Purpose of the Artisans

I am having trouble evaluating this quote dealing with the Artisans. Can someone lend me a helping hand?

"To free Greeks the work of the artisan was not that of creating forms, but that of utilizing pre-existing ones, whether supernatural or natural, in a way that could never give them their full and final due. The artisans, because they were engaged in the vagaries of materials and conditions, were caught up in a world of change and uncertainty. Theirs was a world where true knowledge of forms could not penetrate, and where such forms as were operative were pale shadows of perfect and eternal ones. And because they were concerned with instrumentalities or means, they were thought incapable of a full measure of the immediate delight that accompanies knowledge of ends."

-Larry Hickman "Deweys Pragmatic Technology"