Beauty death and the art of woodworking

In the 4th century B.C., Taoist philosopher Chuang Tzu purportedly had this to say:

A branch is cut from a living tree, then chiseled and painted to make a ritual vase. The leftovers are thrown away as rubbish. Everyone says that the vase is beautiful while the leftovers are ugly. I say both the vase and the leftovers are ugly, because they are no longer the natural, living tree.

Chuang Tzu was actually contemplating the nature of human beings and our motivations, but I cant help but ponder the nature of woodworking and art in general.
Why are arts and crafts so often paired? Woodworking is most definitely a craft, but it can also be art. Where the distinction lies, Im not sure. Does craft imply a certain functionality of use? A Degas painting has no function, so we agree that its art. I have seen outstanding wood sculptures that serve no practical function, but wood carvers are true craftsmen.
We see leftover wood as ugly and a finished vase as beautiful because the beauty stems not from the death of the tree, but from the life of the man who created the vase. In this respect, woodworking is a unique art: it must begin with a destructive act. Nothing need die to create an oil painting or compose a symphony.
Out of death springs life, so in this sense I disagree with Chuang Tzu. True, a tree that dies and decomposes creates life for new generations of trees, yet a tree that is transformed into a vase has achieved not only an extended life, but has revealed the true nature of its craftsman.

A few years ago I chopped down a very old apple tree in my back yard. Its usefulness and fruitfulness had reached its end. I saved a number of logs from it with the intention of someday doing something with them. This past weekend I decided to finally see if I could do the tree justice and give it back its life. I sat around in my shop thinking about a log and what I could make that would be both functional and give beauty to an otherwise dead chunk of tree: allow it to become an art and a craft.
On Friday Ill post a video of three ideas I came up with, but the third one is my favorite so I thought Id post a picture today. The idea here was to create a candle holder using slices of the log and allow the candle wax to cascade down like a waterfall. Awesomely fun project. It got me to free my thinking from 3/4" lumber and see the nature of the tree.