Lath art is a form of woodworking folk art for making rustic pictures out of strips out of old "lath" from "plaster and lath" walls. Today it is commonly made from lattice, lumber stickers and weathered lobster traps. Beach scenes and rural scenes are the most popular themes.

Lath work is an old artform where the designer can carve wood, spinning at high speeds, into different shapes, patterns, objects, tools, furniture etc. Lath art has a lot in common with marquetry and intarsia. They are all woodworking hobbies to make pictures out of sections of wood, but marquetry and intarsia use the wood grain as a design element, and lath art uses the direction of the lath stick and the colors of the stains as a design element.

Art is a term that describes a diverse range of human activities and the products of those activities, but is most often understood to refer to painting, film, photography, sculpture, and other visual media. Music, theatre, dance, literature, and interactive media are included in a broader definition of art or the arts. Until the 17th century, art referred to any skill or mastery and was not differentiated from crafts or sciences, but in modern usage the fine arts are distinguished from acquired skills in general.

Many definitions of art have been proposed by philosophers and others who have characterized art in terms of mimesis, expression, communication of emotion, or other values. During the Romantic period, art came to be seen as "a special faculty of the human mind to be classified with religion and science".

The nature of art, and related concepts such as creativity and interpretation, are explored in a branch of philosophy known as aesthetics.

The Encyclopædia Britannica Online defines art as "the use of skill and imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects, environments, or experiences that can be shared with others". By this definition of the word, artistic works have existed for almost as long as humankind: from early pre-historic art to contemporary art; however, some theories restrict the concept to modern Western societies. The first and broadest sense of art is the one that has remained closest to the older Latin meaning, which roughly translates to "skill" or "craft." A few examples where this meaning proves very broad include artifact, artificial, artifice, medical arts, and military arts. However, there are many other colloquial uses of the word, all with some relation to its etymology.

Frank Harmon is a writer, architect, professor and public speaker in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Harmon was born in Georgia and grew up in Greensboro, North Carolina. He was educated in North Carolina State University’s School of Design in Raleigh, NC (1959–61) and in the Architectural Association in London, England (1967). He lives in Raleigh with his wife, landscape architect Judy Harmon in a home the couple designed together.

Harmon has worked with the firm McMinn, Norfleet & Wicker of Greensboro, NC (1968–70) and Richard Meier & Associates, New York (1970–73). He was a principal in the firm Harmon & Simeloff RIBA in London from 1974–79, before founding his current firm, Frank Harmon Architect, in Raleigh in 1985. The firm was ranked 13th among the nation's Top 50 firms by Architect magazine In 2010.

He has been a visiting critic at Columbia University, the University of Toronto, the University of Virginia, UNC-Charlotte, the University of Liverpool, and Cambridge University since 1981. He has taught at the Architectural Association, Auburn University, and North Carolina State University, where he is currently a Professor In Practice in the College of Design. In 2009, he was selected to present the annual Harwell Hamilton Harris Lecture at the college.