Craftspeople needing skill if joining top decorators (10)

'top decorators' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both people as well as being plural nouns.
Maybe there's an association between them I don't understand?

'craftspeople needing skill if joining' is the wordplay.
'craftspeople' becomes 'icers' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'needing' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'skill' becomes 'art' (both can mean a talent).
'joining' says to put letters next to each other.
'art'+'if'='artif'
'icers' after 'artif' is 'ARTIFICERS'.

Can you help me to learn more?