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CRAFT VICTORIA: A HISTORY

An international context: the 1960s

Craft Victoria was established as the Craft Association of Victoria in 1970. From the early 1960s, what became known as the contemporary crafts movement had been developing momentum in Australia, as many sought to make objects by hand as part of a chosen way of life, and as audiences shared their ideals.

A number of potters societies and handweavers and spinners guilds had already formed as both national and state organisations. Other groups, such as the Arts and Crafts Society of Victoria, had provided a regional strength for decades. Some courses, such as those at East Sydney Technical College, or centres such as Potters Cottage at Warrandyte in Victoria, and the workshops at Sturt, in Mittagong, NSW, also provided a national focus for activity. Many people were aware of the American Craftsmen’s Council (est 1959) and its first World Crafts Council (WCC) conference in 1964, (where Australia was represented by Mollie Douglas from the Potters Society of New South Wales; as well as Bob (Robert) and Di Hughan from the Arts and Crafts Society of Victoria; Anita Aarons from Caulfield Technical College; and Narelie Townsend, a Sydney architect working in New York). Through travel they had seen how an organised network or lobby could be successful in other countries. The British Crafts Centre, for example, set up in the early 1960s, was well known to Australians, as were some of the Scandinavian organisations for crafts-based design, production and marketing.

The crafts movement in Australia

A national crafts network started in Australia with the establishment of the Craft Association of Australia (New South Wales Branch), in 1964, following the first WCC conference. This group set about visiting other states to encourage further related organisations. The urgency for the formation of a national body increased in the early 1970s, when it was thought that the new federal arts funding body, known until 1975 as the Australian (now Australia) Council for the Arts, might include support for the crafts as well. Any national body had to be representative of all states, so efforts increased in 1970 to establish the last few state Craft Associations (New South Wales, 1964; South Australia, 1966; Western Australia, 1968; Queensland, 1970; Australian Capital Territory, 1970; Tasmania, 1970; Victoria, 1970; Northern Territory, 1973). The Crafts Council of Australia (now Craft Australia) was established as a national body in 1971.

From 1973, with the formation of the Crafts Board within the Australian Council for the Arts, the state Craft Associations, or Councils as they were called after 1978, were separately eligible for financial support, both directly from the Board, and indirectly through the Crafts Council of Australia, but increasingly from state governments as well.

Memories of those times are of a feeling of excitement and almost euphoria, that something important and momentous was occurring, of which everyone was part.
 

Crafts Council of Victoria, 1970

Victoria was the state most resistant to the establishment of a national organisation. The Arts and Crafts Society of Victoria was a strong body and all major craftspeople were members. It provided very well for its members in the form of a shop where work could be sold, a regular publication and an excellent library. A number of other influential people in galleries had been involved with and supported it, and its president for many years had been designer Frances Burke. The society had been represented internationally at the first WCC conference, and saw no need to support a new body.

However, an inaugural meeting was held in June 1970, and the Craft Association of Victoria was formed at a public meeting in July at Kay House, with potter Peter Laycock as first (interim) president. The first newsletter was published in July 1970, and a Craft Happening to launch the association was held at Ian Sprague’s pottery, Mungeribar, in September, followed by a seminar at Peter Laycock’s in November, and a Christmas party at the new meeting rooms at 117 Glenferrie Road in Malvern in December.

From an early stage, the Victorian state government saw value in supporting the development of the crafts, and the Crafts Council of Victoria (CCV) was the first of the craft associations to receive substantial state financial support. Other states, which were still operating from cardboard boxes on kitchen tables, were overwhelmed when the Victorian government allocated over $100,000 to this organisation as early as 1974. As well, many members of the Victorian association had come through the strong art/craft teacher education program, were active in the Victorian Art/Craft Teachers Association, and were experienced politically. They were able to capitalise on the government’s interest in the arts, economics and education to influence major arts events, like Arts Victoria ’78: Crafts, and the establishment of a crafts centre at the former Metropolitan Meat Market.
 

Some of the early activities of the council were directed towards public education and participation. Craft Happenings were held in the Treasury Gardens in Fitzroy in 1973, adjacent to the Herald outdoor exhibition, during the Melbourne City Council’s Moomba Festival in March. These included the making of a woven house, a macramé climbing net, a series of clay figures, and tie-dyed garments. During Melbourne Cup weekend in 1973 an Entanglement, a community weaving event, was held in Carlton Park: Mona Hessing, Pru Medlin and Ewa Pachucka ran a workshop over two days for Craft Association members and textile students, followed by two days for the public to participate in the Entanglement. These were very new sorts of events, and they generated an enormous amount of interest among craftspeople and the public. Similar Craft Happenings were held in 1974 and 1975, associated with the Moomba Festival. In 1975, for example, Tony Dyer worked with tie-dye, Jenny Coates and Anne Learmonth made a textile maze, Terry Leach worked with clay, and Ruby Wilson with macramé. Moomba participation in 1977 included activities with agricultural pipes, a clay igloo, as well as tie-dyeing, woodworking, jewellery-making and lacemaking.
 

The Victorian Ministry for the Arts supported a one-year arts festival in 1975, the idea of Eric Westbrook, director of the ministry. Crafts Alive ’75 was an exhibition of functional crafts which toured twenty-four country centres, and also went to Tasmania. At the time, potter Harold Dover lamented the recent shift of emphasis away from functional work, suggesting that the availability of Crafts Board grants and the increasing number of teaching positions being offered at all levels provided many with the financial stability to be freed from production work, from which the maker achieved greater professional status (Harold Dover Craft Australia 5/1 1975). This reflected an argument that was to recur in many ways throughout Australia in ensuing years. The concern for professional development took other forms as well. In 1976 an exhibition, The Living Space, was mounted as a combined effort of the CCV and the Victorian branch of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects, displaying crafts for architecture. As with Ian Sprague’s efforts at the Crafts Centre in the 1960s, this did not create the desired response from architects; it still seemed too soon for collaborative planning, and architecture at this time was considered to need no embellishment.

 
By 1978 the theme of the Victorian government’s arts festival was specifically that of the crafts, largely because of their by-now high public profile, and the lobbying skills of the CCV. A complex program of crafts activities and initiatives took place over the whole year of Arts Victoria 78: Crafts, probably the most sustained effort to celebrate and promote the crafts to that date. The organising team comprised Marjorie Johnson as director, Norman Creighton, seconded from Melbourne State College for a year as education officer, and Glenda King, crafts consultant for the non-metropolitan program. A number of exhibitions were held, such as Collection Pieces, an exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria of works in public collections, and Colonial Crafts of Victoria, researched for the Crafts Council of Australia by Murray Walker, and which is believed to have broken all attendance records. As well, the first acquisitions were made for the Victorian State Craft Collection, which was eventually to be housed at the developing Meat Market Craft Centre. These were purchased from the Crafts Fair, a major survey exhibition, the first craft event to be held in the centre. Seven travelling exhibitions were presented, to go to regional community centres, one of which was the Sense of Touch exhibition from Crafts ’75 in Canberra, while some of the others were Crafts Board Community Places exhibitions. During this year the new Victorian Tapestry Workshop, which had been established in 1976 with past CCV director, Sue Walker as director, was also an important focus of activity.
 

In its concerns to serve the state rather than just the capital city, the CCV established regional affiliated groups: the first, in 1980, was the Gippsland Division, where 300 people met at a Family Fibre Day at Tumbuka near Sale. By 1985 eleven areas were represented at the CCV regional conference at Melbourne State College.

The council was anxious to meet the needs of professional members and saw a role in helping provide business and management skills. In 1980 it commissioned a market research project, and in 1984, the first of the annual seminars Crafts as a Business was held, dealing with such issues as copyright, contracts and moral rights, and photography and marketing.

Also in 1984, following the initiative of a group of craftspeople who were earning a living from their work, such as successive presidents Gerry Cummins and Marion Marshall, and supported by executive director Kaye Morrissey, the CCV established a support service, Practising Craftspeople Australia (PCA), as a professional guild to maintain standards. Victoria was the only state to take up this notion, and PCA offered a separate category of membership in Victoria, with special selection criteria, and offering eligibility for the use of a special swing-tag and a trademark as a guarantee to the public of value and quality.

The Crafts Council of Victoria benefited from its excellent facilities at the Meat Market Craft Centre, where it was a tenant along with the Victorian Ceramic Group, the Lace Guild and the Handweavers and Spinners Guild of Victoria. The close proximity to the gallery and shop, as well as access to the studios gave it an accessible and public focus as well as collegiate support, although it also led to a certain confusion of identity between groups.

In 1991 the board responded to a growing desire for an independent identity from the Meat Market, as a professional contemporary craft organisation. At executive director Jeffrey Taylor’s suggestion CCV adopted the name of its journal (that had grown out of the original newsletter), Craft Victoria, to modernise the image of the organisation, while making a firm decision to retain crafts values at its core. By then, also wanting a space with its own gallery, Craft Victoria moved to 114 Gertrude Street, Fitzroy in August 1992. ‘We needed to identify ourselves as Victoria’s peak professional body for craft’, Taylor remembers. They consolidated what had been established as the resource centre, and set up a new staffing structure to develop an exhibition program. Robert Buckingham joined as program manager and editor of the journal, followed by Suzi Attiwill, now called artistic director, who also edited an innovative publication, Craft Ritual, that focused on both food and jewellery.

While still at the Meat Market in 1991, Taylor had commissioned Kevin Murray as a craft writer in residence through a Visual Arts/Craft Board grant (the two boards had been amalgamated in 1987), encouraged by author Jenny Zimmer. Murray wrote three major articles for the journal, Vol 22 nos 215, 216 and 217, which Taylor believes ‘set the agenda for writing on the crafts at the time; Craft Victoria led the way across the country.’ In the new gallery, Susan Cohn curated the first exhibition, The Market, Kitsch and Cultural production. ‘She was inspirational, says Taylor. ‘This set a high standard and was instrumental in driving a professional and innovative approach to craft.’ Taylor further commissioned Kevin Murray as a guest curator for exhibitions such as Symmetry: crafts meet kindred trades and professions (1994) and Turn the Soil: what if Australia had been colonised by someone else? (1997) that toured during the 1990s, and were the precursors for similar themed exhibitions.

With a membership across all the crafts, and particular strengths in ceramics, textiles and jewellery, and as practices changed and developed to include ideals of both art and design with craft at the core, Murray recalls that the organisation ‘witnessed feisty arguments setting the community spirit of the 1970s against the continuing move to professionalism of the 1990s.’ To broaden views and understandings of the crafts, a conference was held on crafts research, drawing on writers such as theorist Paul Carter.

Some six years later, in 2001, director Margaret Harkness oversaw a move to 31 Flinders Lane, in the central city. From his position by now as artistic director, Kevin Murray was then appointed executive director and set about developing a program that would best meet the diverse membership needs, with, at that time, an inherited ‘shoe-string’ budget.

Using new internet opportunities, the printed magazine, which had been re-named Craft in 1996, made way for on-line publications on Craft Victoria’s web page. The monthly newsletter Craft Almanac first appeared in 2000, and was followed in 2001 by the on-line magazine, Craft Culture, that provided information, opinion and analysis. Both developed international as well as national readerships.

Craft Victoria also introduced a retail space to sell the work of its members and for some time also held fundraising auctions. Murray explains, ‘As well as raising money, these events offered an inclusive activity for members while providing an overview of Victorian crafts for visitors.’ At the same time, a gallery enabled a range of exhibitions to be presented, that continued to consider different and sometimes provocative approaches to the crafts. Projects reflected both familiar and changing attitudes and ideas to practice, new communication opportunities, responses to new technologies, and different opportunities for education and marketing. After Murray’s first ‘white knuckle’ year in 2002, 2003 started with great promise. The first Scarf Festival was held, responding both to the current ‘knitting revolution’ and the success of the Alice Springs Beanie Festival. This popular event was balanced with a riskier project in 2004, Between you and me, where Victorians worked with traditional craftspeople from East Timor as the first event in what became the broad-reaching South Project. Murray’s strategy was to ‘continue the cultural exchange that has characterised the modern craft movement into the emerging dialogue across the South, with the goal of engaging a broader audience.’ By 2008 the South Project had become an independent incorporated association (see www.southproject.net).

Craft Victoria remained part of the Australian network of crafts organisations, by the 2000s identified as the Australian Crafts and Design Centres (ACDC) http://www.craftaustralia.com.au/coa/acdc.php. Federally, the ‘Myer report’ (Rupert Myer (chair), Report of the Contemporary Visual Arts and Craft Inquiry, Department of Communications, Information Technology & the Arts, Canberra, 2002) led to new programs for the crafts in the Australia Council’s Visual Arts Board’s crafts strategy program, while the Victorian Government continued its state support for the organisation.

In 2008 membership of Craft Victoria crosses all media fields, with the strongest representation still from textiles, jewellery and ceramics. With over 500 members, some two-thirds are makers. With president Robyn Healy, chief executive officer and artistic director Joe Pascoe and a good team, plans include continuing to provide challenging exhibitions, as well as extending support to Victorian craftspeople and their audiences, through exploring possibilities for partnerships between makers and the marketplace. Now part of the design precinct in the central city, and reinforced by projects such as the 2008 Month about Making, proposals include capitalising on the numerous arts-value chains that exist within the fabric of Melbourne and Victoria’s craft and design sectors. At the same time, on-line, Craft Almanac and Craft Culture are joined by an expanded Craftbase information portal driven from the Craft Victoria website.

The ethos continues to be one of serving the crafts, with special support for craftspeople at significant points in their careers. The notion of membership is still highly valued, and the public has rewarded the organisation with its continued, passionate interest.

Now, nearly 40 years on, and almost at the end of the first decade of the 21st century, Craft Victoria continues to find new ways to represent craftspeople in Victoria, while taking its place not only in the wider art and design programs of the state but also strategic and critical debate in Australia – and beyond.

Presidents:
1970 Peter Laycock
1971 Ian Sprague
1972 Howard Tozer
1973-75 Sue Walker
1976-77 Norman Creighton
1978-80 Jeffrey Newman
1981-83 Gerry Cummins
1984 Marg Van Roy
1985 Marion Marshall
1986-88 Helmut Lueckenhausen
1989-92 Brett Robertson
1993-04 David Turner
1995-97 Susan Cohn
1998 Andrea Hylands
2000-01 Marian Hosking
2002-06 Fiona Hiscock
2006 Damian Wright
2006-07 Prue Venables
2008 Ramona Barry
2008 Robyn Healy

Executive directors:
1974 Fiona Gavens
1975-77 Marjorie Johnson
1978 Carolyn Whip
1979 Karen Augustine
1980-83 Colin Sturm
1984-89 Kaye Morrissey
1990-97 Jeffrey Taylor
1998 Katherine Wilkinson
1998-2000 Margaret Harkness
2001-07 Kevin Murray
2008-continuing Joe Pascoe

Offices:
1974-79 350 Victoria Street, North Melbourne
1980-92 Meat Market Craft Centre, North Melbourne
1992-2001 114 Gertrude Street, Fitzroy
2002-continuing 31 Flinders Lane, Melbourne

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This information was drawn from Grace Cochrane, The Crafts movement in Australia: a history, New South Wales University Press, Kensington, 1992. For information from 1992 to the present, I thank Jeffrey Taylor, Kevin Murray and Joe Pascoe for information supplied in 2008.
Grace Cochrane, September, 2008.
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