Page 221 - Constructing Craft

observed that before the first Alternative Furniture Show in 1983 the nine furniture

makers who participated were nervous about making a $500 deposit each to secure
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the venue. This suggests that the $1.25 million figure was unrealistic. Statements
such as these were speculative and three years earlier during the sales tax protests
craftspeople would not have been eager to advertise economic success. It was a

sign that the studio craft movement was attempting to use statistics to promote its
importance in the wider community. In the new professionalised environment

success was often measured in monetary terms.

Members of the Interdepartmental Committee also offered different opinions on the

financial status of craftspeople. Helen Sutch, the Treasury representative on the

committee, was convinced the task of distinguishing between art and craft was
beyond the capability of tax inspectors but she was restrained by the government’s

determination to raise revenue by any means possible.

There was a feeling on the committee that it would not be
proper to tax art as it was not a commercial product. [T]he first
priority of artists was not necessarily income and profit, and the
great majority were seen as struggling financially. However,
crafts were seen to be different in the sense that many of them
were for household use and therefore competed in the
commercial market with factory-made objects. But there was a
difficulty in setting consistent ground rules on how to distinguish
between art and craft, or between decorative and other ware, in
any way that would have been feasible for a sales tax inspector
to implement fairly. At one stage a committee member said the
difference was that “if you could put your hand in it, it was craft,
if you couldn’t, it was art.” The committee did not accept this
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view!

The social and cultural background of the officials was evident from the debate

about the distinction between art and craft. For instance, the observation that craft
was physical and art conceptual clearly showed that separation of craft from art was

a mindset formed by their upbringing and education. However, some craft was, in

the minds of the officials, moving along a continuum towards art and taxing cultural
capital in the same way as economic capital was seen by some to be lowering its

intrinsic value.

Constructing Craft