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Chapter Five: For Love or Money?
New Zealand Listener article by Peter Gibbs. Photo:
New Zealand Listener
At the Annual General Meeting of the Crafts Council of New Zealand (CCNZ) held
in Christchurch in 1988, the Executive was given a mandate to investigate different
membership structures. Membership had been falling for some time and this was an
attempt to reinvigorate an organisation that many felt no longer truly represented
New Zealand craftspeople. A New Zealand Listener arts reporter, Peter Gibbs,
commented on the event. The title of his article, ‘Hobbyists hold key’ demonstrated
the importance of hobbyists to the studio craft movement and the consequences for
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the crafts when the professionals ‒ or ‘real craftspeople’ as one writer described
them ‒ tried to distance themselves from the amateurs.
The separation between amateurs and professionals had been a feature of the
studio craft movement since the 1950s and was usually measured by the economic
success of craftspeople; but it rarely caused dissention – one either earned a living
Constructing Craft
