It's hard to define art, IMO, since all of it is so subjective.
One definition I heard is that "art" is a personal reflection using a creative medium, whereas a "craft" is a creative interpretation for someone else.
For example, most making of furniture is a craft because most of it is designed with a customer in mind (a chair was deisgned for people to sit, a table so they could eat at). Whereas Van Gogh painted pictures mainly as an expression of himself, rather than painting something for a customer. Which is why he only sold two paintings in his life.
Tattooists, IMO, are doing a craft, because they're creating something to a customer's specifications. Sure, there are tattooists who do "body art" for exhibitions, but these are few.
Even if tattooing is a craft, this doesn't reduce the substance of the work. A craft still has a lot of creative expression -- in some cases more so that art does. But people have got to eat, so they've got to sell something.
After her divorce, my mother used to date an artist. He did both artwork and craftwork. His craftwork included doing sculptures of Warner Brothers cartoon characters (Tweety, Duffy Duck) for Movie World on the Gold Coast here in Queensland. His artwork included these amazing Venus De Milo-like sculptures that were naked bodies with different sexual conitations. One statue had a phallic-looking tap instead of genitals. Another had female genitals all over her body (arms, chest, face). It's was pretty confronting stuff, but very cool stuff. But they didn't sell very well. I mean, the type of people with the money to buy those statues were fairly reluctant to have vagina-statues in their homes. So, the money he made to survive came from stuff like the Warner Brothers stuff. Whereas, the genitals statues were something he did for himself.
One definition I heard is that "art" is a personal reflection using a creative medium, whereas a "craft" is a creative interpretation for someone else.
For example, most making of furniture is a craft because most of it is designed with a customer in mind (a chair was deisgned for people to sit, a table so they could eat at). Whereas Van Gogh painted pictures mainly as an expression of himself, rather than painting something for a customer. Which is why he only sold two paintings in his life.
Tattooists, IMO, are doing a craft, because they're creating something to a customer's specifications. Sure, there are tattooists who do "body art" for exhibitions, but these are few.
Even if tattooing is a craft, this doesn't reduce the substance of the work. A craft still has a lot of creative expression -- in some cases more so that art does. But people have got to eat, so they've got to sell something.
After her divorce, my mother used to date an artist. He did both artwork and craftwork. His craftwork included doing sculptures of Warner Brothers cartoon characters (Tweety, Duffy Duck) for Movie World on the Gold Coast here in Queensland. His artwork included these amazing Venus De Milo-like sculptures that were naked bodies with different sexual conitations. One statue had a phallic-looking tap instead of genitals. Another had female genitals all over her body (arms, chest, face). It's was pretty confronting stuff, but very cool stuff. But they didn't sell very well. I mean, the type of people with the money to buy those statues were fairly reluctant to have vagina-statues in their homes. So, the money he made to survive came from stuff like the Warner Brothers stuff. Whereas, the genitals statues were something he did for himself.
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