This year Craft Australia and Craft Victoria share the same anniversary date of 40 years having both been established in 1970. The comely co-incidence invites the proposition of how the marriage is going, and what are the children up to?

As any anxious parent knows, the prospect of turning 40 brings a mixture of satisfaction as well as concern. Usually the concern comes first, then the inevitable day passes – hopefully marked by a party with friends – and the anniversary quickly becomes a lovely memory.

Craft Victoria was hatched on the evening of 5^th June 1970 at the Craft Centre gallery, 309 Toorak Road, South Yarra, when a group of craftspeople led by potter Ian Sprague decided to form an association. The purpose of the association was twofold – to encourage a high standard of craftsmanship (and design!), and to widen interest in craft throughout Australia. It is amazing to reflect that its corporate DNA continues today in both Craft Australia and Craft Victoria.

I remember 1970 fairly well. I was in Form 4 at Melbourne High School, pimply and given to truancy. On one of many escapes away from school I visited the Craft Centre gallery and still recall the visual and physical sensation of the space. It was classic. It had beautiful sea grass matting, white plinths and marvellous celadon pots, perhaps by Harold Hughan. It was a fine, prestigious gallery and must have done quite well to afford the South Yarra rent. Bamboo gardens seen through the mock Tudor windows of the smart shop front set the tone for a cultural fusion that was highly evocative of one end of one of the great craft debates of the time – Hamada versus Funk.

In 1979 I completed my museum studies diploma, which was the inaugural year of the course in Australia. Offered at Prahran CAE it led directly to employment at the Geelong Art Gallery, where I had the good fortune to work with the Gordon Jackson collection of ceramics, which was like a series of 1970s hits, and resonated loudly with the issues of the time, such as a marvellous Peter Hook death-skull homage to the Vietnam vets, Anzac series. All good background for my stint as Director of the Shepparton Art Gallery, where establishing the Indigenous ceramics collection and inaugurating the Sidney Myer International Ceramics award were two achievements of the gallery and its Friends.

The Craft Council went on to become an anchor tenant in the Meat Market Craft Centre, and then when the MMCC went into liquidation, it took up a gallery space at 114 Gertrude Street, Fitzroy, before moving into the current Flinders Lane venue in 2000.

These shifts prompted the organisation to change focus. From its beginnings as a members organisation distributing a newsletter and supporting the notion of research, it became a leading edge exhibitor, and today Craft Victoria can lay a claim to offering the widest range of services of any craft organisation in Australia – empowered by a membership of over 800 people, of whom 700+ are makers.

The audience has shifted too. Now for every actual visitor we believe we have 10 virtual visitors. And craft practice has broadened away from media specific activities to encompass a wider skill set. Craft Australia has followed an inverse route, and is now research based where it once focussed on projects and exhibitions. Its advocacy function has led to innovation in the areas of conferencing and debate. And projects such as the Living Treasure series, co-developed by Craft Australia and Object, are indicative of the maturing role of craft in our society.

In thinking about our fortieth, we at Craft Victoria decided to play it cool. Maybe it’s a Melbourne thing, but we had the view that turning 40 might be thought of as old, so we opted for a series of discreet events and projects that would quietly add value. They have included commissioning a series of four essays called Craft Word, where each writer-maker selected his or her succeeding writer, to pass on the flame so to speak. Also we had an anniversary dinner attended by over 70 members past and present. And as Artistic Director I curated an exhibition of wood-fired ceramics by Owen Rye – a prophet in his own land whose practise spans four decades. We celebrated mainly by being ourselves and by recognising the strength of our history through reviving our Life Members program.

Later this year we will be releasing a product called CRAFT – where is it? in association with Culture Victoria. It will offer the user a GPS function to indicate where Victoria’s craft collections are. For example, it will include the contemporary glass windows in St Michael’s Church on Collins Street, as well point you to the superb ceramics collection at Shepparton. In all some 100 collections will be on the virtual map, and (potentially) on your iphone.

So what have the last 40 years meant? I think a lot. The main change has been to see craft move from politicised object to personalised motif, with the responsibility for meaning moving back and forth between maker and consumer over each of the past four decades. Where once craft asserted primary values and emotions, now it occupies a more cerebral zone. Where it once delved deeply into lineages, it is now an open matrix of influences – simultaneously suggesting where we have been, whilst promising a wide range of futures.

Like a good marriage, the relationship between makers and bodies such as Craft Australia and Craft Victoria has grown, and our many children have flourished.

Joe Pascoe
CEO & Artistic Director
Craft Victoria
August 2010