Directors Meeting, World Crafts Council, 1964: Dr. Erich Kollmann, Germany; Dr. Daniel F. Rubin de la Borbolla, Mexico; Professor Jiri Kotalik, Czechoslovakia; Mr. Arthur Hald, Sweden; Mr. Vjenceslav Rihter, Yugoslavia; Mr. R. Vahnjah Richards, Liberia; Mrs. Vanderbilt Webb, U.S.A.; Mr. Cyril Wood, U.K.; Mrs. Abbasi S. Akhtar, Pakistan; Mr. Nino Caruso, Italy; Prince Varavarn, Thailand and Mr. Sam J. Ntiro, United Republic. Missing from this meeting of Directors are: Mr. Miguel G. Arroyo, Venezuela; Mr. Tatsumi Kato, Japan; Mme. Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, India and Mr. Mohammed Alaoui, Morocco.

Kevin Murray identifies the federation of differences as a reason for the longevity of craft organisations.

“The purpose of the Congress was to bring together craftsmen from the world over—both the village artisan and the urbanised designer-craftsman—for a creative, technical, economic and social exchange. The Congress proved that when confronted with each other as artists people could meet in a friendly spirit and with deep understanding no matter what their race or politics. This is the first road toward bringing peace in the world.”

Aileen O. Webb, foreword to The First World Congress of Craftsmen (1964)

The Diamond Anniversary, 60 years of the World Crafts Council, is a chance to reflect on the longevity of the many craft associations that have continued despite the radical transformations in the recent era. While it is not the oldest craft association—that honour goes to the Worshipful Company of Loriners, founded in 1261—it has been especially generative in seeding many organisations under its umbrella across the world.

What explains the longevity of craft associations? There are many reasons. Psychologically, it can be argued that the patience demanded of working with natural materials fosters a positive culture of dialogue and understanding. Moreover, because craft skills are passed on by hand, knowledge is not readily appropriated by other bodies.

The specific feature I focus on here is the federated nature of the crafts. Western craft is structured as a pentad. Ceramics, jewellery, glass, textiles and wood make up the five major craft fields. While each has a different history and body of technique, they share a common value in the skilful manipulation of materials.

Federations have a special strength. To function well, there has to be respectful dialogue between the various members. As Norman Davies argued in The Isles: A History, the nature of Britain as a union of different peoples is essential to its identity. Arguably, this could also be seen in the relative stability of Australia as a nation made up of different states and territories. Federations bring different interests to a shared table

For the Table issue of Garland, I offer a subjective history of this federation as it evolved from the second half of the twentieth century until today.

1964 – The Crafts Association of Australia

Like medieval guilds, the five craft media are represented by specialised organisations, such as GAS (Glass Art Society) and the International Academy of Ceramics. Regionally, there are also generalist craft organisations that combine all five media. Most of these share a common root in the World Crafts Council, originally established in 1964 by Aileen Osborn Webb, Margaret Patch and Kalamadevi Chattopadhyay.

Thus the Craft Association of Australia was born. It all began when the Australian potter Mollie Douglas was invited to attend the inaugural New York event. This prompted the need for a national body that she could represent.

The initial function of the new association was to raise funds to send Australians to World Crafts Council events. From this modest beginning, a more formal council structure grew representing national, state and regional areas. The activities expanded to include exhibitions, publications, festivals, workshops and conferences.

It’s important to counter a stereotype we might have about “council” as an outmoded model. The term has lately been dropped from organisation titles, such as how Australia Council became Creative Australia. “Council” suggests a body of representatives that deliberate on issues relevant to the field. The alternative formula “Sector-Region” is more industrial in the sense that it interlinks with other areas of society, particularly the economy. While sector designation grants new powers, the organisation can lose its unique history as a chain of people over time who have oversight of the field. The council model is still useful as a body with a unique history that can develop strategies for the betterment of a field.

1970 – Crafts Council of Victoria

The Crafts Council of Victoria found itself navigating the winds of change in the early 1990s. In the 1970s, the council was the envy of other states due to its generous state support. However, the tide changed in 1987 with the amalgamation of the Australia Council Crafts Board into the Visual Arts and the eventual decision to wind up the Market Market Craft Centre, where Craft Victoria was located.

Craft Victoria doubled down on “craft”. The Executive Director of the time, Jeffrey Taylor, was determined to keep the “time-honoured word” as a long-term investment in the organisation’s “point of difference”. In 1991, the board confirmed the new trading name, “Craft Victoria”. The next year, Craft Victoria moved from the Meat Market Craft Centre to bohemian Gertrude Street, Fitzroy. The new Program Manager, Robert Buckingham, oversaw an ambitious program. Susan Cohn curated the inaugural exhibition, The Market, Kitsch and Cultural Production which was opened by the Minister of Arts. The Cicely and Colin Rigg Craft Award began in 1994 with a series of exhibitions at the National Gallery of Victoria that profiled the different craft media.

The gallery helped launch many careers, including the first exhibition of jeweller Mari Funaki, as well as names that are now established such as Prue Venables, Kevin White, Neville Assad-Salha, Jane Sawyer, David Ray, Marian Hosking, Simone Leamon, and Simon Lloyd, The new Artistic Director, Suzie Attiwill, upgraded the magazine under the guidance of designer Michael Trudgeon and new President Susan Cohn.

I joined Craft Victoria as Artistic Director in 2000 when we presented exhibitions that attempted to connect our current location with our history elsewhere. From Eltham to Memphis drew on Robyn Phelan’s knowledge of the Meat Market’s State Craft Collection to present a dialogue in ceramics between “brown pots” and more sculptural postmodern creations. The exhibition Instrumental worked with local luthiers to expand craft by including instrument makers as a craft component of the Bach-themed Melbourne Festival. Rainer Beilharz came in every day to gradually craft a violin from a single block of wood.

Meanwhile, locating the organisation in the CBD had been a holy grail. In 2001, Craft Victoria moved to larger premises at the start of the gallery strip in Flinders Lane. There were now three exhibition spaces and a window on the street to show work. Being at the top end of town had many advantages, including proximity to the Myer Foundation, just as Rupert Myer was developing the Visual Arts Craft Strategy for the Australia Council, which proved a lifeline for Australian craft organisations.

Around this time, a critical decision was made to change the constitution so that the board was no longer elected by members. This was in keeping with a general evolution in the arts sector away from membership control. In retrospect, I have mixed feelings about this change. On the one hand, it offered the kind of stability that funding bodies demanded. On the other hand, it distanced the organisation from membership.

The benefits were mixed. Like most arts organisations, Craft Victoria welcomed corporates onto the board, especially lawyers. They generously offered their skill, experience and time. But there was often tension between the corporate and not-for-profit worlds. Younger lawyers seemed keen to demonstrate their corporate mettle and misunderstood the voluntary culture of a small arts organisation.

The dominance of managerialism is a common issue across most organisations today. The problem lies not with the corporates: they are simply doing what they are trained to do. Practitioners need to step up and take a seat at the table where they can confidently speak for their field. The corporate focus on risk management and opportunity costs needs to be countered by bold creative visions.

Boards are by nature hierarchical. The singular power of the President encourages factions that seek to win power. Thankfully, the board is not the sole organisational forum. Power was more evenly distributed at the committee level.

The real democracy of Craft Victoria happened during the Exhibition Committee meetings. These were held in the library and witnessed by the shelves filled with books, journals and magazines from past generations. At the table, fueled with pizza and wine, representatives of the craft pentad gathered to assess the applications for the upcoming exhibition spots. Opinions from around the table were invited and a level of enthusiasm was noted.

After the first impressions were aired, we typically turned to the specialist. “Was the work original?” “What was the level of skill involved?” The ceramicist might talk about the quality and uniqueness of the glaze. Or a jeweller might comment on the soldering. This specialist judgement would then be taken into account along with the myriad other factors in making the final selection. Ideally, the meeting would end with everyone’s opinion respected, specialist knowledge privileged and each medium given a fair hearing.

On leaving the good ship Craft Victoria, I felt some immediate relief from board politics. But I did miss the camaraderie of the exhibition committee. There was something about finding commonality in difference which was heartening. That was one of the motives for joining Roseanne Bartley in setting up the Bluestone collectors’ group. It was essentially an exhibition committee freed of the institutional issues.

2011 – World Crafts Council Australia

After Craft Victoria, I pursued a project to help build partnerships between designers and artisans in Australia and India. Seeking UNESCO backing, I was advised by the current President, the Chilean Celina Rodrigues, to attend the 2008 World Crafts Council General Assembly in Hangzhou. Walking into the hall, I saw a sea of people from all countries of the world. A Chinese official guided me to an empty seat in front of which was the Australian flag. Eyes turned in my direction and a Greek neighbour began the chorus, “Australia is back!”. It seemed there hadn’t been an Australian representative since the twentieth century.

I hadn’t expected this, but I saw immediately the importance of this worldly forum. Like Mollie Douglas, I felt the need to find an organisation to represent. Unfortunately, at that time there was little appetite in Australia for world craft engagement. In 2011, the Australia Council de-funded Craft Australia, arguing that there were more efficient ways of funding the sector. Initially, the funding was directed to a National Craft Inquiry, managed by the National Association of Visual Arts (NAVA). The expectation was that the resulting report would recommend alternative ways of supporting the field. Unfortunately, without an organisation left to advocate for national funding, the report was not followed up and the funding was lost.

So with the help of master silversmith, Marian Hosking, we set up (or rather re-established) World Crafts Council – Australia as our national entity. Canada had gone through a similar process in creating the Crafts Federation of Canada after the defunding of its national body. Since this WCC connection has been re-established, many Australians have participated in the various festivals, meetings, awards and prizes.

Golden Jubilee celebration, World Crafts Council, 2014, Dongyang, China

The federated structure of crafts in WCC is not between the five media, it is among the five world regions: Europe, North America, South America, Africa and Asia Pacific. As indicated in Aileen Webb’s original depiction of the divide between “the village artisan and the urbanised designer-craftsman”, a key challenge is to bridge the divide between East and West: the traditional workshop model of the Asian and African continents versus the studio model that is dominant in Europe, North America and Oceania. Though craft may seem a marginal pursuit in global politics, it does offer an important forum for mutual respect between countries that otherwise are divided on geopolitical lines.

A major achievement in recent years has been the World Craft Cities program, initiated by Ms Usha Krishna during her Presidency. This provides a platform for local governments to champion their crafts on the world stage.

Australia itself is part of the largest region: the Asia Pacific. Currently, the region is facing a generational challenge. In previous decades, the World Crafts Council – Asia Pacific has been guided by powerful women, following in the footsteps of Kamaladevi. Unfortunately, major figures like Dr Ghada Hijawwi Qaddumi, Ruby Guzhnavi and Raja Fuziah have recently passed. It seems sad but inevitable that the sense of “family” that they fostered will eventually give way to a more sustainable formal management.

This is a chance to address long-term constraints. Because of the rotation of the WCC presidency every four years, the new Secretariat must reinvent the wheel each time with new bank accounts and websites. Ideally, this should be consolidated so that it’s easier for the new Presidency to focus on the challenges ahead. As well as advocating for crafts globally, it can then play an important role in shared issues, such as building resilience to cope with climate change, particularly in areas where artisans are most vulnerable.

2024 – The Knowledge House for Craft

Like with the exhibition committee, I sought a collegiate gathering to complement the more formal WCC. With colleagues in various countries, we created an international association of craft scholars called the Knowledge House for Craft. It began in 2020 with a number of craft thinkers and makers from the wider world who wanted to open up the field of craft to reflect their varied heritage. The Kuwaiti designer Laila Al-Hamad, for instance, wanted to include olfactory crafts such as incense that lay outside the Western pentad. Others, such as the Indian scholar Aarti Kawlra, viewed craft through a post-colonial lens.

While WCC connects regions through its formal rules, including presidential elections, KHC adopts a customary framework inspired by the “talanoa” of Moana Oceania, a conversation involving differences of opinion that are treated respectfully. To provide a means of building on these gatherings, it uses a form of “knowledge weaving” facilitated by new information technologies to build a bespoke “knowledge graph”, from which projects like the Value of Craft Report are built.

KHC is not for everyone. Though an increasing number of makers have been university-educated and enjoy writing about craft, most “artisans” in the wider world are focused on material production. For them, WCC continues to offer a more tangible form of representation.

Back to the table

In the year before the WCC was born, a Melbourne collective was established which continues today. Arena Magazine is home to a unique school of thinking about late capitalism. It offers a critique of “abstraction” as a formalising process that ungrounds individuals from their local communal base. This is evident in a wide range of recent social transformations, such as the replacement of local stores with retail chains and the commodification of informal social relations by platforms such as Facebook and Airbnb. (See Guy Rundle’s overview and Richard King’s essay in this issue).

The history of the crafts in recent times provides an important antidote to this loss of belonging. Its varied organisations offer a place to invest our energies, knowing that the benefits will be shared now and in the future.

While many of the organisations themselves have followed the trend of corporatisation, the emergence of video conferencing platforms such as Zoom has led to a kind of “vertical table” around which we can meet. As the article about Vicki Grima attests, the COVID lockdown provided an opportunity for members to meet each other. At WoCCA, we developed a Bench O’Clock on Friday afternoons with a similar intent, which has now become national Craft Cooees.

The challenge is to nurture structures that sustain these virtual gatherings. Though it began exclusively online, the Knowledge House for Craft eventually adopted the same legal framework for community associations that is used across Australia, involving a constitution and board. The long-term investment is a knowledge base on which is built projects like the Value of Craft Report.

There’s still nothing like meeting in person. A recent “roundtable” KHC hosted at a conference in Surabaya evoked the embodied meaning generated when sitting around the common table. While an organisation like Craft Victoria experienced many transformations, the one consistent element was the physical table originally made by local designer-maker David Emery, around which the boards and committees have met over the decades.

Boards come and go. It’s a privilege to be able to contribute, but our place at that table is always temporary. To maintain the confederacy, it’s important to have a variety of tables where we can gather and find our differences in common.

As Hannah Arendt wrote, “The table is a place where one is oneself, where one discovers what it means to be human, where the illusion of isolation and separateness is brought to an end.”

About Kevin Murray

Kevin Murray was Artistic and Executive Director of Craft Victoria, 2000-2007. He is now editor of Garland magazine, Secretary of the World Crafts Council – Australia, Vice-President of World Crafts Council – International and board member of the Knowledge House for Craft. He lives in Brunswick, in Melbourne’s inner north, where he published stories about locally made products. Visit kdsm.pub.

About Craft Victoria

Craft Victoria today is still located in the CBD: Watson Place, Melbourne. It has two positions on the board that are reserved for makers. Visit craft.org.au, follow @craftvictoria and like @facebook.com/craftvic.

About World Crafts Council

Visit wccinternational.org, follow worldcraftscouncil, like facebook.com/WorldCraftsCouncil, and connect linkedin.com/company/world-crafts-council-international

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