One needs to contextualize this current decision within an understanding of the long-term modus operandi of the Australia Council and its Boards and to look to an outcome that, if not preferable for Craft Australia and Australian craftspeople, is at least possible. So central to the discussion is an understanding of how organizational dynamics forge cultures within the organizations in question, create bureaucracies, and enact policy. Importantly, I don’t use bureaucracy as a negative, but as a neutral noun for organizational constructs.

I remember many discussions and missives coming from the Australia Council, the Visual Arts/Crafts Board, and the Visual Arts Board over the years the background to which was essentially the question: who and what was to be the cultural gatekeeper for the nation. Successive Councils and Boards have baulked at only being an ‘arms length’ funding conduit of government and have wanted to drive policy directly. I used to think if only we could get them to see how well we were doing at Craft Australia; the Board would recognize our good work and give us support. Eventually I came to see the opposite was true, organizations that managed to become gatekeepers themselves were seen at best as duplication, at worst as a threat. This is not to say that a dastardly plot was being hatched at any time, I’m sure each wave of individuals, as they became involved with the Boards did their duty to the best of their ability within the policy snapshot of the time they were involved. However the organizational dynamic that creates and re-creates hierarchies was always at play with the result that client organizations were (and continue to be) periodically reigned in.

I will admit to being pessimistic in this case - I have long experience of the Australia Council and the Boards in their many evolutionary stages and I don’t remember when our protests ever prevailed. The Australia Council is one of those organizations, the culture of which forces a continual cycle of revision – what I have previously named the “culture of the new” - which unfortunately drives not only desirable change for the better, but also change as a value in itself.

However it is incumbent on those of us in the field to send periodic reminders to whomever is currently passing through the Council/Board sphere of influence that there is a constituency out there that is not voiceless and that all of us have responsibilities that go beyond those evident to any internalized group involved in whatever hothouse of policy revision is currently manifest.

So can any good come from protest even when it appears decisions are not likely to change? Well to begin with, everyone who makes policy and enacts process owns a responsibility to understand how that is received by the people they affect, and to learn from that experience. It will be a good thing if current and incoming staff and committee members at the Board are acutely aware, before they put any flesh on a ‘new craft strategy’, that a not insignificant force of professionals is watching closely because (a) they have a long-term commitment to the field and (b) they are the ones left to deal with the long-term outcomes of decisions made. People like me, and many more with much greater commitment to full-time practice than me, are still here piecing together their lives and careers in the wake of some good, and many poor decisions made by people (and within policy objectives) now long forgotten.

What is that core message that we need policy makers to get their heads around? Firstly, we need to keep reminding the Council and its Visual Arts Board of the flaw in the dichotomy that keeps being promulgated between funding for individuals and that for organizations in the crafts. That issue keeps tripping us up because the core, powerful, values of individualism that underpin the 20th century western art movement easily lead panels into a space for promoting funding for practitioners. Who, on the face of it, can argue against that? The Catch 22 is that we know that once craftspeople are placed in that space, they are then disadvantaged by being measured according to the criteria of that form of practice – so we go around in circles. The question for me is: will funding for individuals, projects, or enabling organizations lead to the best outcomes for the field and for the country?

Whatever the ‘new craft strategy’ turns out to be, I hope the Council and Board will at least consider the essentially communal aspects of much of crafts practice, the need for cultural and organizational memory, and the piecing together of the national estate that is threatened by periodically throwing the baby out with the bath water.

What now?

I believe that at the very least the Council and the Board really do owe Craft Australia the one-year notice period that has been common procedure previously. So much of our combined blood and sweat has been voluntarily poured into this precious national resource over so many years that this quickie wind-up, even with the pusillanimous extension that has been begged back, is not only disrespectful to the organization in its current form – a form, by the way, forced on it by the Visual Arts Board – but to the whole continuum of practitioners, administrators and educators that wove its fabric. I ask them to consider doing at least this much.

Others have written, and will continue to draw attention to the issue of the inadequacy of the process, even in accordance with the Australia Council’s own published procedural guidelines.

It is my intention to add to the argument for the retention of some form of national craft-design organization by commenting on our nation’s paucity of strategies and mechanisms through which to build a long-term self-awareness of the place of our creative industries in nation building and in presenting our nation to the world. Australia does not have an Alliance Francaise or a Goethe Institute and we have generally dragged our feet in respect of finding a place at the international table through related activity at our Embassies and High Commissions or importantly, in NGO networks. I, as do other previous members of the CA board, have a history of involvement in ad hoc cultural liaison projects at various foreign posts that were necessitated because Australia did not seem to be good at building long-term, sustainable capacity in this area.

In respect of Contemporary Craft and Design, Australia has a history of involvement at a national level through international organizations such as the World Crafts Council, a massive operational network through which European and Asian member organizations in particular, continue to promote the cultural and commercial success of their craftspeople and designers, and consequently the cultures they represent, on the world stage. I am a past president of Craft Australia and represented Australian craftspeople and designers in one of its former guises when it was active in international advocacy for Australian creative practitioners and the sector. The cessation of that crucial international bridging was a previous VAB decision that remains regrettable. I still work actively in the international arena and am often confronted with the question at craft and design fora – where is Australia? It is difficult for me to respond positively.

The key issue is that of a nation not responding adequately to the challenge of continuity and long-term building of its brand in this crucial set of disciplines.

Why doesn’t the Australia Council do this? Of course it believes it does, I believe the issue is both conceptual and structural. Contemporary crafts and design practice is rooted in tradition; albeit as any survey of contemporary outputs will show, not trapped by it. I’m sure the people on Australia Council committees do their level best to make assessments within the frames of reference for various funding programs but long-term brand building is either not adequately understood or is lost in the process of formulating assessment criteria. For one thing, the trend to managerialism has made it progressively difficult for long-term nation-building exercises to be validated within the ‘cult of the new’ in the arts, which has become the principle cultural and procedural informer to so many of our processes including, regrettably, some of those of the Australia Council.

So my earnest plea is this – more strength to arm of the Australia Council in its advocacy for contemporary arts practice, artistic and professional skilling, quality and innovation and the effective use of resources - however long-term national and international networking and consistent brand-building must be added to the criteria for the granting of funding to organizations. As a nation, we simply cannot afford to throw forty years of effort by a continuum of high profile practitioners and institutional advocates onto the scrap heap. I would ask for a quick review of which national visual arts organizations have gone the distance and have built our brand as a creative nation as consistently as has Craft Australia, and beg the utmost caution in accurately assessing the value of that to the national estate.

Can we ensure that the critical mass of experience that many such as me have built up over 40 years is not sacrificed to Australia’s cost?

The Hebrew name Magen David, literally means Shield of David, acknowledging, in Jewish belief, David’s role as an agent of, and his being subject to the authority and protection of, God. I.e. the third blessing after the Haftorah reading on Shabbat: “Blessed are you God, Shield of David”.

Australian Judaism is largely inherited from the Ashkenazim, themselves descended from the medieval Jewish communities of the Rhineland - “Ashkenaz” being the Medieval Hebrew name for Germany. Hence the work consciously bridges the Jewish-German tradition, through the enormity of the Shoah consciousness, with hope and the future.

Thus Jeremiah 29.11, in Yiddish:

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for
welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

2. Mishloach Manot Plate
Coated MDF plate with Huon Pine fish supports.

Purim commemorates the triumph of Esther and Mordechai over the wicked Haman who sought to exterminate all the Jews of the Persian Empire on a date determined by the casting of lots (Purim). Customarily gifts, known as mishloach manot, of fruit and nuts, biscuits and sweets, are given to friends and to the poor. Mishloach Manot plates are made to hold these gifts of food. Sometimes fish are depicted to symbolize the zodiac sign of Pisces for the Hebrew month of Adar in which Purim falls.

We each contributed a series including:
a cabinet - small, horizontal or vertical
a small table - suitable for any one or more of a variety of uses
a chair – of the approximate size and scale of a dining chair
a free standing lamp
The items were to be produced principally from one or more, of four varieties of solid timber:
• Queensland Silver Ash
• Queensland Silky Oak
• Spotted Gum
• Sydney Blue Gum
Each set of four works was to comprise a ‘family’ of products.
My works utilized a favourite theme of mine - Teraphim ).

The Teraphim – a set of four zoomorphic domestic works

Queensland Silky Oak and Queensland Silver Ash, with bent components, Aluminium, Steel, Electrical Fittings.

Definition of Teraphim: idols or images reverenced by the ancient Hebrews and kindred peoples, apparently as household gods.

Collecting objects for our homes represents much more than assembling the necessities for living. The domestic ritual of homemaking, the assembling of items into a narrative of personal and social space, sits within a story about oneself.
The zoomorphic sections of these works attach themselves to geometric forms – benign protective spirits invited to contribute to our stories – both that of the designer/maker and that of the user.

Three works have already been taken up into public collections:

the CRC Chair  into the National Gallery of Victoria;

the CRC Table into the Castlemaine Art Gallery and Historical Museum,

the CRC Cabinet into the Hamilton Art Gallery.

That’s an interesting thought, I wonder how craftspeople and artists are going to fare in respect of this new legislation?
Now and Then - Helmut Box
Episode 11, Friday 23 April 2010

The item up for auction tonight is a mahogany, three legged box designed and made by Helmut Lueckenhausen, a leader in the field of studio furniture and design in wood. His work has been exhibited around the world and much of his work is created on commission from architects and private clients.
Claudia likens the box to a piece of sculpture, as are many of Lueckenhausen’s wood designs. She likes the flow of the piece and, being three legged with a different back leg, thinks it offers some more interest visually.

Adrian is interested in the combination of a useful structural object combined with an organic flowing look. Gordon quite likes the flow and the curves of the woodwork, although the actual piece does not really appeal to him, although he could live with it - possibly?

Bidding in the Auction room starts at $800.

Adrian bids $1900.
Claudia bids $1450.
Gordon bids $1500.

Returning to the Auction room, spirited bidding takes the price of the piece quickly above the bids from the panel. The final hammer price is $3000!

Episode 11 - Now and Then - Helmut Box
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