Page 209 - Constructing Craft

Chapter Eleven: Taking Care of Business

Hobbyists who joined craft groups and clubs did so, in the main, because they had

an interest in craft or they wished to join a group for social reasons. In the 1970s,
June Reay for instance, joined Craft Potters to learn pottery as ‘a release’ from
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housework. For most of these people their interest in craft was not motivated by
financial gain. Nevertheless, after developing some of the skills needed to make

pottery some, like June Reay, began to sell their work through club galleries or by
suppling retail outlets around New Zealand. Often this type of selling was

undertaken to recover costs, but sometimes selling became more important than

that. June Reay described her experience as a ‘commercial’ potter:

We used to put all these pots out in the shed. [A shop owner’s]
husband used to fly his huge plane down. Load it up. She would
just more or less buy everything. Shocking when you think of it.
Thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars worth. And
I’m not talking a little wee plane. I’m talking a big plane. I
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suppose we suddenly all got on the bandwagon.

Her astonishment at the way shop owners were purchasing pottery in bulk shows
that the commercial success of studio pottery was an unexpected development.

She also had concerns that pottery ‒ the hobby she may have embarked on

because of its ‘artistic’ association ‒ was taking on the appearance of a small
industry and perhaps the skill level of those selling their work was not particularly

high?

The growth of the studio craft movement was influenced by political and economic

decisions made within New Zealand and overseas. Two periods in New Zealand’s
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economic history established the framework in which this took place. The first,
between 1949 and 1976, was largely a period of prosperity with occasional
downturns which were actively managed by the government of the day. The

second, between 1977 and 1992, saw sporadic economic stagnation and extremes

of economic experimentation that increasingly saw the government allowing ‘market
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forces’ to control the economy. In this new political and economic environment

Constructing Craft