These are fun topics. Maybe bonsai is a hobby pursued by technicians seeking to produce works of art. That way we don't miss out on anything.
The changing is one of the best parts. The trees want to do things differently than our desires. So we chastise with shears and pruners and oft-flawed vision.
For me, bonsai is definitely a lifestyle choice. I guess I could consider it a hobby in that it isn't something I do to make money, but I have a sufficiently large number of trees that it's a significant part of my life at this point. And I work from home, so I can go out and tend to them, study them, or merely enjoy them whenever I feel like it. And at this point, I don't envision a scenario where I ever stop unless I'm somehow forced to. So it's kind of crossed past the "hobby" threshold for me ...
But I do consider the choices that I make with my trees to be artistic ones. As I work on my trees, the goal is always to improve the tree over time towards making the best, most realistic miniature tree that I can. And I definitely take a blended approach to how I do this. I sometimes start with established stock and work it into pre-bonsai stock, and I also start with very young material and grow it up into something that I can then work into pre-bonsai stock. So there are absolutely technical elements to both these things, but from my point of view, the choices I make along the way about what I prune, what I don't prune, what I wire, etc, are all artistic choices that impact the long-term vision for the tree, imho.
So, I think that's a long way of saying that I am one of those technicians striving to do art. Now, whether it's good art or not, that remains to be seen. But it is most definitely my long-term intention to create art here.
I definitely didn't start out with this mindset. When I started, it really was a hobby, and was just something I tinkered with. But at some point, right around when I bought my house, I decided that I wanted to understand how bonsai were created from scratch. In particular, I wanted to learn how to create trunks and
really develop material from early stages. That was a little over 12 years ago. So the real rat-hole started there. That deep dive on trunks sucked me into a much deeper level, and I don't think there's any coming back from that. =)
At this point, I'm pretty sure that I have trees that will outlast me, and I suspect at least a few of them have a chance of eventually turning into something resembling decent art.