Craft vs Design (huh?)

Another homework task:

This is the sequel to "craft vs art" and once again we're supposed to pick a quote supposedly about the topic and write 300 words or so on whether we agree or disagree with it.

As before, I'm struggling with the premise.  To me, craft includes design so positioning them in opposition to each other makes no sense.  It's equivalent to 'sentences vs words'  - you can't have the former without the latter so it's not something you can sensibly take a view on.

So the easy way out for me is to agree with this quote:

"The…distinctions between design and craftsmanship as aspects of product creation are made for purposes of discussion and analysis.  In actual practice design cannot readily be considered apart from craftsmanship."

This is attributed to a Don Wallace in 1956.  I've found an assistant professor of this name at the U.S. Naval Academy who studies Walter Benjamin among others.  But the date of the quote rather rules him out!

In a lot of the other dozen or so quotes my sense is that we're expected to interpret craft versus design as making an object by hand versus designing it for manufacture - a signal for ludites to crawl out of the wood-work, as they do in some of the quotes.

There are some exceptions and I'm going with one of them:

Maybe putting together a MySpace page is not that different from collaging or quilting.  You’re using different materials, to different ends, but along the way you’re starting with matter and transforming it into something else, using your hands and your brain. 

This quote is attributed to Liz Collins in 2008.  She's "a New York City-based artist and designer, recognized internationally for her use of machine knitting to create ground-breaking clothing, textiles, performances and installations."  

Her bio: http://lizcollins.com/about/statement

One of her projects, Knitting Nation, "functions as a commentary on how humans interact with machines, global manufacturing, trade and labor, brand iconography, and fashion."

I've started the clock running on "300 words or so" on this quote:

I agree with this quote and would go further.  Making anything visual - whether it's a web page, painting,  sculpture or whatever - is all about imagination - coming up with ideas and being able to visualise them.   

I think this is the key to creativity.  Actually translating the ideas into reality by designing and making them is secondary and it's of no consequence whether you do this by hand or with the help of a machine (or you get someone else to undertake these tasks).  

I don't know whether you can learn to be imaginative.  I suspect you're stuck with the imagination you were born with.  

On the other hand, you can learn to design and make stuff,  and nowadays that implies learning to use lots of "machines", from software programs like Photoshop to power tools, kiln controllers and, well, the list is endless.  That's what I'm doing at Plymouth College of Art! 

The quotes about technology undermining art (or craft, but don't let me get started on that one again!) are complete twaddle.  I have the opposite opinion - technology makes it feasible to make stuff that was previously difficult or impossible so it helps rather than hinders expression.

An example:  I won a competition to design the gates for Devonport Column, a Grade 1 monument in Plymouth.  The gate wouldn't have been stiff enough, and thus my design wouldn't have worked,  if the fabricator hadn't been able to cut the stainless steel incredibly accurately using a laser-cutter.  (And this is an example of me coming up with the idea - the design concept - and "someone else", Art Metal, doing the detail design and fabrication.)

There's an additional point to make here.  My experience with the gate has fed back into the creative process - my imagination.    For example,  I started out designing a trophy for a race staged by Looe Pioneers running club by thinking I could reproduce the race logo in intricate detail using the college's laser cutter.

I'm stopping the clock on 334 words but I have an additional comment to make about this assignment:

I'm supposed to do some research to back up my opinions but I'm expressing my view here, as requested, and:

• I've shown how my opinions relate to actual practice - what I'm doing at college and the art I produce.
• I don't see the value of quoting other people that share my views in this context.  As the quotes illustrate, people differ in what they think so I'm sure I could find something but what would it prove?  
• I don't think one person's views carry any more weight than another's in this context, even if they have a sort of celebrity status.  
• I've expressed my view in plain English.  I don't want to muddy the waters with convoluted commentary from art critics.