Thanks to H. Palleiko for this post that pointed me to this article from American Craft on the growing trend toward art that isn’t actually handmade by the artist. It’s an interesting perspective. Since I make (or at the very least assemble) all of the jewelry I sell, and am more familiar with the modern craft community than the modern art community, I hadn’t realized this designing for mass production was so common among current fine artists.
It would definitely be too bad if artists stopped painting, and if all jewelry was mass produced - but I can definitely see the draw in having designs mass produced. It’s one way to avoid being a starving artist if you get paid by a big company to come up with a few designs for products! I personally don’t have a problem with artists doing this, but I do think it’s a big odd that this type of work would be presented in high-end art galleries. I think off one-off pieces being in high-end galleries, and what I think of as high-end design work being sold at high-end boutiques.