Not entirely a bad thing

The same inventive spark that inspires the artist to create may be useful if applied to funding innovations, and this symposium may be a springboard to bring art (and the artists who make it) out of its own encapsulation. Victor Wang states, "The thing about art, to buy art, and for people to find artists, it's kind of difficult in this city unless you're in the art industry." His statement begs the question: who’s responsibility is it to democratize art? The prima facie elitism inherent in Victor Wang’s remarks may be a symptom of the limited funding that has been recently lost. When so many “artists” vie for limited resources, a protectionist tendency can develop as an aegis to the pool of funding and to the art itself. These limited funding cuts to the arts may be the best thing that could have happened for artists. It will guide them to work together, as in this symposium, to use their substantial creativity to conceive of and construct new funding models and multiple streams of revenue; to work together creatively in supporting their mutual longevity.

If arts organizations have been “encouraged to become structured as a non-profit organization, to not be driven by the market," as Kate Armstrong claims, it may be useful to take a side-ways glance at the “encouraging factor”. If the lure of grants from provincial gambling proceeds has been the encouragement to structure as a non-profit, then the short-sightedness belongs to the artist and not to the one on the other side of the carrot. This funding development may, in the end, prove to be beneficial to the arts community in pulling it back from its seclusion and exclusivity, that is inherent in the language of some of the symposium’s participants, (the frustration and complaint that artists have to keep defining or repeating their worth/utility/relevance and that the inherent worth of the arts is - quite obviously - a priori, is alienating and perpetuates the solipsism that prevents “people to find artists...unless you're in the art industry”.

Keith Higgins’ belief that by working together, arts organization will endure the cuts, is a survival philosophy whose time has finally come.

re: lack of art funding

I'm realizing a lot of non-profit organizations have to get creative in order to build partnerships and ensure that their objectives are met on a limited budget. Do these extreme budget cuts help with building capacity? no. Will a lot of organizations fall under these government-based decisions? sadly yes.

I find it unfortunate that culture is not considered a contributing asset to society. In other countries, art is valued no matter what economic times they are facing. Sometimes, I wonder whether certain regions need to build better city hubs to infuse culture within the so-called suburbs so that the talented people living in BC can be recognized by a broader portion of society. But the same could be said that perhaps we need to build better city hubs so that 3/4 of the lower mainland isn't commuting into downtown vancouver on a daily basis and their region can financially support jobs, families, social needs, etc.

Mostly I think we are interesting times. The art sector will need to get extremely creative in filling funding gaps with other options (sponsorships, independent donors, shifting to commercial aspect, partnerships with similar org's) in order to survive.

as an artist, i've often wondered whether getting a business degree would be a good idea. it's just such a different mode of thinking for most people involved with the arts&culture sector. Generating worth in life is not about living, it's all comes down to capital. and that's the worst.

The vast majority of artists

The vast majority of artists in history have always been dirt poor. Rembrandt was destitute for most of his life, Van Gogh only sold 1 or 2 of his paintings, now they fetch tens of millions.

The general public is being impoverished more and more by the day, with daily rising costs and expenses, while the barbarians who control the economy and the governments are legalized to steal the world blind.

We're living under the biggest crime wave in human history and the crooks who are running it are doing their best to kill anything that doesn't fit their criminal purposes.

Artists are independent thinkers and all dictatorial systems must either control, or eliminate them.

Ed Deak.

Dundarave Printshop

Dundarve Print Workshop is an artists co-operative that has been running for 40 years sans funding. It maintains workspace for thirty members and a gallery. It is too bad the author didn't do a little more research and find arts organizations that have made a point of remaining independent. I hardly think that a once a year show such as the cheaper show, splendid as it is, can be used as an example of a replacement model of arts funding. An artist selling two pieces at $200 each, once per year is not a supportive funding model.

Indeed, fiat lux

Look at the figures on the budget deficit in the USA just released this week. They demonstrate that tax cuts for the wealthy are the single largest contributor to that deficit.

The same will come true here, or, failing that we generate a huge deficit, the tax cuts for the rich will drain every social program (including such "programs" as education) to the breaking point.

The arts issue has to be considered symptomatic and not an exclusive issue. Demands for more arts funding -- which I support -- must go hand in hand with an attack on the tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy.

Why do Canadians want to be like Americans? It's a nightmare living there. I know, I spent 4 decades there.

Title of Article

Robyne Smith had a stroke of genius.

This is the first and only time I agree with campbell -

GO FUND YOURSELF!!!!!

BOC financing for things

Perhaps it is time to stop using Charter, or international Banks to fund projects like Infrastructure, Education, or social programs. The use of these Debt based systems create the mess that we are now facing. people need to push their politicians to go back to using the Bank of Canada to Fund all internal Municipal, Provincial and Federal projects at nearly 0% interest, therefore no more debt to the future generations.

http://www.comer.org/boc/BoCtut.htm

Three cheers to The Blackbird for their comment. I strongly suggest everyone go find the Stiffs song, a Vancouver Anthem, "Fuck You" and play it loud when ever a politician wants to enslave future generations with an unfair amount of debt, while letting the upper percentages off of their share.

ah-ha!

@mcccarthy I agree with you. The cheaper show relies on significant volunteerism and corporate sponsorship for brief exposure to curators, art-buyers, and gallery owners. It’s not really a sustainable form of culture because 1) it’s a one night only thing 2) from what I understand, no one is employed to work for the Cheaper Show 3) all of the artists sell their work significantly cheaper than they normally would because they are emerging talent and benefit from curators seeing their work. aka, it don't pay the rent.

(just to be clear, I’m not criticizing the Cheaper Show, I think it serves a great purpose for new talent but it’s a “don’t quit your day job” sort of project).

This article skims the surface in looking at sustainable/successful models of arts and culture. I agree that there must be more independent arts-based organizations that are not only surviving but have a business model that allows them to thrive. I wanna read and learn about those places!

You can have all the

You can have all the business models in the world, if people won't spend any money on art, because they "need" new cars, the ugliest and sloppiest fashions, $1,000 for a handbag, the latest electronic gadgets.

I'm an artist at a relatively high level, exhibiting in Canada for over 50 years, but have never made a living from art, because people are not interested to buy any. When they do, it usually is cookie cutter stuff and hundreds, or over $1,000, of dollars for a print..

I knew of a Ducks Unlimited auction in the Hotel Vancouver, where a grateful artist donated the original of one of the prints for sale. That was back in 1987. The print went for $1,200, the original for $800.

In the commercial galleries the prints are going out the doors, with people wanting to "invest", but the originals remain unsold.

Ducks are OK, but nudes are dead meat. etc.

Ed Deak.

buy local, regional

One remedy for the BC govt's slashing of arts funding would be for more people to take a "100 Mile Culture" approach when it comes to visual art, music, theatre, film, dance, literature, etc.

This won't help the non-profits that are currently at risk of dissolving from the loss of funding and the retroactive changing of rules, but it could certainly help individual artists. And in the process break some of the consumer based chains of this colonized culture of Walmart, Hollywood, NYC, etc.

Who knows, if more BC activists supported artists in the region, we might even revitalize left wing culture!

and then there's being organized

The arts sector is notoriously disorganized compared to many others. To take one discipline as an e.g., visual arts, there are tens of thousands of artists in BC, yet only a measly 250 or so are members of CARFAC BC (http://www.carfacbc.org). Until we start joining in droves and speak with one voice, it will continue to be easy for the govt to ignore us.

I think we could be a lot more militant, too. The occasional rally with speakers and signs are predictable to be expected; the govt just carries on with its policies. It's time to take more direct actions with some of the creative tools and ideas at our disposal.

too many craftsmen on the dole

Original art is a personal expression, that perhaps does not resonate with the general public, and so be it!

We seem to be determined that anyone who expresses himself a bit different from others must be an artist, reluctant perhaps to admit that he is merely a bit weird?

The very idea that taxdollars should support a persons need to express himself is flawed, if the need is strong enough that artist will somehow make his mark, and if not that may be all for the better.

Going back over the centuries, only a handful of artists have become famous, and usually only long after they were dead.

The idea that anyone who can vail a song sligthly different than the original artist is automatically a genious is a bit thick, as a for instance, and same goes for people basically copying paintings.

We need to see the difference between an artist and a craftsman. Unfortunately at the moment the smart craftsman can make a living and the true artist, as usual, can starve.

now artists are free to take it to the streets

I agree with biscotti, it's time for people of all walks to unite in order to expose these criminals for who and what they are. The time for reflection is over.

nikolas

it may take more than cooperation.

With the exception of the brief period of gaming grant largesse, that just ended, the arts community has never had adequate financial support. Paradoxically, they have always relied on the only folks that could afford to fund and purchase as well as provide outlets and venues for their creations: that small percentage of of folks that make up the wealthy and upper middle class.

Given that the present state of economic turmoil, bordering on depression, has drastically reduced the generosity and numbers of folks that can afford to support the arts … and likely will continue to do so for some time … choosing life as an artisan may not be a wise decision unless you have lots of reliable support from elsewhere.

Thanks to communication media innovation, such as the ‘net’, we are well ensconced in Marshall McLuhan’s global village, and as a result, some art has been redefined. It has become a virtual commodity; its value is ephemeral, not ‘fixed’, and therefore it doesn’t elicit the same monetary attraction it once had. Some in the arts community are now facing an enemy they're unable to challenge.

Ways iof Seeing

Re: the comments about he prints outselling the Originals, and the population at large being unaware of the differences between the two. This is not a new issue in the art world. I suggest that anyone who is unfamiliar with this problem, or the issues of Nudes as a work of art look into watching an old Documentary series entitled "Ways of Seeing". I think that most of the episodes are available on Youtube by now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ways_of_Seeing

We have the artists owned

We have the artists owned Station House Gallery in Williams Lake, located in an old BC Rail station house, where we have been exhibiting for clsoe to 30 years. The gallery also has the full support of the City Council, but there's a limit to what they can do.
now
The funding to the gallery has also been drastically cut and we're doing our best to keep it going.

My wife and I have offered to put on a show in 2012, the earliest we can make it, as we're now in our 80s and also make all our own frames, when some of the paintings will go to the WL Museum, which already has some of my work depicting the ruins of the gold rush town Quesnel Forks, from photos I took in the early 80s, and all the rest of our work in the exhibit will be donated to the gallery for sale.

As long as artists aren't making a living from the sale of their work, I can't see why more of them couldn't donate some of their work to various art societies around BC to keep the flame burning until we get rid of this pathetic bunch of bottom feeders

Ed Deak.

not all art buyers are wealthy or middle class

Where I live in the hinterland, many people who've bought my work are working class as well as "professional". So the stereotypical art/elite alignments do not necessarily hold up everywhere in BC.

I'm glad Ed has mentioned Station House Gallery. It has a long, proud history in the region, and like Island Mountain Arts in Wells (http://www.imarts.com) is really struggling to survive.

The arts cuts in the larger urban centres have been destructive enough, but when key non-profits in the boonies suffer, the repercussions are enormous on many communities in the region.

All the more outrageous when we consider how much of BC's wealth comes from the hinterland and how much of its infrastructure has been looted, while palatial projects get developed in the big city, budgets be damned. One might call this govt the Pillage People ;-)

Oh Puhleeeezzz...

Welcome to the new reality.

It amazes me how apolitical art is in Vancouver. Maybe if the mass of it were to be more politically critical when times were good, I'd be a bit more sympathetic when the doldrums rolled in - but it wasn't, so I'm not.
The simple economic dictates that have successfully eroded the "middle" in the last few years brings the conclusion that our society is quickly becoming one split between great wealth and no wealth.
The middle is dropping out anywhere you look. The "Jane and Bob from Kits" who sought a nice, apolitical arts culture that comforted their ideas of an ever-rewarded mobile middle class are tightening their budgets, hunkering down on the mortgage and making sure they've got a fresh bottle of Scope and the kneepads ready in case the boss starts to question their work ethic.
They ain't looking for culture - they're shitting their fucking pants and could care less about some up-and-coming hipster dipshit's apolitical "faux naif" bullshit art.

Jane and Bob learned, as these "artists" who depended on them will, that the "hot new thang" is called "learning to be flexible in the new economic reality" and it's what not one of these fuckers have managed to invoke/question/critique in their "art" while it was happening to other members of society around them.
So now their "market" is evaporating.
Tough shit.

Learn and adapt.
Go make plastic doodad "manga" toys for adolescent, semi-retarded adults who covet being secure children again. You can still be a pretentious half-wit and call it art. Those sell at high end shops and are quite profitable. Or go with anything made of wood - the yuppie, soon-to-be-dead-wood class loves the reek of "sustainability", the stench of potential decay in its "organic".
For low end "ironic" art that sells, just market a rock and call it a headache pain reliever. Include instructions on applying it forcefully to the users forehead repeatedly. Sell it in a plastic bag with explicit instructions indicating that the bag was not a playtoy and the dangers of asphyxiation. Then sell it for a few bucks at Walmart. Heck - Walmart even has the word "art" in its very name - so there's your high-culture props right there!
So those take care of the low and the high end of the market.
You're welcome.

You *ART* folks weren't political when it mattered - why in God's name would you think you'd matter politically now?

Perhaps the public should

Perhaps the public should start asking what the hell are our governments spending billions on "defence" in Afghanistan, while cutting services, including on arts, at home ?

Because buttering up big business and cutting their taxes, while raising them to the public, leads to lucrative post politics directorships, but to nothing from artists.

Ed Deak.

puhleez don't generalize

Glen Murtz writes, "You *ART* folks weren't political when it mattered - why in God's name would you think you'd matter politically now?"

Excuse me, but I haven't stopped being politically active in my life or in my art in many, many years. Mind you, I don't live in Vancouver any more, but I know plenty of artists there who devote a lot of their time to many political causes. And I know plenty of artists there whose work challenges the system in various ways.

If you haven't met them or seen their work, then you ought to get out more and stop pointing your judgmental fingers.

Of course there's boring, academic, incomprehensible and apolitical art out there, but don't lump all artists together if you don't have an accurate picture of who's out there. Otherwise you're just spouting stereotypes and phony generalizations.

Taxpayer To Artist

Up yours!

Seriously, I hate the Conservatives just as much as I hate the Liberals, NDP and Green Party, they are all scumbags and the only difference between them is which toilet they flush our tax dollars down. I am so sick of people saying what they do is VITAL to the functioning of society and they need the money I make from my private business for their ventures, be they art, public housing, public schools or politicians pension plans.

If you're an artist and what you do is so great, awesome, put it to the test, have the balls to put your art out there for people to judge, ask for funding on websites like Kickstarter, ask individuals for start up funding like tech start-ups do, learn that art is a commodity and people will consume it, if it's something they want to consume. Sorry, but the public has been burned to many times, from the stripe painting the feds bought to the lesbian who hung dead rabbits from a tree in Manitoba, the idiocy abounds.

Too often art that is popular is a result of marketing and geographic location instead of talent. Real talent should be rewarded, talentless PR twits should be fed into a wood chipper. Don't get me wrong, if art isn't to be funded by the government at all, (we can all dream can't we?), then artists and artists groups should pay little to no tax. I would have no problem if the Royal Winnipeg Ballet received no public funding, awesome, but then they shouldn't have to pay income tax (or any other tax), on the revenues they earn, make art self-funding. We seem to be employing bean counters and other office idiots to take money from artists, dole it back out to them, then take it from them again, what a load of garbage.

Why does it have to be about $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

If the strategy of art is to become business like, what does that mean to the essence of an artist?

Right on, Noggy.

Thank you, Noggy for saying that.

Isn't this whole province being destroyed by corruption ? One example being the increasing dependency and reliance for funding of our vital social services on an irresponsible and corrupt "casino" mentality of governance.

Artists should be refusing to accept the proceeds from casino-sourced funding.

Why, for instance, isn't more art exposing the growing fascism in BC?

Hell, artists should be making a statement about the present state of governance in this province as one big corrupt casino, gambling with human lives and human rights in this province.

Instead, the co-option process marches on.........artists seemingly quite happy to take a casino grant......and apparently bereft of both the desire and integrity to ask the disturbing and difficult questions about "the small print" embedded in the acceptance.... and growing reliance on casino grants.

Don't expect anyone to take your "Guernica" seriously when they find out you are a shareholder in a munitions factory.

Go fu?k yourself, thats not nice.

I wonder what the Art Community will have to say about that as only Artists can express it so well as its one thing to say it but it is a whole other thing when it becomes an art form as it only took a picture to move a nation.

hostility towards artists

At the top end of arts funding in Canada, Québecois culture is inextricably bound up in its politics. Definitely something lacking in BC where the Left needs an infusion of the arts, and the arts could benefit from an infusion of the values of "all for one and one for all."

Today I went into the Home Hardware in Quesnel where they have a display of horse paintings for Billy Barker Days. All made in China in some kind of factory, probably by people who've never seen a horse, let alone been in the Cariboo or seen a live cow, horse or hectares of dead pines.

For those of you who scoff at artists, try earning a living at it for a while and then come back and tell us how you fared in this screwy globalized marketplace where people say if it's any good, we ought to be able to make a living. You, too, can compete against slave or sweated labour, or try to sell to a public addicted to Hollywood and New York.

btw Lynn: it's not *individual* artists who get Gaming money, it's the non-profits, e.g. regional arts councils, youth groups, etc.

For sure there ought to be more of an outcry about the degradation of BC politics or the cooptation of non-profits by gambling money.

But who among us in this economy are really "pure"? The Canadian economy as a whole benefits tremendously from the exploitation of the third world, FN people and stolen land, the environment, etc. So please be cautious about placing the burden of guilt on the shoulders of artists just because a few understaffed non-profits took some gaming $$.

Lots of tourists tell me many things I "should" do to succeed. Advice is easy to give from outside the daily struggle.

djsw: in Ireland the first ~$30,000 (or whatever it is) of copyright income is tax free for those in the creative sector. Ireland wants to encourage its own culture and has tweaked its tax system to do this. Beats giving away our resources to transnationals.

So where are all the taxpayer allies for Canadian artists when there have been motions to this effect in the House of Commons? Every time this has been put forward it has gone down in flames.

Why? I think the majority of us Canadians are so colonized by US culture that we don't give a @#%^ about our own. We've swallowed the @#%^ that imperialism showers us with and we think that's how it ought to be. Otherwise there might be enough public support for a Charlie Angus motion to pass. As someone who does make their living at art (maybe it’s more accurate to say *ekes out* a living), I can say that a tax break like that would definitely make a difference.

So here we are with the BC govt having launched a full scale assault on the arts sector in the last year or so. I don’t see much understanding, let alone solidarity on this thread, but I know it’s out there:
http://tinyurl.com/2d3vf7r

All for one, and one for all.......

"So please be cautious about placing the burden of guilt on the shoulders of artists just because a few understaffed non-profits took some gaming $$."

I don't think the burden of guilt should be placed on the shoulders of artists .....but they are also not exempt from it.

All of us are workers and all of us are artists.....each in our own way.

I agree with funding of the arts as a priority of government - through our tax dollars.

Accepting policy that places vital social infrastructure, culture and the arts at the mercy of the whim a roulette wheel degrades our human rights.... and is cultural suicide.

"At the top end of arts funding in Canada, Québecois culture is inextricably bound up in its politics. "

Exactly, the two are inextricably linked....one interdependent on the other.

In BC , for the most part we have two separate states: Art and Politics.

There is little risky conversation between the two.

And far too many people seem happy to keep it that way.

risky conversations

One way I notice the lack of what you refer to as risky conversations, Lynn, is right here on the Tyee. Articles about culture do not seem to elicit any commentary whatsoever by most of the regular posters.

I think there's a general disengagement from the arts in the anglo Canadian left. Not 100%, but more gaps than connections. It wld be refreshing to find ways to change this.

I often hear that "all of us are artists," but I rarely hear that "all of us are teachers" or "all of us are loggers" or "all of us are nurses," etc.

For sure every human is born creative and there are endless ways to express this. School, parents and society often knock this out of children. Those that persist do so in a variety of ways.

There are the weekend painters, there are artists who fit their projects in between day job demands, there are those that teach, some get grants, some are able to sell. And many combinations thereof, all of which have their place.

But I would say that it's those of us who make a commitment to produce our work full time are the ones that experience most of this Calvinistic, globalized anti-creative society's anti-creative streak. It's not an easy life, but it's never boring, and at times very rewarding ;-) To me it's a privilege.

As CARFAC's founder, the late Jack Chambers, said, "no one is more qualified to speak on behalf of artists than artists themselves."

"Do I dare.... Disturb the universe?"

Quote:"I often hear that "all of us are artists," but I rarely hear that "all of us are teachers" or "all of us are loggers" or "all of us are nurses," etc."

But we are all those things, teachers, nurses, artists in our everyday lives.....the logging part "maybe" not so much. ;-)

I hear what you are saying though, Bill - and greatly admire your commitment to produce your work full-time.

Truly, I think there is no finer calling.

Art connects and bonds the human experience through time.

It remains when all else fails and falls.

There is a reason, I think, that the arts are more vibrant and politically alive, for example, in countries throughout South America and Africa - the struggle has been taken on there. You dare not slumber through your days.

Here, far too many of us ALL, have decided to sleep through the nightmare..... refusing to confront what is really the collapse of our autonomy and the ever-increasing loss of our human rights.

Midst all the turbulence and bumpy ride that is now BC....
Art, for the most part refuses to confront

It seems strangely silent here....
And well-behaved....

blu blu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMoKcsN8wM8

lynn..thought you might enjoy this "street" artist

(hope it works)

thank you , thank you

Hi, bob the cat,

I have the slowest computer in the world......almost medieval.

I'm "already" 2:16 minutes into the video and loving it - wildly compelling.....hopefully I'll see it all by sunset!

L.

Fugs Tuli Kupferberg I Am an Artist for Arts Sake

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnOIpHFNDoE

An anti-lesson in aesthetics from Tuli K for all who think that art is about something besides communication.

I really love this guy... passed away last week