Are we Artists or are we Craftsmen?

I recently had a debate with one of my friends, who is soon to have a Masters in spatial arts, regarding whether or not our little hobby (read: obsession) of building and painting tiny toy soldiers is a form of art or a form of craft.

He argues that a work of art is only 'art' when it is solely intended for beauty, contemplation, or enlightenment while serving as little mechanical or social function as possible. Craft, however, is art which serves a mechanical or social function such as jewelry, gold plated tongs, etc.

Granted, his definition of art essentially removes all things which we call art from their present grouping and lumps them all together in 'craft', so we will ignore that bit.

I was searching CMON for some inspiration and found a plethora of models which are not intended to see play; they are merely objects meant to sit in a case and be pretty. Therefore, I would argue, that miniature painting can be a form of art even though the vast majority would craft.

Miniatures, for the most part, are craft because most hobbyists attempt to replicate existing paint schemes and do not sculpt their own models or create new techniques. Hobbyists tend to use quick and easy techniques which, while they do look good, are still often referred to as a 'quick and dirty job'.

Speaking of dirty jobs, I recently watched an episode of Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe. He was in a mannequin factory and they had a segment which showed how the the faces are painted to simulate make-up. There was a wall of originals, each created by the designer or mannequin artists to go with a certain body, but most were copies of make-up from magazines that was popular at the time. The technicians in the make-up room grab an original off the wall and paint the new head to match the original. They look great in the end, but it is just a knock-off of a knock-off.

With the plethora of pictures of models floating about the internet, it is hard to actually create something original without taking ideas or techniques from other people. It feels to me that with the expansion of digital thought, we start making a knock-off of a knock-off of a knock-off.

Then I look at each year's Golden Daemon winners or models which won gold at various RT or independent tournaments around the world and see models which simply blow my head off. There are miniatures which are unlike any other and are usually entirely unique.

In all honesty, I'm not quite sure where I stand in all of this.

Words to elevate you from being a chimp:
nympholepst: N. A frenzy of emotion, as for something unattainable.
teem: V. To abound or swarm; be prolific or fertile.