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Friday 14th May 1998 started as a normal day. I was on duty at Quilt Gallery, one of the artists' bays which open into the main hall of the Meat Market Craft Centre (then trading as The Metro!) at 42 Courtney Street, North Melbourne, Victoria. Quilt Gallery had opened the previous September with sixteen members co-operatively running the space.
I went through the usual routine. Unlock and push back the barred gates to display our range of small mounted textiles and cards. Check out the current exhibition of wall quilts, this time by Janice Heitbaum and Cherry Jackson. Transfer one of my wall quilts to the front of the mounted display rack, a privilege of the duty member. Arrange the desk ready for any sales. Settle down with a cup of coffee to read the day book comments and check the sales since my last duty day, two weeks ago.
Ironically, I felt the Meat Market Craft Centre was really vibrant that day. The cafe tables in the centre of the main hall were full of people enjoying morning tea and a chat. There were interesting exhibitions throughout the building; at both ends of the main hall, in the Link Gallery and both the State Gallery and the Blackwood Street Gallery showed the striking knotted rope tapestries of the late Janet Brereton.
The Quilt Gallery bay was situated in a central position between the busy cafe and Artisan Craft Books. From where I sat, doing my handwork, I could look across to the gift shop with its range of gift items in many media by well known professional craftspeople. I could see the individual bays opposite which catered for basket makers, a jeweller, leather and textile artists, a ceramicist and spinners and weavers. I waved to one of the screen printers from further down on our side of the hall and had a chat with Dijanne Cevaal who had been running a dyeing and printing workshop for the last two days.
The only unusual thing I noticed were the small groups of men in suits who appeared to be escorted around by some of the people from the office which ran the building. These men in suits were obviously business men and stood out from our usual more casually dressed clientele which in the main consisted of overseas, interstate and regional visitors, craftspeople, craft aficionados and students.
I thought the men in suits were explained when during the morning a letter arrived from the office notifying us that the Company which ran the Meat Market Craft Centre had found it difficult to conduct the business with the constraints of an historical building to consider and with inadequate funding from the State government. Finding itself heading towards insolvency and with no supplementary funding forthcoming, the Company therefore had appointed a Public Administrator to take over. The tenants were assured that it should only take a few days to sort out and to carry on as normal during that time.
I rang Barbara Macey, Chairperson of Quilt Gallery Inc. and informed her of what was happening and then Susan Karoly, Treasurer of the group, but also President of the Friends of the Meat Market Craft Centre. Barbara felt very wary of the move while Susan thought it could perhaps have a positive effect in the long run. None of us was prepared for what happened next.
After lunch, the manager of the gift shop went around all the bays and told us to close at 3.30 and gather for a meeting at the cafe. This was unprecedented. The Meat Market Craft Centre was open seven days a week from 10am to 5pm and craftspeople were expected to work in their bays during those hours. I had always felt guilty when I sneaked out at 4.45 to walk to Spencer Street Station to catch my train back to Ballarat.
At 3.30 I could see our security guards ushering the public out the doors. The tenants were gathering at the cafe tables in the hall. The men in suits were standing in small groups at the head of the collection of tables. The office staff were there. I grabbed the day book, thinking that I should take "minutes" for the others, closed the bay and joined the other tenants. I could see men, not the security guards, at the two main entrances and the staff entrance. They appeared to be working on the doors. During the meeting we were told that the locks had been changed.
One of the men in suits turned out to be the Public Administrator, another the solicitor for Arts Victoria, while the rest appeared to be support staff, receiving and making calls on mobile phones throughout the meeting. The Administrator spoke briefly and then introduced the solicitor for Arts Victoria, who appeared to be in charge.
Although the legal niceties of the situation and the moves and counter moves of the main players were explained more clearly at subsequent meetings, my main impression of this meeting was of a group of business men who worked to a prescribed formula which did not fit this situation on the one side and bewildered and angry tenants who could not believe this was happening on the other.
Some things were certainties. The company had been close to insolvency. The premier, Mr Kennett, in his role of Minister of the Arts, had refused supplementary funding. A Public Administrator had been appointed. The locks had been changed and the public had been excluded from the building to protect the assets and because the insurance cover was no longer valid. Arts Victoria owned the building and were in control.
The rest was confusion. On the one hand we were told that the Meat Market Craft Centre could be reopened in a few days. On the other hand we were advised to remove our personal possessions and leave. There were warnings of an inventory and sale of equipment.
What would happen to the one hundred people from all over Victoria who were booked for a conference the next day? The cafe had brought in extra supplies to cater for this. The jeweller was half way through making a pair of wedding rings, other contracts had to be honoured. How were people who relied on the money from sales of their work to pay for food, rent and other basis necessities? Who would watch the kiln, currently fired at 1000 degrees? The bookshop owner was away, she needed to be contacted. What about all the work on consignment? What about the students and workshops booked for the following week?
As queries were raised, the men in suits would go into a huddle and out would come the mobile phones. Ad hoc decisions were made. They had no idea of the complexity, the scope, the richness of the Meat Market Craft Centre. They came from a different world.
I slipped back into the bay, contacted Barbara Macey so that she could alert the others, packed up all my textile pieces and left to catch my train. The Meat Market Craft Centre has been closed to the public ever since.
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