Why Not Live With Art instead of Design?

The technology of printing reproductions now extends onto functional objects, from bathroom tiles to zazzle's sneakers. Pleased with the lovely translation of Lynne Taetzsch's painting "I flit through life" into the functional language of a textured glass tile, which can be installed as a tile or, with its rubber bumpons on, used as a trivet or even a cutting board, I still paused, concerned with whether this type of reproduction had filtered out so much of the original image that what was left to please me was now Design or Graphic Art. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Per se. I will ask the artist, of course, and she is the decider in this case. But, this ultimatum aside, the question in the title of today's blog is also raised.