Leave it to the New York Times to use artisanal in a way that finally makes sense.

My mother-in-law used to be a prison guard.  She would tell stories about the amount of effort prisoners would go through to commit their crimes.  Why not channel that energy into working a legitimate job?  If she could only have seen them as the artisans they truly were. . .

Actually, I think we can learn about what it means to be an artisan from this article: “Despite that raid, the biggest in years, Colonel Gentili says the counterfeiting continues, a tradition that — like winemaking, pottery, fabrics and other fine arts for which Italy is justly famous — is often passed from father to son.”  Just like the renaissance system of master and journeyman, the artisanal counterfeiter apprentices generation after generation.