Craft Context

In the 1970s in Britain, craft was a self-confident, often politically-driven practice, its critical voice heard in new journals and through innovative exhibitions. In the '80s craft embraced post-modernism but it seemed that by the '90s, the dynamism and character of craft as an apparently holistic practice had run out of momentum and some makers felt the loss of an overt raison d'être. The nature of craft became a constant bone of contention. Discussions in the many conferences around the latter part of the '90s would often be reduced to circular arguments that attempted to pin down some ultimate definition of craft practice. This search for the qualities of craft grew from an obvious comparison to artists and designers who, during the same period, seemed to be enjoying public confidence indicated by a growing desire for designer products and the infamy of the YBAs (Young British Artists). On the back of designer culture, craft would sometimes make the news, only to be referred to in association with a caricature of its work in the '60s and '70s that seemed to be out of place in the fashionable '90s. At this time the Crafts Council was subsumed by the Arts Council in what appeared to be the final declaration that craft had lost its direction and individual identity. Yet it was because of this perception that craft was revived - craft is dead, long live the crafts. Craft practice, in conjunction with the critical writing around it, has become more profound and edgy, taking what it needs from many disciplines to emerge into an exploration of the relationships between people and things - one of the most fundamental tenets of Western society.

Paul Greenhalgh (2002) has suggested that the shift from a homogenous concept of craft into many different craft practices, should be understood as a shift in the meaning of the term 'craft' from a relatively standardised practice into a word suggestive of many genres, in the same way that the terms 'literature' or 'film' describe a diversity of activity. In this way, such signs as the end of an independent Crafts Council can be understood as a reflection of an evolution in craft practice that offers new freedoms and is part of the "integrationist spirit (what does it matter as long as I create and communicate)'? (pp. 2-4). Yet I cannot help feeling that there are still key ideas within the crafts today that are stubborn reminders of the idea of craft from the past. One of the most powerful of these is the importance - one might even say the myth - of the material.

If one considers many of the infrastructures of craft practice still in place in Britain, then it is clear that these are defined by the medium, whether this is textiles, ceramics, glass, wood or metal. Although many degree courses have now taken on the more general titles of 'Contemporary Crafts' or 'Decorative Arts', rather than being defined as 'Ceramics' or 'Glass' for example, they are often still organised around the choices of materials. Journals, so important to reporting contemporary craft practice are, with a few exceptions, also predominantly organised around materials. As such an artist/maker is often categorised by the medium in which they produce most of their work, perhaps even by the techniques within that material area that they are most associated with. Thus it seems that it is the relationship between a maker and their material that is still inherent to defining craft practice more generally.

This emphasis on the intimate relationship between maker and material clearly emerged during the modernist period of craft practice in Britain. From the early twentieth-century to at least the 1970s, crafted products were firmly integrated within a broad system of object production. Whether this was in opposition to industrialisation or in association with it, craft was an accepted and important part of making and manufacture as a whole - the activity that characterised British national identity most keenly at the time. As part of this role, craft offered an honesty and value that was centred on the qualities of the material - makers were 'true' to it, they were monogamous, as opposed to modernist designers who could have a brief affair with a certain medium. For craftsmen and women, their entire lives were to be bound in partnership with their material of choice, like Bernard Leach, a man who made the processing of ceramic material a personal ritual. The material became a way of life that showed an honesty and integrity, a lifelong apprenticeship through which Leach earned the right to be regarded as a great potter. If one looks at any number of the current obituaries of makers from this period and later, the importance of their lifelong relationship in mastering their material is central. Indeed it would seem that the very notion of craftsmanship, of skill, is impossible without this single-minded sacrifice.

In some ways, this can be seen in contrast to the development of conceptual art, which in part dismantled the relationship between the artist and his or her mastery of their material or medium. The end of the Second World War had signalled this development by the transformation of the role of the artist in society. The modernist artist who was leader and originator had been overthrown by the authority of society itself. Society now took the lead, dictating what form or genre the artist would work in. Conceptual art commented and intervened in society and it used anything from paint to dead sharks to do it because it was the mastery of the idea that was important. That is not to say that the right choice of material was not still crucial to the expression of an artist's ideas, but rather that the lifelong apprenticeship to distil meaning from that material, was no longer thought necessary. Indeed, as today, if conceptual artists could not make a work themselves, they often directed other makers to construct their work, retaining the ultimate authorship of the idea. This philosophical drive to separate idea from material has clearly had a massive impact on the visual arts, rendering the figure of a lifelong student of one material unnecessary and anachronistic in a modern society. The question is how have the crafts taken on this development, and does a constant shift from one material area to another, dictated more by the goal of the piece than by an inherent need to create, make an artist/maker's practice incompatible with a crafts tradition?

Genres

Stephen Dixon has been involved in the crafts for many years creating a range of large slab-built ceramic sculptural vessels, modelled figures and moulded plates, decorated with a complexity of images from abstract marks to detailed figures. His chosen material has fundamentally anchored Dixon's work to the crafts, though his treatment of it, as a canvas for social and political comment, has often simultaneously aligned his work with the history of painting and caricature. However Steve's early output was very much within the tradition of the British ceramics industry, which has a long history of figurative caricature and commemorative objects. As this industry has crumbled, a number of craftspeople, like Dixon, have claimed its forms, techniques and context for contemporary craft.

This ceramic genre has offered an alternative to the more traditional studio ceramics of Leach, but it is still comfortably within the categories that seem acceptable to the craft infrastructure, namely those based around materials, in this case ceramics. Yet Dixon has suggested that, even before his residency, his affiliation to ceramics alone was " ... a monkey" on his shoulder, restricting his development. Dixon felt that he had not " ... allow[ed] work to develop in a certain way because it's not suited to the material, whereas it's suited to the idea". Clearly here Dixon is demonstrating how the underlying assumptions that one is a ceramicist and therefore must produce work in ceramic, can restrict the development of ideas. Here also the impact of conceptual art is visible, as he sees ideas as being independent from the material. This is confirmed when Dixon later suggests that "it's the idea and moving the idea on that's more important than the material itself". Yet in the same post-residency interview, Dixon also states that he cannot develop work without making it, a comment suggesting that for him, the idea and material are still very much intertwined. I am interested in this apparent contradiction because it highlights where craft infrastructure, and by this I mean the theoretical and administrative framework for making, has not served the maker well. This is because Dixon's statement appears to be a contradiction, yet if one dispenses with the emphasis on material and considers the broader category of process instead, then the artist's comments are more understandable. I propose that by using and developing Greenhalgh's ideas on genre one may establish a more appropriate theoretical understanding of craft making, and the relationship between maker and material.

Perhaps the best way to begin this development of the term genre is to take a brief glimpse at the history of fine art classification. If one considers its management, it is apparent that fine art has not limited itself to definition by material but has been organised through genres such as historical painting or monumental sculpture. Though material was sometimes implied through these categories, it was the genre that dominated the organisation of education and museums for many years. The crafts have not really received the same sort of treatment, yet one might argue that the exploration of the still-life genre is as pertinent to Gwen Hanssen-Piggott as it was to Giorgio Morandi. This is because a genre is not simply determined by the superficial similarity between the subject of the finished works, but by the reasoning and processes involved in the creation of that object/image. In the case of still-life perhaps the technical elements making up the practice of this genre would be the examination of the formal qualities of composition, light, shade, and volume, the use of iconology, and the evocation of human presence and memory, amongst other things.

If Dixon's work was to be given a genre it would, I propose, be 'satire', a title similarly identified by the director of the JamFactory, Stephen Bowers, who at the start of Dixon's residency, had wondered how Steve's satirical eye would be turned onto Australia. Satire derives from an imprecise Latin word meaning simply 'a medley', but this notion of a gathering of diverse elements is highly appropriate for Dixon's work. In his case he collects a graphic vocabulary not simply to ridicule but to provoke through the often surreal juxtapositions of usually unrelated images. Satire encompasses many forms of creative practice including literature, film, theatre, print-making and caricature, and it is the breadth of the genre across many disciplines that allows one to transcend the limitations of media and to consider the technical elements that make up the creation of 'satire', or as Steve himself has commented, to consider satire as an 'attitude to making'.

In her essay on Dixon's work for his solo show at the Manchester Art Gallery in 2005, Diana Donald referred to Ernst Gombrich's thoughts on the work of the cartoonist. Gombrich explained that the demands of depicting abstract ideas required the artist to employ visual metaphors, political bestiaries, and to personify countries and political ideas (pp. 30-34). Gombrich's list of satirical visualisation can be extended to consider the more general techniques that are part of a satirical attitude to making. For this essay, I am going to focus on the satirists' need to adopt the role of the observer or outsider in society, the use of popular imagery alongside that normally associated with 'high' culture, the construction of a symbolism that is both personal and yet understandable (in part) by a collective audience, the employment of narrative, order and sequence, and importantly the intention to ridicule and reveal the hypocrisy of the establishment (in whatever sphere that is). If we consider these activities in the analysis of Dixon's residency work, then we will see that far from breaking away from his former ideas, Dixon's residency has simply, though crucially, given him the freedom to shake off the limitations created by the management of craft around material that still largely exists in Britain today. I intend to explore each of these aspects of satirical technique, but it will become apparent that many of the characteristics inevitably overlap because this is an attempt to breakdown what is a holistic practice. Nevertheless, I shall take each aspect in order, beginning with examining the adoption of the role of the observer or outsider - a prerequisite for satirical practice.

For some years Steve Dixon has felt the need to comment on the state of Western politics, in particular policies concerned with the interaction of Britain and America with other countries in the world. In recent years, alongside many other satirical artists and writers, this comment has been focused on the relationship between George Bush and Tony Blair, through which Dixon has attempted to evidence and reveal the underlying capitalist ethos behind their official policies of trade and war. Paradoxically, Dixon has had to place himself outside of immediate current politics and instead consider each new event by looking backwards at history and forward into the future. By doing this, he has mapped the longevity and impact of ideas and decisions, transcending and ridiculing the short-term memory of modern day political doctrine. Dixon makes monuments of throwaway news, revealing the reasons for the occurrence of apparently unprecedented events and demanding that we heed their seriousness. Like all satirists, Dixon is therefore a wandering flâneur, wondering at the news and making us aware of the brutal realities and the uncomfortable truths we try not to see.

The outsider's stance on society is inevitably the natural position for an artist on residency or for an anthropologist doing fieldwork. As such one might imagine that Dixon found himself on familiar territory philosophically, though on unfamiliar territory geographically. Yet as a Westernised country Australia, and in particular Adelaide where he was located, was strangely familiar and this created an interesting dilemma for him in relation to his role. It would have been easy for Steve to adopt a similar satirical stance, yet his unfamiliarity with the political situation and the complexity of the internal cultural politics in Australia, meant that Dixon was bereft of the powerful understanding that he has had as a long-time observer of British and American politics. This underlying difference, despite superficial similarities, also revealed to Dixon that it was imperative that he engage with his own position as a privileged visitor, able to 'drop' into another society to apparently examine it. In order to resolve the ethics of this, and as a solution to the dilemma of establishing a new role, Steve chose to explore the passage of people from Europe to Australia through either enforced relocation or emigration. In this way Dixon could concentrate less on specifics and more on the broader themes of colonial power and punishment that affected every Australian, whether Indigenous or not. Simultaneously, this focus acknowledged his own position as stranger and privileged visitor. Thus in effect Dixon exploited his usually adopted 'outsider' role to address the more abstract notions of control and resistance in which he himself was implicated. This research into power structures, and defiance in the face of them, became symbolised for Steve by pitting the ephemeral material culture of make do and mend within both settler and Indigenous nineteenth-century society, against the permanence of colonial and post-colonial monuments.

Analysis of Dixon's new focus in Australia therefore inevitably leads on to another aspect of a satirist's attitude to making - the use of a broad visual vocabulary which is drawn from 'high' culture and everyday objects. Before the residency, Steve had developed this vocabulary into a highly sophisticated, ever-evolving 'alphabet', or 'construction kit' of images and ideas. The alphabet allowed images to be used in different ways, at once personally symbolising an idea or event, whilst being able to stand for a very different concept or issue on another piece of work - just as an alphabet of letters can be used to construct an infinite range of words. For Dixon, these images were built on symbolism already established by Western society, such as heraldic and nationalistic bestiaries. Yet the artist would also acknowledge their more modern uses in advertising and branding, as well as drawing meaning from his own incidental and personal experiences of them, creating a breadth of inferred and possible readings of his work. Thus Steve's imagery pre-residency was not only visually multi-layered but had an equally dense symbolic life that resounded with an almost infinite set of meanings.

During his residency, Steve began the search for a new personal alphabet. Devoid of an established position as political commentator, he became focused on objects that suggested control, resistance and that had accrued meaning through the very action of movement across the globe - the objects themselves symbolising the artist's own transitory state. This interest had begun before leaving Britain as, in preparation for the residency, Dixon had become interested in the tokens that were given to loved ones by convicts about to be transported to a penal colony in Australia. The love tokens were filed-down coins which were then re-engraved by hand with symbols of love and travel, as well as verse. As such these objects represented a small gesture of defiance by the convicts who mutilated, and symbolically defaced, this monument of Britishness, capitalism and ultimately the authority by which they had been captured and imprisoned. These tokens also allowed a brief voice to be heard within a punishment system that was determined, not only to make the criminals silent, but also to make them disappear from Britain altogether. This concept of removal and invisibility, led Dixon towards gathering a number of images of different masks during his residency - the most immediately pertinent of these being the silence hood, which was used in nineteenth-century penal institutions to prevent prisoners from communicating with each other. Dixon's interest in the Ned Kelly story offered another mask to the alphabet. This came when he viewed Ned's and other bushrangers' death masks in the Old Melbourne Gaol, morbid reminders of the administrative and philosophical armoury employed by the colonial penal system, often under the guise of science. This led Dixon onto considering the armour and helmet that Kelly himself had constructed as defence against the strength of the British-Australian authorities. This amazing set of artefacts, depicted as basic, bold shapes through the paintings of Sidney Nolan, were constructed from plough parts that Nolan depicted as being padded with quilting - the farming and needlework of settler life transformed into a defiant gesture against authoritarian rule. Finally Steve discovered another mask, a kiln visor found within the JamFactory's own studio which seemed to mirror that of Ned Kelly's.

Added to this stock of images, Dixon's alphabet grew as he collected images associated with Captain Cook such as Cook's parents' cottage, itself transported from Britain to be reconstructed as a monument in the Fitzroy Gardens, Melbourne. He also gathered images of Ned Kelly's cottage, Australian birds and animals (on packaging and tea towels), and the wire structures of Aboriginal bush toys, 1930's soap holders and, almost inevitably, barbeque paraphernalia. In listing the range of images and objects that the artist collected, one can see how these developed as both a private vocabulary, through his personal interest and experience of visiting Adelaide and Melbourne in particular, yet also how meaningful the same images would be to a collective audience. Many, such as the figures of Ned Kelly, Captain Cook, birds of Australia and barbeques are representative of the national identity of non-indigenous Australians, and are employed in the tourist trade. Other images and objects selected by Steve belong more to the margins of official Australian history and tourism, the bush toys, the soap holders that few Australians recognised, and the paraphernalia of power through death masks and anthropological photographs and casts.

One of the main techniques of the satirist is to establish a narrative that employs a sequence of events or images that will create meaning. On most occasions visually-based satire also incorporates text to accomplish this. Though 'narrative' is a phrase more usually associated with literature it is equally applicable, and has had a long tradition, within the visual arts. Just as literary forms have a structure that makes them what they are, for instance prose requires a far different physical structuring of words than certain forms of poetry, so do artistic genres. In both cases the creative tension comes between the idealised form of the genre and its appropriation by an individual writer or artist. Narrative is also a crucial part of caricature where, rather than genres, cartoonists will appropriate and parody metaphors or figures of speech, established works of art or everyday situations as a method of structuring narrative.

As a satirist whose work has often been related to caricature, Steve's pre-residency work has similarly required the establishment of a narrative sequence to construct meaning for an audience. But working in three-dimensions, Dixon's method is more complex as he not only establishes a narrative within the representation on the surface of his objects, but also between that representation and the various three-dimensional forms of his work. An example of this is one of Dixon's 21 Countries plates from 2003. In order to create understanding, the artist uses a range of different mark-making techniques. These include washes of single colour or abstracted, simple patterns to create what he terms 'mood' or context, abstracted and gestural marks inferring direction and emphasis, and a series of hand drawn or appropriated imagery, differing in scale and density of colour. In our example, Dixon's main subject is the famous Classical Laocoön sculpture, this is represented as a line drawing laid over a printed image of Britney Spears from her performance at the Grammies with a live snake. The placement of the print beneath the drawing suggests that the contemporary event - Spear's support for George Bush's decision to go to war with Iraq - has a complex and historical context. This is inferred by the Biblical symbolism that Spear's herself created by using the snake, a symbol of the devil, but Dixon draws her actions into a broader question by creating a visual analogy between Spears' snake and the one strangling Laocoön and his sons. Laocoön was being punished for trying to prevent the Trojans taking the dangerous wooden horse inside the city walls, so attempting to prevent Troy's defeat. Spears' views can be seen in relation to this as she was a supporter of Bush, so favouring the political interpretation of the President's that in order to prevent ultimate defeat, he had to take proactive steps in invading Iraq. As such, these two attempts to pre-empt defeat give further significance to the snake that Spears parades. In light of the Laocoön image it begins to appear less under her control, perhaps punishing her for this publicised support.

Though the Britney image is more contemporary, the plate actually refers in its imprinting of the words Granada and the date 1983, to the bombing of that island by the United States. This, in turn, deepens the use of narrative structure within the piece by utilising the three-dimensional form of the object. Although much of the plate is used as a canvas, with little reference to it as a specific object, the narrative structure also partly employs the tradition of commemorative plates within the ceramics industry. Thus the irony of the plate is that it should commemorate such an event and it utilises the narrative devices created by the rim of the plate on which the date and place of bombing are imprinted, as well as a suggestion of a traditional border, using transfer prints of sunflowers to establish this. This employment of form as a method of structuring narrative is used to even greater affect on Dixon's slab-built pots in which basic two-dimensional images are accompanied by a single modelled figure, almost like the figure-head of a ship. In effect Steve's work pre-residency used this overall form of the object, which in the case of his slab-built sculptures were derived from an oil can (an overarching symbol of the underlying cause of much contemporary political wrangling in his opinion), to create a meaningful narrative. Different emphasis on collected imagery was indicated by the utilisation of the form's lids, spouts, handles, walls, constructed joints and sprigs. Babylon, also from 2003, demonstrates how each element is manipulated. The 'figurehead' on the lid is an angel from the Apocalypse, holding a key to the bottomless pit. Dixon has used the angel to encompass the entire meaning of the vessel, which refers to Britain's involvement in the Iraq war and the fear (the artist shares with many) that the initial action will result in a never-ending slide into the chaos of retaliation between Christian and Islamic nations. Mood is created by the handles and spout of the object which are suggestiveof the oil cans themselves, again a reference to the underlying reasons behind the drive towards war, according to Dixon. Within the background is the haunting image of Frankenstein's monster - used as a symbol for Saddam Hussein (as a monster of the West's making) by the artist. This is overlaid with a bold hand drawn figure of Minerva, the inspiration for Britannia and therefore symbolising Britain. By the use of scale and placement, it is clear that she is the main subject of the piece. Finally, the use of sprigs which are impressions of a B52 bomber and the head of George Washington, all offer clues as to the context and history behind the current situation.

Clearly Dixon had established a confidence in using the narrative of the vessel and plate forms pre-residency but, alongside an emerging alphabet in Australia, there were new challenges in the way that narrative was to be constructed. Because of a shift in focus, Steve no longer had familiar forms to work on, but began instead to utilise readymade objects as a way to create a narrative structure for his new alphabet. Dixon identifies this subtle change in the form of his work, from self-constructed to readymade, as an important shift that occurred in his residency. An example of this new shift was the use of enamel ware found in Op Shops (the equivalent of British charity or junk shops). Dixon was able to re-fire these and used what came to hand, letting the found object shape the narrative. Superb Blue Wren is the name of a piece created from a small enamel tin mug found in such a location. The tone and scale of the mug's material and surface offered a playful connection between settler culture and one of the main aspects of Australian wildlife that initially struck Steve.

During his residency, however, Steve more commonly used the enamel plate as a way of drawing and developing ideas, finding their connection to settler culture and the qualities of the material energising and inspiring. These initial plates offer an interesting insight into the development of Dixon's emerging alphabet and many of them show the use of these new symbols in which the narrative structure afforded by the form of the plate is utilised to great effect. The plates' centres indicate the main subject, whilst the rims and borders suggest the title and overarching theme. One example of such a plate depicts the silence hood used to isolate prisoners decorated with a chintzy pattern that, when combined with the worn and over fired enamel surface and the word 'silence' printed on the rim, makes a disturbingly direct and simple statement. The niceties of nineteenth-century British domestic life are transformed into the hardships and power struggles of the settlers' new life in Australia. On another plate, a similarly decorated flowery depiction of Ned Kelly's helmet is accompanied by the legend 'Iron Horse' with the word 'Man' overlaid, becoming 'Iron Horse Man'. These are all placed in the highlighted centre of the plate, and attest to the prowess of Ned Kelly as a horse man, offering the chintz this time as a comment on the use and value of domestic skills in the life of the bushranger. Here the rim is left plain with only the discolouration of the enamel and the cracking to decorate it. Without words we immediately consider the use and reuse of plates such as these in the day to day life of the settler. Here the rim literally circles the theme of the plate, quietly emphasising the message it gives. Though Dixon has used the plate before, both these examples suggest a change in his personal relationship to narrative. Firstly, in using enamel, found plates, Dixon is not trying to represent his imagery, as he did with the oil cans, but rather he provides the actual object for us, collapsing the distance that we might have felt between ourselves and the subject. Settler life is not symbolised, it is immediate and physical. The style of the narrative is also transformed through a new bold simplicity of image and text. Rather than the 'jigsaw' or riddle of meaning that Dixon has created over many years, building up layer upon layer of symbolism like a Homeric epic - rich in imagery - the simplicity of the new image/text combination offers an equally dense but more succinct statement. This minimalism is akin to the concept of haiku poetry, a Japanese literary form requiring the poet to use only 17 syllables to construct a scene.

The same simplicity but an alternative method of narrative structure has also been explored by Dixon through the use of multiple readymade objects, rather than just a single object. The artist has experimented with the use of the same image printed on a number of objects that are then stacked vertically to create a sequence of meaning. This inevitably changes the form of narrative and brings in other suggestions of context such as domestic dwellings or the rituals of food in settler life. Amongst these objects, Dixon has included printed textiles, and these have been developed to form the basis of another single object - a reconstruction of the silence hood.

Although the silence hood is in effect a representation of the original object, seen in the Old Melbourne gaol, because it is made in textile the hood is still a more direct statement - rather a re-presenting of the original mask to an audience. The hood also indicates the initial experiments that Steve has undertaken in textiles. It has been constructed from material taken from a print bed table, which immediately links the material to Dixon's usual form of activity. Due to its source, the material is therefore decorated with random letters and colours that have been printed on it coincidentally as others have carried out their own work. This creates a background much like that of Dixon's pre-residency pots and plates. But onto this almost familiar ground, Steve has printed only one anthropological image, creating a succinctness of narrative that is not found in his earlier work. Here this simple message is that control was applied to many different people, and in many different ways in Australia.

The two methods of using collective objects and the incorporation of textile are combined in Steve's post-residency experiments which, typical of the satirical cartoonist's trade, use a figure of speech to construct narrative, a readymade of another sort. Beginning with the term 'jail bird' Steve has constructed several visual experiments that depict one of the birds from his Australian alphabet within a cage-like structure. These cages are also suggestive of some of the wire forms such as bush toys, soap holders and barbeques that come from Dixon's Australian alphabet. In a further exploration of this, Steve has constructed a square grid with an eye slit, attached to a handle, trapping layers of fabric printed with many images from anthropological records and natural history books. Again these two sources are indicative of the paraphernalia of power employed through the auspices of science to exact control on the indigenous people and animals of pre-colonialism. Interestingly, however the mask Steve has constructed is reminiscent of the kiln visor found in the JAM studios. This is intentional.

In the original breakdown of the satirist's art, there was listed one last important element - the act of ridiculing or highlighting the hypocrisy of the establishment. This is clear in Dixon's pre-residency work which speaks out against the current government and its policies, alongside the broader capitalist economy that encompasses much of the world, and is attempting to extend its influence further. This specific focus has become more abstracted n his residency work, in which Dixon has focussed on the abstracted arsenal of a Western power, the very forms of control that were, and are used, within the colonial and post-colonial governing of society. Science, punishment, visibility and invisibility are all explored as we have seen.

There is though one further establishment that Dixon is self consciously attacking, and that is the crafts infrastructure that surrounds and governs every maker. This is evident through pieces that use one of the other 'masks' that Dixon identified, that of the kiln visor. In one ceramic plate, its visual form is clearly identified with the armour of Ned Kelly, where an outline of the visor is coupled with the word 'ned' in the centre of the plate. Above, an Australian butterfly is depicted, colourful but seemingly pinned to the rim, accompanied with numbers at the base which suggest a scientific approach. Thus, though the plate is incredibly minimal, within simply a few images there is a complexity of meaning that offers a sense of Steve's feelings of restriction and his identification with the desires of the bushrangers to take control of their own lives. This plate offers the suggestion that, like Ned, the artist wants to escape from his current identity as a ceramicist but like the specimen butterfly he knows he is trapped by his breeding and appearance. This message appears even more clearly on an enamel plate depicting the same piece of kiln equipment, this time decorated with chintz transfer print, suggestive of the traditional ceramics industry. It is laid over a grid, a symbol of control or entrapment for Steve. Above it on the rim are a set of hand cuffs which are clearly indicative of imprisonment and restraint with the word 'Vision' on the lower rim. All in all these symbols are suggestive of a genuine restriction felt by Steve about the established ceramic-centred management of his and others' work, and this is emphasised by the full title of the plate which is 'Tunnel Vision'.

Conclusion

In this essay I have attempted to explore the classification and organisation of crafts in theory and to demonstrate how this differs from actual craft practice. This essay is not just a study of how the work of Steve Dixon can be considered more openly within a new set of guidelines but it is also a plea. While artist makers are undertaking new and challenging ways of creating and understanding their place in the world, let writers not forget that they too have a duty to change and evolve and develop their own creative practice in response to this activity.

References

1. Donald, D. 2005 'The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters' in Stephen Dixon: the Sleep of Reason Manchester: Manchester Art Galleries.
2. Greenhalgh, P. (ed.) (2002) 'Introduction' in The Persistence of Craft: the applied arts today London: A&C Black.