Lueckenhausen, H, Why Am I Doing This? Craft Victoria, vol 21, no 207, March/April, 1991, pp 5-7

Lately a great deal has been written on the history, the status quo and the projected future of the crafts. In Craft Victoria alone, articles by Carolyn Miley, Anna Griffiths and Peter Timms have maintained a healthy dialogue on the word itself, on the respective value of theory and practice and on the immediate ramifications of these for those of us 'doing it'. As a 'doer' I need to have a frame of reference within which to work just as I need to constantly revise and hone that frame within the continuum of my experience. Bear with me as I ponder some of the ramifications suggested by that dialogue.

The Post Industrial period in the development of Western civilization (1955-/post WW2) has four main characteristics according to Paul Filmer:
1. The Service Economy. (Opposite to goods producing)
2. White Collar. (Clerical, non-manual)
3. Intellectual Technology. (Management / problem solving, computer based systems)
4. Centrality of Theoretical Knowledge. (Theory dominates practice. Research rather than production). (1)

Accepting this for the moment, where do the crafts and people such as myself fit?
Historically, craft can be seen as a primary manufacturing activity, as the genesis of technology and therefore the economy. According to Peter Timms, "In advanced Western nations today, craft practice means isolated individuals producing unique artefacts for which a need must be created. As William Morris discovered, this reorientation has had the effect of turning craft's traditional association with the poor and public into an alliance with the rich and private." (2)

This seems to me, to be a selective reading of history at best. A quick flip through Janson for example, will show that a large and significant portion of crafts practice since the dawn of civilization involved producing special product for an elite. The mid Sixteenth Century saw the emergence of two clear senses in the development of crafts.

1. That of manufacturing which Peter Timms correctly suggests, "...was (and in some places still is) a vital part of pre-industrial economies." (3)

2. The decorative, for sacred/theological use and/or for conspicuous consumption. One may make whatever judgement one wishes about this phenomenon, as indeed William Morris did with his unsuccessful attempts at socializing the 'high crafts', but the nature of the response is not particularly recent nor is it exclusively Western.
Almost everyone, including myself, has written a great deal about the craft community's vexed attempts to fit itself into the critical framework of the Fine Arts. We can now at least laugh at some of the sillier dalliances with concepts such as the 'post-object' object and the tiresome attempts to negate skill in its production. Less amusing is the realization that institutionalized acceptance of the idea that art and craft is always the same thing continues to impact negatively on us.

Carolyn Miley's point that "there are strong reasons for pinpointing lack of theory as a major problem area" (4) is certainly relevant in this context. We need a critical language that is separate to that of the Fine Arts. A great deal of confusion arises out of using words, the genesis of which gives them realms of meaning not only irrelevant to the crafts but actually harmful to a critical appreciation of them.

It doesn't stop at theory, decisions made by funding boards, Government departments and support bodies such as the Crafts Councils, the Meat Market Craft Centre etc. flow directly from the current conventional wisdoms of what crafts have been, what they are and what they could or should be. I believe, for example, that the reduction in the proportion of Visual Arts/Craft Board funding which has been flowing to the crafts since the amalgamation (recent attempts by the VACB to redress the situation notwithstanding) is in large part due to institutionalized misunderstanding of the nature of contemporary crafts practice. The 'feel good' concept that craft and art are essentially and always the same thing has lead to crafts applications being assessed from the value position of the Fine Arts. The drop in craft applications in the first instance, perceived as a great mystery by those of good will (but none the less with a stake in rationalizing for what we must all accept as permanent amalgamation), can just as easily be seen as a recognition in the field that the 'gut' concerns of living, breathing and most of all, working/producing craftspeople are not addressed within the (albeit subconscious) mores of VACB panels and the Board itself.

Of course this is grist to Peter Timm's mill who says "craft is now so far removed from its origins in what used to be called 'honest work' that it couldn't survive a day without its exhibitions, its grants and its crafts councils." (5) The exhibitions point is lost on me. Why should all craft survive without them? Surely one can see exhibition as synonymous with 'shop front'. The issue of grants however is significant and within the whole area of public funding for the arts, that of funding for the crafts both to individuals and to infrastructure is going to need to be addressed very seriously. The imperatives for that discussion are becoming more evident.

Interestingly Jenny Zimmer claims, "the theory is in place" and asks "but will the 90's apply it? A section of the crafts population is eager, but many artists remain sceptical, architects seem insufficiently committed and industry is proving too slow to respond. And, the subject is just about talked out. Opportunities for action must be accelerated or the theory may remain marginal and the game will be lost. Keys to action include improved industry backing and innovative education-including consumer education". (6)

Certainly contemporary craft has a significant part of its base within that 'centrality of theoretical knowledge', craftspeople having placed themselves in the educational vanguard of occupational training which leaves them (us) well qualified/educated to help dominate the knowledge industry. As Jenny Zimmer suggests, a significant part of the challenge lies with education. Not so much of craftspeople in my opinion (who are reasonably well served), but of the appreciator/consumer constituency. This would need to impact at the secondary as much as the tertiary level.

More central to Jenny's point is the need to act. Without wishing to exacerbate the anti-intellectual conservatism, which undoubtedly afflicts the crafts community, one does need to see a path from theory to action that will facilitate our arrival at the 'object'.
Much of what craftspeople actually do stems from immediate responses to opportunity or lack of opportunity. There is a pragmatic/reactive component
to crafts practice which links directly to that 'homely' honesty and practicality to which both Carolyn Miley and Peter Timms allude but which stretches just as genuinely to a concern with images and contexts of meaning. After all most of us work within an experiential continuum. What we do springs from a lifetime store of ideas and values, which are all part of 'theory'. Few of us chart a mannered path from 'Proust to pot'.

Recent moves towards a pragmatic response to the demands and promise of marketing, which in some cases encourages craftspeople to engage directly with industry are seen by Carolyn Miley as a "...schizoid position...at the centre of the identity crisis in the craft world today." (7) I agree that in some senses the position is 'schizoid', however we have to be prepared to admit that the range of models of practice, as well as the theoretical models is now so diverse that no one, all encompassing, label is valid. That is, after all, the problem with the search for the meaning of the word craft. It's as illusory as the cure for the common cold and for the same reason - perpetual mutation. The absolutism of various critical models being aired currently is as dangerous in some respects as a lack of theoretical context.

Take for example Peter Timms assertion that "our ideas about craft are fundamentally predicated on an oppositional stance towards industry" (8) Certainly this is one of the responses craftspeople have made but is it the only one? Even if one accepted the extent of this response historically, is it an immutable model for the present and the future?
Widening the gulf between industry/design and crafts practice further, Peter claims craftspeople are trying to sell bogus qualities instead of accepting "the market is interested only in whether a product is good, bad or indifferent. Whether it was made by hand, by a giant industry or a small factory, whether it was designed by a talented individual, a small design team, or a computer is not, from a marketing point of view, relevant." (9)

How is this goodness measured? How is it totally separable from artistic conviction? This sounds suspiciously like a formula for determinism to me. Anyone who believes that either interface with industry or successful promotion necessarily involves a willing abnegation of personal conviction doesn't understand the opportunistic nature of marketing. The market frequently latches on to the 'integrity' of the designer - tell Phillipe Stark that the marketability of his designs has nothing to do with his visions or that a computer would have a similar following. Today, if anything is central to the campaigns of the big design houses of Europe, for better or worse, it's the cult of personality. Equally, it is naive to underrate symbol, celebration, vanity, desire and specific contexts of meaning as parts of the 'rich tapestry' of that which craftspeople, amongst others, have to offer and for which (and this is finally the proof of the pudding) demand continues.

Frankly it's a moot point whether a seat designed by an artist would "...very probably be uglier and far less comfortable to sit on than the seats made by the local iron foundry..." (10), just as the relative merits of a straw hat and a Papal crown are difficult to argue, but in either case, as a contemporary producer developing the frames of reference within which to work, I find the issue a red herring. If the point of the assertion that any 'definition of craft which cannot accommodate type-setters, automotive repairmen and lens-grinders is on a fast track to oblivion', is that craft is a truly catholic term, then I agree. So what? Waxing lyrical about the dignity of labour always did give a warm glowing feeling to those distanced from it as did, by the way of a parallel, the concept of the noble savage to the Victorians. It provided precious little comfort to the workers nor the Indians, nor does it do much for craftspeople.

I don't want to be a lens grinder however wholesome, irrespective of whether or not the widest interpretation of the word craft includes them. Nor do I think, is there much of a living to be made writing about them or curating exhibitions of their lenses. So we are all left with the problem of what crafts practice means to those of us sharing our particular sphere of endeavour. Why am I doing this?

The responses Paul Filmer suggests that crafts have and can make to post-industrial society, apart from education with which I have already dealt include:

1. The idea of the intrinsic satisfaction of the maker - the backbone of contemporary craft.

2.The movement towards batch production. Craftspeople as designers/designer makers, developing prototypes and working in collaborative production. (Seeing craft in terms of reconciliation rather than opposition).

3. Second career model. (In developed societies). This sometimes manifests itself as a theory based attraction to crafts, i.e. market based research. (11)
Let us accept that there are easier ways to make money and that financial gain is rarely the chief motivation for working in this area.

Let us also accept that the idea of fiscal failure being synonymous with conceptual purity is one of the sillier 'art' ideas we have outgrown. Poverty is not a state of grace.

What I have, to add to the process of making a living and to giving my ego a boost (and I do not back away from the need for the latter), is the opportunity to make a number of inter-related responses. Responses that address technology, industry, education, design, communication and the media, art, philosophy and the therapy of 'doing'. Responses that explore the overlap of and the differences between these and other areas. Yes, as Paul Filmer says we craftspeople are increasingly becoming part of a privileged, 'knowledge based' elite, so what is the quid pro quo for that privilege?

Just as craft has provided a model for the social division of labour throughout history, it provides a model, which enables the production of goods within new and changing physical and theoretical realities.
That's quite enough to be going on with.

1,11. Filmer, Paul. Quoted from lecture notes taken in Melbourne in 1989

2,3,5,8,9,10. Timms, Peter. 'An Evolutionary Backwater: Craft, Bassett Hounds and Oblivion'. Craft Victoria, Vol. 20 No. 203 pp4-5

4,7. Miley, Carolyn. 'Identity Crisis In The Crafts'. Craft Victoria, Vol. 20 No.203 pp4-6

6. Zimmer, Jenny. 'Moving Into The Nineties - Craft'. The Sydney Review, Oct. 1990 pp10-11