Joanie,
I have nothing against craftsmen (or women) in fact I am often the first to look a piece of work and comment that there is very little craftsmanship left in the world today. Once craftsmen had pride in their work and studied as apprentices for years to be able to call themselves such. But alas, the days of the guilds are long gone, replaced by the very same thing that now makes our silver tarnish. Imagine those days, when silver never tarnished and people took pride in their work, when being called a craftsman really meant something.
But our idea of crafts has changed due largely to the art and craft shows. Potholders, cutting boards, walking puppets, wind chimes, wooden trains and cars, needlepoint, and dollar trinkets fill these shows now mixed with a few scattered actual artists. Yes, we have come to separate craft from art mainly because of quality VS quantity.
Now the artists tend to sway towards Pottery and Glass shows, Art shows, Bonsai shows, and such while the crafters tend to still frequent the craft shows.
This separation started long ago and the debates then were as they are now, craft VS art, art VS craft, artisan VS craftsman, etc. I never started this debate; it was way before our time or our grandparent’s time. But I do know why it was started, the artists needed the separation, the quality need to be defined, a higher standard needed to be set, after all we couldn't have the man in the alley making sculpture out of crap and straw calling himself a craftsman with the man painting the ceiling in the church, surely there is a difference?
So what’s the difference? What defines the line between art and craft?
An artist carves a one of a kind sculpture; a crafter makes a mold of it and pours duplicates of the art. However, if the copy is then hand painted then the craft can very well turn into an art, if the talent shows, if the soul is there. An artist paints a scene that grabs you, touches you, captures you; a crafter copies it (maybe even on velvet). An artist shapes a tree to resemble an idealized tree in nature on a much smaller scale; a crafter grows a tree in a pot.
Personally, I will continue to enter my bonsai in bonsai shows, I’ll leave the craft shows for others. I will continue to style my trees with art, not craft in mind. I will continue to strive for the higher and not be content with the lower.
I see art in
accents. I see art in
bonsai. I see art in the pots, in the stands, in the scrolls, in the soil particles, in the way the wind whips my Willow and bends my pines. Everywhere I look I see art in bonsai, sometimes I wonder if I am gifted with special sight that enables me to see what others cannot or if I am actually blind to what others see.
Whispers…….. “I see art.”
Will Heath