Arch,

I have many thoughts on this topic, but I'll share two.

A friend of mine and a fellow woodturner often gets his pieces
published in Fine Woodworking, Woodturning, and Woodworks magazines.
When I first started turning I thought to myself that he has reached
that "artist" plateau. I finally asked him about it and his comment
was refreshing and frank: You don't have to turn particularly
excellent pieces, but you do have to take good pictures. So is an
artist in the eye of the camera?

Christian Burchard was in San Diego a couple of weeks ago for a club
demo and a one-day class. I took the class and spent about an hour
with him discussing my work and my ideas for future pieces. For every
idea he asked my, "Why do you want to do that?" I have to admit that
my answer, more often than not was something like, "Because it looks
fun" or "Because I can." In other words, my motivation was about the
process, not the end result. Call that craft. On one idea, however,
he was really excited because I was talking in terms of what the
pieces might represent and what they meant to me. In so many words,
he told me that this was art.

Based upon this, I agree with Arch. Craft is more about process and
art is more about result. However, I believe that a good or great
artist makes the best use of process to accomplish their vision.

Joe Fleming - San Diego
proficient craftsman, emerging artist?
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(Arch) wrote in message ...
My daughter is a professional artist and she is paid surprisingly high
(it seems to her dad 'G') prices for her paintings by international
clients. She seems to pay little attention to the 'tools of her trade'
while I spend hours thinking about, trying out and agonizing over
turning stock, equipment and turning techniques. She is a success as an
artist, I'm a journeyman.

Things concerned with the making seem more important to me than the
objects I make. I guess that means that woodturning is a hobby for me,
but is this also true for workers in other media where art resides in an
object? If art is in an object, craft must, of necessity, be involved.
Unlike music, poetry, and painting, wood art demands that an object be
made; Utilitarian or not; no object, no object of art.

Embellishing by adding something not natural to the wood and/or
ornamenting with coves, beads and such are part of crafting an object of
wood art. How much or if any, of each is a world class FAQ, but it has
no answer. The old adage: "Ornament the construction, don't construct
the ornament" is sound advice, but hard to follow in actual practice.

If I aspire to be a wood artist as well as a wood turner must I learn to
execute, in depth, all the techniques needed to turn wood before I
attempt to turn wood art? It seems obvious that there can be no mutual
exclusion of either, but to some extent does an excess of one endeavor
tend to diminish the other? Ain't I artful?

Yep, I know this is beating a dead art/craft horse, but one hasn't been
beaten on the ng all week and there are early signs of irritation and
other withdrawal symptoms on rcw. My musing is a bad tasting antidote,
but hopefully it's palliative.

Turn to Safety, Arch

Fortiter,


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