“The History of Craft in Canada” — Amanda York
Editor's Note:
Remember when you were younger, back in school? What was your favorite class? One of mine was History. I loved it… I had great History teachers. They knew how to make me “be there”… I learned an immense appreciation for how what happened in the past, laid the foundation for where we’re at today.
History can be very exciting. I think we all love history when it captivates us. If it’s able to “transport us” back to that time as we read it, it becomes a fascinating “revelation”, or some “glue” between our roots and the present, as well as our future. History gives us a measuring stick for life and progress. History always carries with it an intriguing human side, too.
We are excited to bring you a new Feature Series on the History of Craft in Canada, courtesy of Amanda York, one of Canada’s up and coming Craft historians, one of a very few that our nation has.
This is our first in a series of what we believe will be some revealing historical roots, and is only a hint of what’s to come… THIS IS NOT something just for Craft people as though it somehow might exclude those from the more seasoned or acknowledged Art world… THIS IS FOR EVERYONE! This series will bear witness to a profound and yet down to earth connection between today’s contemporized Arts & Craft scene and our early craft roots within this country.
Do read on… and watch for the History of Craft to unfold in upcoming issues.
Threading together a fragmented history
Our introduction to the first in an ongoing series about the History of Craft in Canada
Last year I went to Vancouver with the intention of visiting the Canadian Craft Museum. It’s a tidy brown building sitting in the middle of downtown, across from the more imposing Vancouver Art Gallery. As a ceramist with a fascination for craft history, I confess I felt a bit of shameless pride that the museum existed at all, let alone in the heart of a bustling international city. I went up the stairs and found the doors locked. I hadn’t imagined that the museum could be shut down. Closed in 2002, the museum still stands, deserted or not, it’s hard to tell — a victim of the furtive, yet divisive opinions on craft in contemporary Canada.
There was a time, in our not too distant past, when craft was seen as an essential part of our cultural fabric. From prairie homesteads to Ontario factories to East Coast cottage industries, it flourished in its production. It was an expression of political ideals, symbolizing the depth and diversity of our cultural roots. It earmarked the growth of a newly forming nation.
It was everywhere.
Around the turn of the 20th century, a kind of craft renaissance began in Canada with the travails of a few enthusiastic, steadfast individuals — many of whom were women. Committed to the revival and preservation of all types of craft, these advocates were the foundation of a national interest that has lasted more than a hundred years.
Surprisingly, the government facilitated their efforts. In the 1940s, the federal government was searching for something to show Canada’s unique, though young, national identity. They found it in Canadian craft. According to historian Sandra Flood, “craft was identified as a common denominator — of interest to all Canadians — and free from racial, political, provincial, and class boundaries.” With a constant influx of immigrants to Canada introducing traditions and techniques from around the world, craft was proving itself to be particularly culturally diverse.
Yet, despite craft’s prominence in our history, its own history in Canada is largely unpublished, absent of biographies, relegated to a few collections, musty archives, hard-to-find books, and passed-down stories. The arrival of the American influence on the Canadian Art and Craft scene in the late 1960s is inaccurately – though popularly – considered the start of the craft movement in this country. But when it comes to early Canadian craft, the careful academic attention found in the fine arts is irresponsibly missing.
Fortunately, there was the Canadian Handicraft Guild. Founded by Alice Peck and May Phillips in 1905, this national organization zealously promoted traditional handwork by women, by French Canadians, Indigenous groups, and immigrants. Their first exhibitions were at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts but later exhibits were mounted across the country — unlike the mostly provincial or regional shows of today. The federal government even brought the guild’s exhibitions into the bustling international limelight at the 1904 World Fair in St. Louis, showcasing hundreds of works from all over Canada from decorative arts to home arts to handicrafts.
The endeavours of these women were a fusion of brash entrepreneurship, creativity, and most of all, philanthropy — an element seldom found in the history of the fine arts. Another one of the Canadian Handicraft Guild’s achievements was a chain of retail stores across Canada, where crafts people could sell their work and earn an income as well as recognition. But the guild’s best known legacy is a permanent collection of old and contemporary crafts housed at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Sadly, the collection is only one of three like it left in Canada.
Where, then, can we learn about the history of craft? There’s plenty of documentation about the origins of Canadians, their fortunes and failures, summers and winters, dreams and despairs. And still very little about their craftwork. What did they sleep under? What did they cook their stews in? What did they pray with when the droughts and blizzards came? What offered them peace and comfort in the cold, dark bitter months?
You see... The history of craft is the history of us.
Craft in and of itself is inextricably tied to the way we live. As Flood writes, “[Crafts] reveal a collective history of materials, processes, aesthetics, motifs, knowledge, and skills that have traveled great distances, been transferred, preserved, forgotten, revived, and reinvented.” Makers, collectors, writers, and historians are united by craft’s ever-evolving story of cultural exchange and transference. To know craft is to know the breadth of our country’s social and cultural history.
You could say that history justifies craft.
Last summer, I made a small earthenware bowl for my niece. She was almost one year old. At the bottom of the bowl, I painted a beautiful crimson ladybug sitting on a leaf — something for her to find under her mashed potatoes. Maybe, when she’s older, she’ll want to know what she was like as a child and find the bowl in the attic. Maybe, the bowl will have disappeared, but she’ll have some fondness for ladybugs she can’t explain. Or maybe, she’ll keep that bowl, and as an adult wonder where it came from. It’s her history. And that bowl will always remain a part of it.
Keeping a unified history of craft, though, is harder than it looks. There are so many “communities” in craft; hobby or popular craft, folk craft, reproduction craft, and art-craft are just a few of the genres born from the need to make useful objects, a propensity to adorn, and self-expression. Tragically, most craft communities are indelibly separated from each other — and not just by distance or culture, but sometimes by choice. How different is a Medalta jug from a Nova Scotia hooked rug? A silver hollowware pendant from a reproduction Shaker chair? A crystal candy bowl from a woven quill vest? To some, each one is craft, pure and simple. To others, they are worlds apart.
As we find ourselves — from makers to collectors to historians — struggling to map the future of Canadian craft, understanding where our craft traditions and practices come from is crucial. That means patching together our fragmented past. To preserve all crafts, each with the same historical representation, we need a sort of “democracy of craft”. It just might help protect and preserve contemporary works, the makers, their skills, and traditions.
This has been the first in a series of articles that will take a look at the various types of craftwork across Canada, their histories and their makers. Some are exclusive to one province or region or ethnic group. Others bear witness to a myriad of ethnic influences and are practiced across Canada, perhaps revived or contemporized. Yet, all are a valuable part of our heritage and intrinsic to the future of craft.
They are the threads of a storied tapestry.
