wayne hansen wrote:You Sir are an artist
My personal dogma on 'artistry' leaves that hanging as either a compliment or a gut-shot
That dogma states that 'an artist's only true skill is their ability to hide their mistakes', and, that one must give pause to the cliched query of every thing they create; "...but is it art?"
Being an artist is easy. Heck, look at all the 'internal martial artists' (as an example) in the world. How many of them are creative enough to actually own the material they practice without deference to the doctrine of their 'teacher(s)' or their 'style'? How many are creative enough to develop their own, original training methods and material that imparts repeatable skill in others while remaining true to the principles and methods, free of those doctrines? It's tricky.
Being original (in art) ain't so easy because it comes from a positivity and/or stoicism that disregards doctrine, and the pursuit of duplication.
Duplication of a teacher's personal skill is one-in-a-thousand when it comes to IMA and is pretty much relegated to the law of averages...and maybe relies to a certain extent on similar or identical talent(s) and life-path as the teacher - a rare thing.
Sorry for the barnyard sermon, but your comment brought those thoughts to mind when I read it.
As for the pieces themselves, the first tenet of my personal dogma doesn't really apply because of the degree of difficulty in their construction and assembly - that there is very little margin for error, and hiding mistakes is almost impossible without losing symmetry. I'm satisfied with a non-answer to the second tenet as you've shown your discerning eye for 'art' with the question you posted earlier in this thread
I'd have to blame their execution on craftsmanship, and fairly attribute the originality of the concept to Neutrality Principle