Page 21 - Constructing Craft

mass-produced items after the Industrial Revolution. However, to understand craft

in the twentieth century it is important not to glorify one period in the history of craft
and condemn another. Lucie-Smith observed that many craftspeople and

supporters mistakenly tried to connect contemporary handmade craft to ‘an
innocent pre-industrial age’ whilst all other objects were produced during the

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‘corrupt industrial period’ that followed it.

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The Second Industrial Revolution brought about major changes in the relationship
between people and objects. Consumers were manipulated by the state and by
capitalists – including business-minded craftspeople. In the late nineteenth century,

when a glut of mass-produced objects replaced traditional ones in people’s lives,

objects began to be seen in a different way. ‘For perhaps the first time in history ...
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people had the option of eliminating what seemed to be out of date.’ This
development had challenged the value of tradition to the extent that symbolic
meanings associated with objects became outmoded. The objects that people used

in everyday life had previously held recollections of long-held traditions and
collective memories. Their loss disconnected people from their past. This was called

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‘a culture of forgetting’, which was used by capitalists to promote obsolescence. On
the other hand, if there was a profit to be made, capitalists could harness tradition.
‘If ... the yearning for stability or continuity could be converted into the longing for

the “good old days”, and if the good old days could be identified with certain
marketable products, then the need for tradition could be successfully drawn into

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the sphere of consumption.’

Craftspeople in New Zealand were aware of this development. Colin Slade, a

furniture maker, railed against the effects of capitalism at the opening of an
exhibition in 1988. ‘When the industrialists realised ... that reducing the quality and

therefore the durability of the product actually resulted in more sales than less, then
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the growth of consumerism was assured.’ His answer to the question of
encouraging collectors to buy crafts such as handmade furniture rather than only

buying paintings and sculpture was to educate them on the new position high
quality craft held in the world of art. In the meantime however, craftspeople still had

to make a living and to do so required referencing the past.

Constructing Craft