If I recall correctly, that’s how the promotion structure was at Hallmark Cards (at least it was when I was there in the 90’s). An artist would start out as an Artist 1, than Artist 2 than Artist 3. At each of those Artist positions you would still do creative work full time. Then there were two type of Direction positions, where you would do less creative work. The rest of your time would be at meetings and direction. The next promotion positions would require no hands on creative work at all.

For myself, I’ve never seen a point in my career where I wouldn’t do hands on creative work at my job.