Page 18 - Constructing Craft

seemed to share my interest in pottery and, in addition, to be curious about the

way craftspeople lived their lives. As my career advanced I also became curious
about the history of craft and how the events I saw taking place around me in

New Zealand fitted into that history. It was to satisfy that curiosity I undertook the
research that led to this book.

Pottery is featured extensively in this book, in part because of it being my

chosen craft, but also because, according to a 1983 survey, approximately half

of all craftspeople (in the survey) earned their living at that date as potters. The
capacity to earn a living from a craft, as we saw earlier, was considered by many

craftspeople to be an important marker of a professional. Another reason for the

dominant position of pottery in this book is that the term '‘pottery’, in the mind of
the public, often represented ‘all craft’ and when discussing ‘craft’ and

‘craftspeople’ the words ‘pottery’ and ‘potter’ could be interchangeable.

A Chapter in New Zealand History

This narrative spans a little over forty years, refers to a range of crafts and

discusses aspects of the lives of scores of craftspeople. The central issues the

book is concerned with are art, work, technology, education, economics and the
social structures that contributed to the growth of the studio craft movement.

Between the opening of the Helen Hitchings gallery and the collapse of the

Crafts Council, thousands of New Zealanders enjoyed the satisfaction of making
objects to fulfil a personal creative need or to sell as a way of making a living.

Following the lead given by Helen Hitchings, New Zealand homes filled with
handmade craft. The combination of enthusiastic amateurs, creative

professionals and eager collectors produced an exciting environment for all
those associated with the movement. Like most movements however, changes

occurred and it was the reactions to those changes that ultimately saw the studio

craft movement cease to grow and become just another small chapter in the
history of New Zealand society.

But it was a chapter that holds a faint echo for anyone who today is conscious of

the history of the studio craft movement. Recently, that is, in the early twenty-

Constructing Craft