Interestingly, most of scientific research is also not part of the public discourse.

I wish ancient Greek techne τέχνη hadn't gone through the split that left "art" on one side and "technology" (or work?) on the other.

The split of art vs. design you're talking about or one of the many ways to divide the act of creation into a classical/romantic divide or one of the many other ways to describe it should be considered harmful.

And I'm not trying to split hairs here but wishing the dichotomy you're talking about didn't exist and encouraging folks not to frame the world that way.

No. People who are confronted with a task that don't search for a solution but for a priblem within it are more creative. The consequence was that some barely produced solutions within the time constraint. Those were more succesfull as artists, the article states, while a quite a few of the other folks dropped out of art. Consequentially I'd like to add: They found the solution to the problem of living as an artist in quitting art - quite reasonably