I get the impression (no doubt to soon be corrected) that the Heortlings really don't have "artists" -- they have exceptionally skilled crafters. So the carpenter worships Orlanth the Carpenter (sorry, I'm away from home) -- he learns to select, cut, and season wood, make boards, etc and put them together. He also learns to make fixtures which may require materials other than wood (while he would leave the construction of metal fixtures to the red smith and cloth or rope to the weavers, he has to know something about their design or they will be dead intrusions on his creations) and, I assume, how to select and prepare paints that will work with wood.
Anyway, I doubt there are many Heortlings who are "just artists." Tapestries are probably the main medium for portraiture and large scenes, smaller pieces are painted on wood, either as decoration on objects (the carpenter, above) or done by godar or devotees to celebrate their gods. Small scale carvings in wood or bone might be done by almost anyone, pottery figures done by worshippers of Pella, etc.
A more interesting question is -- do the Heortlings have any use for art (things that have no purpose beyond the decorative)? I imagine them having richly carved and painted, chests, benches, buildings, etc, beautifully decorated hangings and pottery, and so on, plus, of course, religious figures of various kinds, but do they make statues of chiefs and kings? I don't really think so.
Obviously, other cultures will do things differently and have artists, but the Heortlings?
Peter Larsen
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