You've been worrying about this for a while. (Not sure how long, but you've definitely mentioned this before.) Perhaps your angst on this issue would be better resolved not by asking yourself whether or not what you do is "art" or "craft" but why it matters so much to you that it be one and not the other. What's so wrong about being a manufacturer?
Or, alternately, make your own definitions for art and craft so that you can land firmly in the realm of art, regardless of what it feels like when you're doing it. When I write I just put one word after another, and after a while it sure feels like I'm just writing to hear myself type. It's very tedious to build a book one word at a time, but that's how it's done, very much like manufacturing (first you do this, then you do this, blah blah blah). The story is the art, the writing is the craft. How about this: a book does not possess a soul until it is done, much like your masks. Up until it is finished, it is just a thing we do. When it is complete, it lives on its own, independent of you and me, of our minds and thoughts and what we intended. It's free. The moment of releasing it into the world is what we work for, what we strive to do as we go through the rote manufacturing process. Without you, it will never be born. Even when manufacturing, we are holding it to our faces and breathing into it, and giving it life.
no subject
Or, alternately, make your own definitions for art and craft so that you can land firmly in the realm of art, regardless of what it feels like when you're doing it. When I write I just put one word after another, and after a while it sure feels like I'm just writing to hear myself type. It's very tedious to build a book one word at a time, but that's how it's done, very much like manufacturing (first you do this, then you do this, blah blah blah). The story is the art, the writing is the craft. How about this: a book does not possess a soul until it is done, much like your masks. Up until it is finished, it is just a thing we do. When it is complete, it lives on its own, independent of you and me, of our minds and thoughts and what we intended. It's free. The moment of releasing it into the world is what we work for, what we strive to do as we go through the rote manufacturing process. Without you, it will never be born. Even when manufacturing, we are holding it to our faces and breathing into it, and giving it life.
/ramble