLover]

An excellent billiard is craft.

An excellent blowfish is art.

OOOOoooooooo... you just stepped in it, I think.