What is art? The debate over the answer to that question is what the Gig Harbor City Council improbably found itself embroiled in during Monday night’s meeting as artists debated the merits — or lack thereof — of using modern technology to create a small model of a man holding a rather sizeable salmon (see our news story here).

The model, or maquette, merely serves as a way to demonstrate the artist can produce a life-sized, realistic bronze statue to be placed at the city’s new maritime pier. It was made using 3-D software to digitize the early 20th century photograph from which it was derived.

Therein lies the rub: The tension between modern technology and the ease of using it to quickly produce a maquette versus old-school traditionalism, a more hands-on — literally — and time-consuming approach.

Well-known Tacoma artist Doug Granum will sculpt the piece. He said the high-tech approach used in making the maquette is simply a modern-day example of an artist who uses the technology available.

The human touch will still be part of the final product, he said, noting he will manually attend to such details as the folds of the fisherman’s jacket and the individual scales of the fish when he sculpts the piece.

Others politely disagreed. Father-and-daughter duo Don and Mardie Rees, both artists in their own right, said the computer-aided production of the maquette was more akin to something manufactured or copied, thus threatening the artistic integrity of the project.

We certainly aren’t experts when it comes to the subjective world of the artistic process, but we think the city council’s ultimate decision to move forward with this project, despite concerns from some in the art community, is correct. As non-experts, we are grateful this sculpture will directly represent this community’s fishing heritage and not be an abstract concept.

From what we’ve been able to glean, Granum will do a fine job when he creates the sculpture he said would be “approachable and intimate.”

Council member Steve Ekberg correctly pointed out Monday night that the Greater Gig Harbor Foundation — not the city — is footing the bill for the artwork, an important point during a time when the economy is on less-than-solid ground and the city is focusing its resources on core government functions.

In other words, don’t look a gift horse — or, in this case, a salmon — in the mouth.

With all due respect to those in the art world, we don’t think the city should get caught up in the finer points of an extended discussion on the legitimacy of a computer-aided process used to turn out a small-scale model. It’s not as if the actual statue will be fabricated that way.

We might not know art, but we know what we like. And we like this: a quality work of art to enhance the city’s new maritime pier without costing taxpayers a dime.