Art or Craft?

What is art? What are crafts? Are they the same or different? How do you distinguish between the two? Which is better to teach with an elementary art curriculum? Why or why not?

As you may have guessed, our reflection is based off of the difference between arts and crafts since it is often confused by outside onlookers as the same thing. You'd probably hear comments such as: 'Why does art matter? Don't you guys just make mother's day gifts?' or 'Don't you just create tangible items in art? Like your pile of popsicle sticks, yarn and glue.'
Art is different than Crafts. At dictionary.com, I looked up art and craft. It said that art was defined as: Art (n) the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance. At the same place, craft was defined as: Crafts (as in arts & craft) (n) the handcrafting and decoration of esp. utilitarian objects. Art uses the principles and elements of design to create, where as crafts are more of creating decorations using tangible objects. In one article I found on suite101.com, a woman describes her theory in the difference between art and crafts: "Here's my theory: A craft is usually a cookie-cutter or close-ended activity. The craft activity is based on a formula or recipe and all participants follow the same directions and end up with roughly the same result every time. For example, creating a god's eye from two sticks and colored yarn is a great craft example. Yes, it involves creating something, but the end product is most always the same and there's not a lot of room for variation. While it may be possible to create a work of art in the cookie cutter style of a god’s eye, 99.9% of the time, the god’s eye will be a pleasing, colorful design, nothing more. This makes the god's eye project a craft.

An art activity is more open-ended, meaning the end product is not always going to be the same. So for example, in a drawing project all students may start with the same materials of paper and pencils and maybe they are asked to create drawings that represent their family. The results of this project will create many different drawings and therefore many different solutions to the same problem."

As teachers, we're going to experience a lot of both aspects, art and crafts, in our classrooms. Especially around holidays and vacation time. I know that a lot of people are going to observe everything we do in both categories as the same thing from an outside view. They aren't going to understand the differences between them. In my opinion, as an artist myself, I feel that it is more important to teach art over crafts. Art has more structure (terms and criteria-wise) than crafts. Crafts are fun and should still be included in the classroom. But I think it's better to teach students (any age curriculum) about the elements and principles of design in relation to their artwork. Help them to see what makes their art, art. Can art and crafts cross? OF COURSE. But they are in fact different categories that should be taught as such.
Think about it. IF we teach that they are the same thing, how're they going to understand the art world later on in life? How're they going to know how to creatively think of solutions to problems? Or understand how/why form, line and color work together to produce something intrinsically beautiful and fascinating? In a book (Art, mind, and brain: a cognitive approach to creativity)by Howard Gardner, I read an excerpt that helps to bring across my point. He says: "In most areas of development, the formula is simple: Youngsters get better, more skilled, more sophisticated with age." (think of why it's better for youngsters to learn a different language when they are small vs when they're high school/college age) "...In some ways, young children are especially intimate with the arts, and the story of artistic development is replete with declines, zigs and zags, rather than following an upward progression. It is crucial to understand what is distinctive about artistic development and to consider its unusual trajectory may have implications for development writ large." Artistic development at a young age opens up neurological parts of the brain that decrease gray matter. Through the arts with observation and creativity, students learn to problem solve and think out of the box, they're able to grasp concepts a lot easier than with out the arts in their lives.
With this in mind, how're you to ever cognitively open children's minds with crafts (not much structure) only when it's more effective to teach the arts (lots of structure and concepts)?