Page 76 - Constructing Craft

Kavanagh’s main criticism of Collingwood was the ‘unbridgeable gap’ he created
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‘between ... doing and making’. ‘Doing’ was the mental side of art while ‘making’
was the physical. Furthermore, he suggested that Collingwood, through his

insistence ‘that they [artefacts] are either the result of skill or the expression of
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emotion’, was out of touch with modern developments in the crafts. In other
words, Collingwood, along with other Western philosophers, was locked into a
mind/body distinction – the Platonic belief that divided the world of action from that

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of contemplation. There is little doubt that Collingwood would have classified
much of the ‘craft art’ of the 1990s as art, but Kavanagh made pots that looked
similar to each other and he was attempting to locate them on a higher level than

mere craft.

Kavanagh called on the writings of Bernard Leach to challenge Collingwood’s

arguments and in doing so showed the extent of Leach’s influence on craft in the
West. Leach was aware pottery was not considered a form of art by most people;

nevertheless he used the terms ‘artist-craftsman’ and ‘potter-artist’ on the first page
of his influential book as if it was expected that the crafts deserved a place in the art

world. In addition, he was undoubtedly attempting to elevate his own position in the
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art world.

To further test Collingwood’s ideas Kavanagh called on his own experience as a
potter. By describing the way a modern studio functions, he argued that the

distinction lay within the language, not the actions of the craftsperson or the
artefacts produced. According to Kavanagh, even when a potter made many objects

that appeared similar to each other to the untrained eye, a ‘master’ potter knew that

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each one was different and some reflected a creative ideal more than others.

Kavanagh’s discourse shows that the art/craft debate could take place, not only in
different time zones, but also within completely different philosophical frameworks.

Kavanagh, as a participant/observer, was interested in the ‘new’ craft, aligning it
with art, whereas Collingwood was interested in art and was using ‘old’ craft only as

a counterpoint to art. Collingwood’s argument failed to define craft as it manifested
within the studio craft movement because he ignored the new relationship that had

Constructing Craft