Page 95 - Constructing Craft

in New Zealand; and possibly because he, like many other British immigrants, felt

that New Zealand was so like Britain that any advice he gave on the international
stage applied equally well to New Zealand. What he saw in New Zealand and

elsewhere convinced him that words such as ‘student’, ‘gallery’ and ‘studio’, when
used in conjunction with ‘craft movement’, were signs that art had insidiously

infiltrated into the craft world.

Harry Davies. Fifty people attended this weekend school conducted by Harry
Davis in 1969. Photo: 'Pottery School', The Journal of the Canterbury Society
of Arts,

Mike Spencer

Mike Spencer represents a generational change from Harry Davis and in his

comments we note a softening of the class construction of craft. Spencer,
nevertheless, was also a potter who valued a traditional approach to his craft. In

response to Harry Davis’s final article He stated that ‘craft pottery in New Zealand

was never the preserve of “gentlemen”; certainly had no overtones of class; nor
have our potters ever had any fear of machines, or philosophical objections to
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them.’ Furthermore, he claimed:
the development of pottery in New Zealand was far more of a
“folkcraft” movement … today nearly all practising potters have
either been self-taught, apprenticed or started from practice
rather than theory. The Fine Arts departments have … had very
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little to do with potters, …
Constructing Craft