The social group of craftsmen has been the subject of successive definitions that reflect the power relations that prevail in this group and the expectations of public authorities. While the entrepreneurial approach to craftsmanship has taken hold in the legal definition, a sociologically coherent definition reveals the coexistence of a variety of subgroups whose mode of production is artisanal. By comparing two of them (building and creative craftsmen), I characterize the way in which they subjectively apprehend the materials used and the technical results they try to achieve. The first subgroup seeks to order material through an agonistic relationship to work, while the latter consider work as an inner experience associated with a discovery of the possibilities offered by the materials.