BEAUTY IN USEFUL THINGS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 413, 23 May 1947, Page 6

BEAUTY IN USEFUL THINGS

British Rural Handicrafts on Exhibition Nex ZEALAND is shortly to ‘see an exhibition-16 tons of it-of handicrafts that are still being practised -in the British countryside. It is the work of traditional craftsmen and women, who, with few exceptions, do not regard themselves as artists or de- — signers, but whose work, nonetheless, enriches the lives of those who use their. products. Accompanied by R. D. MeEwan, area organiser for the arts and crafts branch of the Education Department at Auckland, the display will be taken to 22 centres, and shown finally during the Otago Centennial Celebrations early next year. Then it will go to Australia for display at the 1948 Sydney Royal Show. ~ The exhibition has come here from the British Council, and the New Zealand Education Department will endeavour to show it in as many of the smaller centres as possible. Mr. McEwan will give descriptive lectures, showing what has developed through the years in rural England, and how ordinary every-day articles can combine functional ability with good appearance. Included in the display are eight screens showing handicraft processes which can be undertaken by schools or by adults who wish to practise a craft at home. And the British Council hopes that these examples of Britain’s country crafts may be related to a practical aspect of present-day life in the Dominions, and meet the increasing need to find satisfying ways of using the leisure which machinery now makes available. Pre-industrial workers, as the exhibition shows, made a design out of every

object they used, either for their households or their ordinary work in field or workshop. Each one of the exhibits has been made, or composed, as though the only aim of the worker was to make something graceful and harmonious to look at. There is a bewildering variety of forms, from a shillelagh to a potato-

hopper, with its ingenious hook ty waich the sack is attached. Yet the curves and proportions of every article are such that they must have been designed by artisans who were also artists. Pi The axe-handles were obviously made to be grasped and swung; and the ladles, besoms, bill-hooks and reaping hooks

to be used. But they and the other hundreds of articles are fashioned With such a rightness of line that they might have been made for display like a picture on a wall. Adaptable Blacksmiths There is a giant teapot, made to be handled comfortably and easily. There is a shapely coracle, and a rabbitingspade; there are grain-scoops so fashioned that the craftsman must have been thoroughly absorbed in the pleasure of his job. Before the war the decrease in the number of horses left many village smiths without full employment. By adapting their skill to making simple fireside implements, they have been able to maintain their forges. During the war the smiths made a valuable contribution in repairing and manufacturing parts for tractors. The exhibition shows examples of _ their chased toasting-forks, pokers and shovels. Among the smaller implements ‘are Scottish scythe blades, a Devon potatodigger, a fag-hook (not used for extracting packets from under the counter), turnip-cu‘ters, and iron mattocks. Well Made-Well Played! Working in the wooded districts of Gloucestershire or Buckinghamshire, small turnery mills supply some unexpected markets; at the same time they make chair-legs and wall-rails in large quantities. And there is a fine example of a cricket bat, made from English(continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) grown willow. For the benefit of cricketers who are) impatiently waiting till the Rugby season’s over, here is a description of its manufacture: When the willow trunks have about 50 inches circumference they are felled in winter and sawn into lengths of two feet four inches. These are hand-cleft into 10 or 12: segments. The segment is sawn into a blade and stacked to season six months in the open, six months indoors, and then partly shaped with a knife. The face of the blade is subjected to a pressure of two tons to the square inch to harden it. The handle is made of imported Sarawak cane and its end is sawn to fit the blade exactly. Nothing but glue and a perfect fit hold the two parts together. A burnish with a bone on the blade makes it ready for the boundaries. Fishermen’s jerseys are hand-knitted from hard spun yarn, known popularly as "dog’s hair and oakum." Most fishing villages have a distinctive traditional pattern, said to be of use in identifying the owner in case of drowning-a sort of civil "counterpart of the soldier’s "meat-ticket." And so it goes on, through knitting, quilting and .smocking, to the thrift crafts which, brought about by the war shortages, induced many ingenious forms of thrift. Notable among these was the revival of hand-spinning with wheel or

spindle, using wool gathered from hedgerows and fences. There are 12 groups of textiles, from tweeds to Scottish tartans. The traditional domestic pottery of Great Britain from very early times is well represented. Baskets, from a bee-skep to an airborne pannier of peeled willow, as used to supply troops from the air, are shown, dnd one interesting exhibit is of bargee ware. These painted utensils are used

by the bargees who live on the canals. The barges themselves, including the cabin, are also decorated. The designs | are popularly known as "Egyptian," sug- | gesting their probable gipsy origin. In panel form, there are photographs of rural craftsmen at work, and of re- | cent types of agricultural machinery. Along with her rural crafts, Britain seeks to employ all the resources of modern agricultural science and engineering. The photographs show some examples of this application of mechanisation to /farming. The. whole exhibition indicates that the artistic faculty is not, found only in a few select persons. The makers of these implements are ordinary men and women whose art is as spontaneous and natural as the craftsmanship with which they serve the community. A talk had been arranged from 1YA to coincide as closely as possible with the first appearance of the exhibition, end, as it moves round» the various centres, listeners will have an _ opportunity of hearing it described from other National stations. Here is the North Island itinerary of the display: Auckland, opening on Wednesday, May 21, closing May 30; Hamilton, June 9 to 13; Whangarei, June 25 to 28; New Plymouth, July 7 to 11; Palmerston North, July 21 to 25; Gisborne, August 5 to 8; Napier, August 18 to 22; Hastings, September 1 to 5; and ee Sie thai 12 to 25. ) ; :