Page 126 - Constructing Craft

The Role of the Crafts Council of New Zealand

Increasingly, as more and more people earning their living from making pottery,

weaving, woodwork and other studio crafts, craft was promoted as a professional
career opportunity. The CCNZ played a major role in this promotion. Craftspeople

were portrayed as highly skilled and creative individuals who also operated
successful commercial businesses. The professionalisation of craft was promoted

through three distinct threads: excellence, marketing, and education. Within the

craft movement these aspects of craft discourse formed a labyrinth of intertwining
meanings that changed and evolved over time as the movement became stronger.

In addition, craftspeople were aware that professionalism in the wider art community
could have different interpretations. Notions of symbolic capital within different

sections of the art community which indicated that status within the art world was

not decided purely on economic criteria were difficult to understand and confusing
for many craftspeople. As craftworks became more sophisticated and craftspeople

better educated in their field their social, cultural and symbolic capital increased and
the means of gaining economic capital altered. Economic capital became less

important as other forms of capital became more valuable to some craftspeople.

The Role of Qualifications

Within the studio craft movement some craftspeople became ‘more professional’

than other craftspeople because they held higher academic qualifications in the field

or their work was more closely related to art than traditional craft. Qualifications are
a means of enhancing the superiority of some people over others. The economic

capital that had at first encouraged the growth of the studio craft movement became
less important when the movement matured. Social and cultural capital became

more valuable.

According to Pierre Bourdieu, education is one of the locations where powerful

groups in society employ symbolic violence to impose their dominance. Bourdieu

Constructing Craft