such  as  the  sale  to  curious  foreigners,  but  as  this
market  was  not  discerning  the  craftsman  accordingly
only  provided  a  travesty  of  the  original  object,  in  the
shortest  possible  time.
The  European  colonisers  arriving  in  overwhelming
numbers  soon  established  their  own  culture  as  the
dominant  force.
The  new  arrivals  were  predominantly  English  who
left  their  homeland  with  the  Industrial  Revolution  in
full  cry.  Generations  of  their  people  had  grown  up  in
the  believe  that  the  machine  made  all  things  better
than  man,  and  the  memory  of  hand  crafted  objects
was  all  but  gone.  Also,  these  immigrants  were  mainly
from  working-class  families  so  that  they  would  bring
with  them  to  this  land  no  scholarly  knowledge  of  their
traditionel  hand  crafts,  and  no  examples  as  a
reference  to  the  past.
So  here  they  were  in  what  to  them  was  an  empty
traditionless  land,  for  they  were  unlikely  to  recognise
or  understand  the  Maori  culture;  children  of  the
industrial  revolution  with  the  ability  to  survive  and
progress  materially,  but  devoid  of  most  of  the  fine
craft  skills  that  had  developed  in  their  homelands  in
past  ages,  such  as  pottery,  glass  making,  basket
work,  metal  work,  weaving,  furniture  making,  and
moreover  in  the  main,  unaware  that  these  crafts  had
any  value  or  indeed  had  ever  existed.
Such  an  attitude  continued  in  New  Zealand  until
nearly  the  middle  of  the  20th  Century.  Odd  craftsmen
there  were  but  as  yet  there  was  no  public
consciousness  of  the  value  to  mankind  of
handcrafted  objects.  The  machine  was  still  regarded
as  the  ultimate  provider  of  all  things  and  the
teachings  of  William  Morris  in  1890  and  Suetso
Yanagi  in  1920  had  not  reached  their  ears.
Where  then  in  this  sterile  soll  could  the  seeds  of
craft  be  sown,  sprout  and  grow.
The  conclusion  of  World  War  II  saw  a  great  influx
of  refugees  from  the  old  worid,  people  who  had  a
background  of  the  craft  revival  which  had  begun  in
Europe  in  the  last  Century.  This  coincided  with  the
growing  desire  to  possess  objects  and  furnishings
that  would  not  be  seen  ad  nauseam  in  every
household  and  with  the  realisation  that  the  forms
produced  by  the  machine,  perfectly  even,  perfectly
round  or  square,  smooth  and  shiny  were  not

necessarily  and  by  right,  beautiful.
With  the  ending  of  World  War  II  a  quantity  of
Japanese  Studio  pottery,  much  of  it  by  Shoji
Hamada,  was  imported  into  New  Zealand.This  had  an
immediate  impact  on  the  small  group  of  potters;  a
few  made  contact  with  Bernard  Leach  and  some
worked  with  him.  The  stage  was  now  set  for  a  Studio
pottery  explosion.  A  seif  reliant  and  inventive  people,
used  to  making  and  repairing  all  things.  were  set
firmly  on  the  path  of  stoneware  pottery  with  an
adopted  craft  background  of  Japanese  Mingei  wares.
Potters  made  their  own  wheels,  built  their  kilns
which  most  fired  with  oil,  dug  their  own  clay  and
formulated  their  own  glazes  from  local  materials,  and
formed  themselves  into  small  groups  where  they
could  exchange  Information.
In  1945  one  could  walk  the  streets  of  any  town  in
New  Zealand  and  find  not  a  Studio  pot  for  sale.  In
1977  the  craft  shops  selling  pottery  are  as  plentifui  as
greengrocers.  Potters  today  are  numbered  in
thousands  and  many  of  them  are  full-time  craftsmen.
The  style  of  pottery  in  New  Zealand  has  been
completely  derivative  of  its  first  major  contacts,
Japanese  folk  pottery,  which  looks  back  to  Sung
stoneware  for  its  Inspiration,  and  then  to  the
Bernard  Leach  school  which  has  elements  of
English  mediaeval  and  slipware  potting  combined
with  Japanese  Mingei.
Another  major  craft,  Studio  weaving,  began  in
earnest  a  decade  or  more  later  than  Studio  pottery,
and  suffered  from  the  same  lack  of  peasant  craft
background,  New  Zealand  being  a  sheep  producing
country,  it  is  fitting  that  wool  weaving  predominates
and  like  the  potters  their  strength  is  in  the  functional
sphere  —  rugs,  hangings,  fabric  lengths,  and  clothing
of  all  kinds.  An  integral  part  of  weaving  is  spinning,
and  there  are  many  craft  workers  engaged  in  this  and
in  producing  natural  dyes  for  their  own  material.
There  is  a  restricted  demand  for  sculptural  pieces  or
major  tapestries:  larger  works  are  occasionally
commissioned,  however,  and  public  buildings  such
as  the  new  Parliamentary  building,  have  made  use  of
the  New  Zealand  weavers'  skills.
The  Studio  weaver  treads  a  difficult  path;  the
design  skills  necessary  to  produce  large
three-dimensional  works  are  not  common  in  this