The Art Of Imitation: Artisans

An artisan, in the English use of the word, lost some of its meaning. It became wrongly synonymous with general worker, someone from an artisan class and of lower status, and it was the Industrial Revolution which did for the artisan in Britain.

The artisan has enjoyed a revival in the use of the word and in status. The Americans have gone big on artisans, re-discovering traditions of skilled, craft work and putting it on display at fairs. The British have also revived the artisan, but he is - by title - still subordinate to the catch-all of the producer of arts and crafts.

The artisan never went away in Mallorca. But the term has also enjoyed, if this is the right word, a contemporary modification. Artisan has crossed into areas where it was never strictly speaking appropriate, cooking being one example. It has become marketing speak, an alternative to "hand-made", one with the cachet of tradition, even if tradition is absent.

Artisan is everywhere in Mallorca. Its ubiquity has been given added impetus in recent years and for different reasons. One has been a consequence of a backlash against modernisation and of the other ubiquity - that of tourism - but with the irony of artisan craft being an element in the marketing mix presented to the tourist. A second reason has been economic. The decline of industry in Mallorca has left a vacuum that more traditional manufacture and skills have helped to fill. Thirdly, there has been the institutional support for something considered "a good thing". This support, be it from town halls, government, foundations or whatever, has put the artisan firmly back in the frame and given him his place at Mallorca's own artisan fairs.

The artisan fair covers a range of skills - from working with stone, as evident at Binissalem's dry-stone wall fair, to textiles and ceramics. Some of the island's fairs are "artisan" or more so than others; Pollensa's is one example, albeit that the number of artisans this year was down on previous fairs.

But the artisan fair has run up against a problem. Not everyone who exhibits or participates is in fact an artisan. Some fairs that claim to be artisan aren't really anything of the sort. Or rather, they are artisan, it is just that the participants lack the right accreditation.

The Council of Mallorca is organising, for the first time, a competition and prizes for artisanship. The prizes are due to be given for 2011 but, as far as I can make out (and someone might correct me if I am wrong), they don't appear to have been awarded yet. To qualify for the prizes, however, shows that even traditional skills are subject to the demands of contemporary regulations and bureaucracy. There is a nine-page document that is littered with references to this or that law, demands for social security and business activity documentation, the need to show certificates and so on and so on. It's a tortuous business being an artisan in Mallorca and getting through the first round of form-filling in order to try and grab a prize of 3,000 euros.

Some of these demands are understandable. An artisan is, or should be, a master craftsman (in pre-Industrial Revolution Britain artisans were, after all, the product of the guilds), and there are certificates to prove that local Mallorcan artisans are just this. Not everyone has such a certificate, however, and this is one reason why the small to medium-sized businesses association (PIMEM) has taken it upon itself to ask the government to ensure that fairs which claim to be artisan are indeed artisan, down to the presentation of certificates, evidence of locally produced artifacts, and tax returns.

It's fair enough probably. You can't just have any old Tomeu, Ricardo or Enrique pitching up with a load of bowls with "artisan" stamped on their bases. Or can you? Does it really matter? According to PIMEM, it does. Consumers will be confused otherwise or even taken for a ride into buying stuff that has nothing to do with Mallorcan artisan tradition, while local culture and identity will be eroded by artisanal interlopers.

More than this, small and professional artisan concerns will be put out of business, believes PIMEM. So, if you value the artisan tradition in Mallorca, the next time you go to an artisan fair, demand to see the business activity document, the certificate of craftsmanship and, for good measure, the tax return. This way, you will know that what you are buying is truly artisan and true Mallorcan craft and not some crafty imitation.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.