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,