Page 203 - Constructing Craft

subsistence agriculture, radical technology, learning
exchanges, and the like are degraded into activities for the idle,
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the unproductive, the very poor, or the very rich.

For many craftspeople in New Zealand this was the antithesis of what they wanted,
and up until the mid-1980s there was little pressure on them, within craft circles at

least, to conform to professional standards. But an aversion to being grouped
amongst the idle, the unproductive, the very poor, or indeed even the very rich,

encouraged the development of the very infrastructure that Illich warned against.

Work in New Zealand

Between the 1950s and the 1970s craftspeople in New Zealand were either

engaged in a ‘useless’ (hobbyist) activity ‒ because their work did not meet the
criteria that Illich outlined ‒ or were beginning to play a ‘useful’ (professional) role in

a modern industrial economy ‒ because they were actively involved in the
commercial world. Even in the early 1970s there were few formal structures for

monitoring or controlling what the craft ‘professionals’ did or how they were
identified and, to some extent, this was an added attraction for craftspeople who

believed that many other aspects of their lives were too controlled. Craftspeople

built their own equipment, processed their own raw materials and developed the
skills they needed – often working on their own. These working methods became a

way of rejecting mechanisation and the ‘professionalised’ world most people lived

in. However, as noted in Chapter Seven, by the mid-1980s craftspeople/craft artists
found themselves divided. Those who had followed the ethos of self-reliance were

now being compared to the craft artists who were emerging from visual art courses
in the polytechnics. Would the traditional craftspeople with their range of practical

skills continue to define the studio craft movement or would the new craft artists,
with their specialist qualifications, supported by the megamachine, gain

ascendancy?

Harry Davis was convinced that the history of the studio craft movement augured

badly for the continuation of the pre-industrial generalist work traditions. In a paper
presented to the (British) Craftsmen Potters Association at Dartington Hall in 1980,

Constructing Craft