Is art creation or craft?

We have lessons on it... we "study" the old masters... we copy... we imitate and outright steal ideas morhping them into our own.  Is not the thought that we are "creative" just another way of expressing the fact that we apply human reactions to what our pursuits are, in this case photography which is traditionally classed among "art" and thus pigeonholed into consisting of photographers who are "creative" and "artistic"?  Surely the Glass blower studied his art and has used a wide range of techniques to know how to create the glass from a set of principles, whether those principles or blueprints are codified on a piece of paper or known by heart as a set of learned rules and methods makes no difference to his "creation" of the blown glass from silica and fire..

The same as the person who has a paint brush in hand and a blank canvas... the first time he or she puts brush to canvas will probably be utter rubbish, just as the first time the glass blower tried his hand the glass probably burst and dripped onto the floor...  The only difference here is the medium of the craft. So the "artist" is the painter and thus creative and the glass blower is the "craftsman" and therefore not creative?  I dont think so... i'm sure the same could apply to any other walk of life you care to use to encapsulate the concept of "non-artistic/creative"... even an accountant.  Humans are inherently creative i think, and thus anything we apply ourselves to creates something - the mathematician sees beauty in numbers and creates answers to problems, the politician tries to work out a problem through dialogue and creative political manoeuvring (no situation is the same so there has to be creation there), the computer programmer creates all the time even the destructive hacker is a creator of viruses and hack methods... the list can go on. So basically i think i'm saying that i dont think there is an "us and them" with the whole "creative" thing, it is just our creative outlets take their form in different areas, whether that is the traditional art scene or whether it is being an infantry commander on the front lines.  It just seems "artistic" is a societal/traditional label put to those whose creative outlets create something which only has an aesthetic value.

And i think that gets me back to my original point in the previous post.  That by the usage of the word "artistic" you are referring to those who attach a higher aesthetic value in something of no practical use than the next person (as i'm sure even the least "artistically" inclined out there can see beauty in something aesthetic - i know at least 50% of the population appreciate counter-curves of a certain type).  And in that sense it is obvious that these sorts of people will see things in life with a view which is probably better described as enhanced in certain areas, rather than "different".

Ug - sorry... if you got through that and understood what i meant, well done ;)

"In every colour, there's the light.
In every stone sleeps a crystal.
Remember the Shaman, when he used to say:
Man is the dream of the Dolphin"

Rich Meadows Photography