Sunday Art Dialogue: Fine Art or Craft?

sandra9953
4 days ago
2 min read

The split between "fine art" and "craft" feels less like a truth and more like an inherited hierarchy. Painting and sculpture are often treated as higher forms of creative expression, while photography, ceramics, textiles, and other artisanal practices are placed in secondary categories-as if skill with materials is somehow separate from artistic intelligence.

But this distinction has a history. It can be traced back to Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists, where drawing and conceptual design (disegno) were elevated as the intellectual core of art, while other forms of making were pushed closer to "manual labor." That framework shaped how Western institutions came to define artistic value-and its echoes are still present in some museums and art schools today.

The problem is that it no longer holds. Every medium involves thought, judgment, and invention through material. The hierarchy doesn't describe art—it organizes it. And it's worth asking what we lose when we keep repeating it.

Yesterday my point was proven when I visited the Fringe Art Bath exhibition at New Works, The Stitch That Bit Back: Curated by award winning designers, Katarina Orolinova and Chloe Savage, 'Rather than adhering to a fixed theme, it unfolds as an open field of inquiry...where artists push, fray and reimagine the boundaries of textile practice. Rooted in both heritage and forward-thinking experimentation, the exhibition highlights pieces that are quietly defiant or unapologetically confrontational.

I was spoilt for choice standing among the diverse and beautiful creations by these artists. Here I am sharing just a few of the works which stood out for me but there are so many more. You can also stitch yourself and help to complete the needlepoint of Bath Spa and join the group at any time...

The Exhibition runs until 6th of June.