Page 166 - Constructing Craft

could imagine a life of satisfaction and tranquillity – even if such an existence was

only partially true.

The Contemplative Craftsman

The association of the pastoral with art and literature has been an enduring theme

throughout history. In the works of classical writers such as Theocritus and Virgil,

the shepherd became the representation of the individual who was freed from
directed labour permitting him to spend his time thinking about life and its meaning.

The shepherd was an allegory for leaving the city behind – even leaving the past
behind – dedicated to living a life of contemplation. Within the context of the studio

craft movement the craftsperson, to some extent, replaced the shepherd in the
minds of some, and many craftspeople and writers have been happy to perpetuate

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the notion.

The Rural Myth

New Zealanders associated urban life with congested, overcrowded, and highly

industrialised cities overseas ‒ particularly in Britain. This contrasted starkly with the
bucolic rural picture many imagined best represented New Zealand. The historian

Miles Fairburn noted that: ‘From the 1870s to the 1940s the social assumptions of
New Zealanders were so powerful that the realities of economic and social change

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were forced to adapt to a common myth.' The myth placed ‘beneficent nature’ on a
pedestal, not only above ‘unnurtured nature’ – the wilderness – but also certainly

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above ‘the forces of the city’. It was not urban life per se that was feared but that
when the village, which had a civilizing influence, became a city it ‘violated the purity
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of God’s Own Country’. Added to these impurities was a perception that the city
‘possessed no productive base which it could call its own’ and, because of urban
drift, bred ‘physical, moral, social and political ills’ and moreover, ‘contaminated the

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nuclear family institution’. In contrast to this vision of hell the countryside, often
associated with images of villagers working contentedly on their traditional crafts,
was considered paradise lost or, at least, in danger of being lost.

Constructing Craft