Page 106 - Constructing Craft

and last but not least the often surprisingly sophisticated efforts by Mr and Mrs
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Average?’ Bassant compared the exhibition with two others because he claimed,
‘that Art require[d] ... a leap of the imagination and perception sadly lacking in most
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of the works on show’. It was clear Bassant relied on Collingwood’s definition of
Art to form his review.

Although Bassant gave some credit to the work of the winner, Philip Heath, – his

work was described as having ‘skill’ and ‘intellectual content’ – other remarks were

harsh. ‘I’ve seen modelmaking [sic] as skilful as that and less pretentious, at the
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Wellington Polytechnic School of Design.’ Oddly, Heath was an interior designer
who possessed a Diploma in Design rather than a craftsman in the traditional

sense. Nevertheless, Bassant’s message to craftspeople – and perhaps anyone not
trained in an institution that he approved of, was that those craftspeople wishing to

become artists needed to obey the rules – even if it was unclear what those rules
were.

The Critics

Some critics urged craft artists, if they were to be taken seriously by the art
community, to understand the role of critics. Peter Ireland, for instance, informed

craftspeople that they needed to dedicate themselves to their ‘art’ – they could not
belong to groups that were more concerned with social cohesion and physical

manipulation of materials than creating art. His advice to craftspeople appeared in a

missive to New Zealand Crafts answering Doreen Blumhardt’s criticism of critics.
A particular feature of an insecure culture is the tendency of the
fringe arts – such as pottery, weaving and photography – to
develop distinctive subcultures exhibiting aspects both social
(the association with other practitioners) and therapeutic (the
physical satisfaction of manipulating the raw materials), and
undeniably, these aspects figure significantly for the people
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involved.

Constructing Craft