ARTISANS IN UNIFORM

New Zealand Listener, Volume 10, Issue 248, 24 March 1944, Page 14

ARTISANS IN UNIFORM

Soldiers Whose Hands Have Not Been Idle Le week The Listener published an account of the _ exhibition, "Artists in Uniform," which has been assembled by the Army Education and Welfare Service to exhibit the creative work of men of the armed forces overseas. This account dealt entirely with the artistic side of the exhibition, the collection of paintings, which was the only part of it that had been assembled when our reporter called on the A.E.W.S. Since then, the exhibition has been opened to the public and when The Listener called again to see the finished display, we discovered that the name "Artists in Uniform" left out one interesting section of the con-tributors-the "Artisans in Uniform," for whose many pairs of hands the devil seems to have found no mischief. Men of the N.Z.E.F.LP. appear to have contributed most of the articles in the handcraft collection, as the materiais plainly show. And though the labelling gives only the maker’s name and rank, and a description of the article and tools used, it is possible to read between the lines of these dispassionate official wordings, and to imagine how long hours of patient whittling, filing and polishing have lightened the burden of garrison duty on some Pacific island, or perhaps have made a period of convalescence go more quickly. Many Knife-makers "Hammer, chisel, file," says the label on a set of cutlery made by Pte R. W. Slade out of metal from a Japanese _ aeroplane; but there was more to it than that, as we learnt. Pte. Slade had made moulds in sand, and cast. his blanks in them before setting to work with "hammer, chisel, file.’ Knives, if not forks, were popular with a good many men. There are more than a dozen formidable weapons, in sheaths, nearly all with built-up handles-sections of coloured glass, leather, or plastic having been fitted on a central shaft and ground smooth. Following similar patterns, but having post-war butter in mind and not Japanese abdomens, are several smaller, neater knives, their blades made from polished duralium. Brass shell cases are the basis of a good many objects, decorative or useful, or both. Ash-trays with match-box holders have grown from the cases of 25-pound shells, and one man has made himself a brass reading-lamp, with a small bulb socketed under a brass cowl. Paper-knives, a shoe-horn, a_ bottle opened in that favourite old pattern which the label calls "form of lady’s leg," bangles and signet rings are all made of the dull grey duralium, likewise two sensible-looking cigarette cases. One man (a lieutenant, almost alone among all the many non-commis-sioned ranks whose names appear on the labels), has made himself a brass mug in the shape and size of what hotels call a tankard. We noticed the name of one other lieutenant among these artisans; he had made a model (Continued on next page)

(Continued from previous page) landing-barge in wood and metal, closely detailed, with a ramp which lowers in the proper style. The combination of wood and metal appears in a wide range of objects, from the business-like jack-plane made of mahogany with a piece of broken machete for the blade, to crib-boards in varying shapes, with inlaid duralium stripes in place of the customary mother-of-pearl, and sets of pegs all patiently filed out of duralium. Coconut shells, of course, figure prominently; they have taken the shape of polished bowls, a windmill, a little sailing ship with each sail a neat concave, and various ornaments. There are mahogany boxes (one proudly labelled "No Glue"), teak tikis, ivory-nut studboxes, and shell brooches. Not all these things have been made to send home to decorate the mantelpiece — some have the look of being made to fill the maker’s immediate needs. The mahogany pipe, for instance, with a band on the stem made from a coin, the two ukuleles and the various crib-boards, Many Kiwis, Few Women On the other hand, some of the best work has been put into imaginative designs and carvings. There is a striking model, "Man Reading a Book,’ by L/Cpl. C, F. Milne, made of hardwood with "pen-knife, boot polish"; and for ingenious use of the curvature of an ivory nut it would be hard to beat Pte. G. J. Whatmough’s delightful lizard. The female figure appears about half a dozen times, not more. There is the leg-shaped bottle-opener, of course, and the paper-knife made of plexiglass with a silhouetted female figure for a handle, and two statuettes, one "lady and lamb," and one "carved wooden lady." But for the mere handful of female human forms, there must have been a good two dozen kiwis, surmounting mantel ornaments, lying flat on box lids, fixed on brooches, or standing alone. In fact, a visitor from another planet might get the impression that New Zealand’s soldiers have seen more kiwis in their time than women.