Arch,
You've again created a post of genius. I did a quick search for a definition of an artist and here is what I found:
# a person whose creative work shows sensitivity and imagination wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
# The definition of an artist is wide-ranging and covers a broad spectrum of activities to do with creating art, practising the arts and/or demonstrating an art. Debate, both historical and present day, suggests that defining the concept of an artist will continue to be difficult. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artist
# The performer or performing group on a recording.
# "Artist" means a practitioner in the arts, generally recognized as a professional by critics and peers, who produces works of art and who is not the architect or an employee of the architectural firm retained by the contracting agency.[1989, c. 912, §2 (amd).] janus.state.me.us/legis/statutes/27/title27sec452.html
# A practicing fine artist who is not necessarily a resident of the Kansas City metro area. Generally recognized by critics and peers as a professional of serious intent and ability .The artist may not be a member of the project architectural firm.
# Person who creates an aesthetic work or works in a performing art.
Most of these definition point to the aesthetic appeal of an object someone has created and the perceptions others have about that object. I'll interject a bit of religion here (for those of us who believe in God), isn't the truly beautiful pieces we "create" only beautiful because of what the wood itself looks like? Can the so called "artist" take credit for the colors, grain, or any other natural aspect of the wood that we use as a medium to create the objects we turn? Many of the pieces I've seen that are so beautiful only showed me what was hidden inside the bark. They exposed the patterns that God placed inside the tree, the burl that was fully of beautiful voids and character, the pinks, reds, and purples of the plum tree that didn't come from the fruit itself, the spalted lines in the maple that appear to have been intriguingly drawn into the object.
So I ask, who can take credit for this beauty? The "artist"? I think not.
I enjoy selling my pieces, but most of all I enjoy seeing what beauty nature (God) has created inside that block of firewood. I turn as a means of relaxing and removing myself from the stress of the world. Others may have called my work "art", but I choose not to.
That is just my perception and take on the topic. You can agree or disagree, that is your God given right, and I respect you for it.
I'd make the statement that Arch has the ability of a word artist in his ability to post such intriguing and thought provoking thoughts to rcw.
JD