Page 288 - Constructing Craft

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shows.’ NZCS’s income was derived from stall fees and door sales and quality may
not have been the primary criteria when selecting participants. To add to King’s
concerns two days later Fiona Dunkley stated in the Otago Daily Times that the

NZCS was ‘recognised’ by the ‘QEII Arts Council, the head office of the New Zealand
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Crafts Council ... and various polytechnic courses’. On 20 October 1988, the
Executive Director of the CCNZ, Margaret Belich wrote to Toby and Fiona Dunkley of
NZCS to advise them that the CCNZ did not endorse their business.

Cartoon accompanying the Rosaleen McCarroll article
suggesting that some craftspeople were enjoying a good
income from craft. Cartoon: Hugh McCarroll in Otago Daily
Times.

The animosity that was evident between the Dunkleys and the CCNZ did not lead to
a withdrawal of advertising in Crafts New Zealand by the Dunkleys, but it did flare up

again in 1989. And it was soon clear that the CCNZ, as Peter Cape had predicted,
would be more concerned with protecting itself than individual craftspeople. The

dispute started when a letter by Beverley Greig, a weaver and a regular exhibitor at
the Dunkley’s craft fairs, was published in New Zealand Crafts. Greig accused the

Dunkleys of: attempting to establish a monopoly on craft shows; attempting to ban

certain exhibitors from their shows; and when that was prevented by legal action,
ensuring the exhibitors were inconvenienced by placing them next to a woodturning

Constructing Craft