This distinction is a moving target. Until about 30-40 years ago, the difference was defined in terms of function. Art was nonfunctional. Craft could and usually did, have function. You could use it for something. But then the American Crafts movement really got going and craftspeople began to get awesomely creative with crafts while artists simultaneously started using every-damn-thing as substrates. "Oh, look at that sidewalk! That wall! That cutting board! That airplane! So the old definition really didn't work anymore.
I've read and heard many other attempts at how to divide the two since, and most aren't really very satisfactory. The problem tends to be aesthetics. People see a really beautiful work of craft and they simply want to say that it is art. But why isn't it art? they will ask, almost crying. "It's so beautiful!"
And it is true that much craft is absolutely gorgeous. Many people who create crafts are genuinely artistic. However, there still remains a difference between art and craft, and I think the best definition I have heard comes from an artist I respect, who said:
An artist will never let his material dictate his art, but a craftsman will. A craftsman will let his material make his final decisions.
Frankly, I do not know if this distinction absolutely covers every single instance of every single artwork and craftwork and every artist and every craftperson in the entire world. But it seems to me it covers most, and tends to work as a general rule. So this is what I would use - at least for now.
ONE MORE VIEW IS :
Craft refers to techniques. To craft means to build. A craftsman is someone who can build
Art refers skilled study of something. It used to mean a skill that comes with practice. An artist is someone who is skilled, and whose knowledge might go beyond learning the techniques. You expect an artist to know more than how to build something.
Nowadays, most people consider art to be soemthing that is aesthetically pleasing. However, orginally, even doctors would be considered as practicing the medical arts.
Study of math ans sciences is part of a Liberal Arts degree. Liberal Arts don't literally mean that a training in being a hippie artists :D. The word "liberal" means "a free person". Liberal arts were the skills that every free person was expected to learn
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