Page 264 - Constructing Craft

Māori craft appeared to move from ‘rehabilitative commercialisation’ between 1919
and 1939 to ‘complementary commercialisation’ in the 1970s and beyond. The

former could lead to a change in appearance and use of craft products but may

have helped keep alive ‘dying’ crafts, revived half-forgotten old techniques, or even
whole crafts. The latter was craft produced for use by locals and for sale. Maori

craftspeople, over time, began to distinguish between the production for local use

and production for sale. Nevertheless, they continued to manufacture for sale more
or less exact copies of the locally used objects. A further distinction here was

whether a work served a tapu purpose or was noa – for everyday use. Within the
various craft markets in New Zealand throughout the post-war period numerous

variations of these categories intermingled, but by 1986 Maori craft was thriving in a
number of different social and cultural locations and, as the critic Ray Thorburn

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noted: ‘Contemporary Maori art [and craft] ha[d] come of age’.

Administrators, teachers and craftspeople quoted in the 1983 report on the craft

industry all expressed ‘unanimous distaste for the nature and quality of souvenirs
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that are touted as “Maori art”’. The selling of most Māori craft objects was
acceptable as long as the articles faithfully represented Māori skills. For many, the
conflict lay in how the items were made. The respondents believed that the nature

of the souvenir market encouraged large scale industrial production that was

incompatible with the high level of skill required to make ‘authentic’ Māori craft. In
addition, many Māori craftspeople, both traditional and commercially minded, found

the most prestigious galleries closed to them because their work was either not

innovative enough or they were too commercially orientated. They were forced to
look to the souvenir market, often despised by craftspeople, or the less prestigious

craft shops to sell their work. Jim Timings, a Māori bone carver working in
Christchurch, faced this dilemma.

Shut Out

Jim Timings wrote to the Crafts Council of New Zealand (CCNZ) gallery director in
1988 questioning the gallery’s right to reject his work. He outlined his experience,

Constructing Craft