There are extremely successful artists who pay for other people to create their work. Similarly, artists regularly pay other people to make things for them, such as frames, etc.

There are a lot more artists who are technically skilled that don't have a creative bone in their body. You might as well pay them to create your work so you can leverage your best talent -- your ideas.

An person who pays others to create their work can be called a lot of things, but artist is not one of them.

I disagree. The art was clearly created. I don't think the mechanical act of creating art has supremacy over the creative act.

In fact, I'd contend that as a society we've agreed that the creative act is supreme to the mechanical act. Architects, directors, large scale-sculpture artists. Their works are created by other people, they merely provide instructions for other people to execute.

Semantics.

Well the argument is obviously is going to be centered around semantics if I'm responding to the claim that an artist isn't an artist if they don't make art in the right way.

That's why we're not arguing. Art is like fun, I know it when I see it.

Rodin, Chihuly, Ai Wei Wei. It's more common than you might think.

Speak to any artist or musician and you'll probably find that 95% of their work is unfinished...